Gracie & Gray

Chapter 21

G R A C I E

After my parents left, I moved Stevie's crib from the living room into my bedroom. She slept right beside my mattress for easy access in the middle of the night. I was now completely on my own without another set of adult eyes and ears to help keep Stevie safe.

I refused to take any chances with her well-being. I was deathly afraid of sleeping through her cries on accident—especially in my extreme state of sleep deprivation—so I wanted to keep her as close as possible. I was always aware of the fact that Stevie had been entrusted to me by Lydia.

This compelled me to become obsessively vigilant about my duties as Stevie's guardian-to-be. I owed it to my sister to care for her daughter to the very best of my ability.

Around 3:00 AM that night, my eyes flung open before my mind could catch up. I wasn't even fully awake.

The familiar sound of Stevie's high-pitched wails filled our bedroom. Red-faced with hunger, my niece was thrashing about so intensely in her crib that she had loosened her swaddle. I quickly leaned over to pick her up. Her cries quieted to a loud whimper once she was in my arms, but I knew she needed some milk in her belly in order to calm down.

A bone deep exhaustion tried to pull me back to sleep, but somehow—just like every other time my niece needed me—I managed to roll my butt out of bed for her sake.

I cradled Stevie in one arm while warming up her bottle with my free hand. Her cries immediately stopped once I popped the bottle into her little mouth. She drank for about twenty minutes before falling into a milk coma. Stevie was sound asleep again.

Gently, carefully, as though I was handling a ticking bomb, I swaddled Stevie up again and laid her down back into her crib.

Then, I crawled back into my bed and passed out until morning.

We were up again by 5:00 AM.

Diaper change. Onesie change. Another bottle. Another diaper change. Once I finished getting Stevie ready, I dragged a brush through my greasy, unwashed hair, scrubbed my face, brushed my teeth, changed into something more appropriate for work, and grabbed a banana to eat in the car...

Stevie and I were out the door by 6:30 AM.

I dropped her off at daycare. I went to work and tried to stay awake as I analyzed row after row of brain-numbing numbers on my spreadsheets.

I left work after 5:00 PM. I picked up Stevie from daycare.

We got home again at 6:30 PM. I heated up a microwave dinner for myself and gave Stevie her bottle. I bathed her. We watched a little bit of Up together. Afterwards, I sang to her. We played a few rounds of peek-a-boo. Right before Stevie's bedtime, I read her a board book about colors and shapes.

I started rocking her to sleep at 8:00 PM. I successfully put her to bed by 8:30 PM.

I managed to stay up until 9:00 PM to answer a few more work emails before succumbing to sleep myself.

This was a pretty typical day for Stevie and I. My life now consisted of an endless array of tiring, thankless tasks with very little time to myself, and yet...

I kind of loved it.

Because I loved her.

I barely thought of Gray or the weird phone conversation we had not too long ago.

I can't fucking wait to see you, either.

Honestly, I was too fucking tired to care. Even though Stevie filled my heart with an immeasurable amount of joy on a daily basis, she also sapped up all of my time and energy on an hourly basis. I simply couldn't keep up.

Gray kept calling us every week, though. I Skyped with Stevie in my lap whenever it was possible so that he could see her on the screen. On days when she giggled and gurgled at him, his eyes would soften and light up at her every move and gesture. On days when she fussed, he would wait patiently for me to get her bottle or cuddle her while walking around the room. There was always a lost, helpless expression on his face during those times, as though he wanted to help me, but he didn't know how...

In this way, one week went by for us, then another, then another...

Before I knew it, the last three weeks of Gray's deployment had ended, and we were suddenly making plans with a concrete time, date, and location for him to meet Stevie.

In person, as in, not through a screen.

I tried not to fixate on this impending, monumental shift in our relationship, but a part of me understood all too well, once Gray officially entered Stevie's life in this capacity, there would be no going back.

He was Stevie's biological father. I was going to become her legal guardian. We would need to work out a plan, together, for the next eighteen years to co-parent my niece until she grew into a young woman.

I invited him to come over to the apartment on Saturday morning. The moment Gray accepted my invitation, an embarrassing urge to fix my hair and put on makeup and change into something other than an oversized T-shirt and ratty leggings overcame me.

I told myself that I would only be doing it to look presentable.

I told myself that I didn't give a crap about Gray or what he thought about my appearance.

I kept telling myself these things until I almost believed them.

Stevie didn't judge me, though. She simply smiled and cooed at me until my troubled heart felt a little more at ease.