Lost and Found (17 page)

She and I both know what I’m talking about, but this conversation is even more difficult than the things we had to deal with after Laura’s death, like her funeral and inheritance issues.

“With Cassie,” I explain. “We need to make things more official. More permanent. I talked to my lawyer today.”

Jana keeps her back to me, but I know she’s crying.

I continue. “I know you don’t want to upset Jeremy, and neither do I, but we need to do what’s best for Cassie. She needs consistency. She needs to get medical care and schooling and whatever else, without all the extra hurdles that you not being her official guardian causes. We can file the papers this week if you want.”

“I know. I don’t need you to tell me that.”

I walk over and put my hand on her shoulder. “I don’t mean to be pushy. I’m just trying to do my part.”

Jana nods. “I know. You’re doing a good job, too. It’s just … hard.”

I go back to setting the table, putting the pasta bowls next to the forks. “Did you make garlic bread?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I made garlic bread.”

I can’t help smiling at her tone. She’s so fucking tough. I love my little sister. She’s stronger than anyone I know.

“Good. Because I was going to leave if you didn’t have garlic bread.”

“
Pfff
, as if. You get tired of eating out all the time, you don’t fool me.”

I’m not going to argue with that. I don’t want to miss out on her cooking next time she’s in the mood to invite someone over. “Nothing like a home cooked meal,” I say, sucking up to the best of my ability.

“Here,” she says, putting a bowl of green salad in front of me. “Toss this.”

I look at the bowl and then my niece. “Did you hear that, Cassie? We have to toss the salad.”

Cassie wiggles, grimaces, and farts. Then all I see are gums.

“Did you see that? She smiled at me.” I can’t stop grinning.

“That was a toot-wince. You can’t claim her first smile. It’s mine.”

I tickle Cassie’s chin. “We know it was a smile, don’t we?” I use a conspiratorial whisper just to get under my sister’s skin.

“Babies make you stupid,” Jana says, sounding happy about it.

“Ain’t no baby makin’ that happen,” I say, taking my seat. “It’s just women in general who have that effect on me.” I make a weak effort at tossing the salad with one hand and a single spoon.

Jana turns around with a big bowl of sauce in her hands. “I’m putting this over here so she doesn’t accidentally put her hand in it.” She sets the sauce down all the way across the table from where I’m sitting.

I roll my eyes. “I’m not a complete idiot where babies are concerned, you know.”

“Oh really? Okay, then. You can babysit her next week when I go out with my girlfriends.”

Panic immediately sets in. “Seriously?” I have a hard time swallowing.

Jana comes back to the table with a bowl of pasta in her hands. “You should see the look on your face right now.”

I shrug and rearrange my features. “No big deal. I can handle it. Send the date to my secretary so she can put it on my calendar.” Truth is, I probably can’t handle it, but I’m not going to tell my sister that. She really needs to get out more. Besides, I can hire a nanny to come in and handle things when I’m in charge.

She smiles. “Good. Because I could use the break.”

Jana spoons out two bowls of pasta and puts a generous helping of sauce over both of them, topping them off with parmesan cheese and a slice of garlic bread.

“Put her in the pumpkin seat,” Jana orders.

“No, I’m going to hold her.” Tucking the baby in my arm off to the side, I ready myself to dig into this glorious dinner.

“You’re going to spill sauce on her.”

“No, I won’t.” I open up my napkin and lay it over her lower half, the only thing that might be in danger of being sauced.

“I already have enough laundry to do.” My sister is glaring at me.

“Yeah, I noticed.” I start twirling my first forkful of pasta up. “On the stairs when I came in. Looks like you’re losing the battle.”

As I lift the first bite of spaghetti to my mouth, I notice my sister’s expression. Her eyes are half filled with tears. My hand freezes in midair.

“What?” I ask. “Are you upset about the laundry?”

Jana stands all of a sudden, throws her napkin down, and leaves the kitchen.

Cassie and I stare at each other as the sounds of footsteps banging up the stairs echoes above our heads.

“I think I’m in trouble,” I say to the baby.

She winces and farts again. And then two seconds later a sound of fury comes from her diaper area, and I wince. “Did you just shit your pants, Cassie?”

She gives me a big, gummy, googly smile in response, but I’m not going to tell Jana. Instead I put my finger on my niece’s little mouth and say, “Shhhh, save the smiles for Auntie Jana, okay? She gets first dibs, especially after she changes this diaper.”

Standing, I leave the napkin that used to be Cassie’s protection from my sauce splatter and head down the hallway that will take me to the stairs. We find Jana sitting on the edge of her bed, crying.

I lay Cassie in the middle of the king-sized monstrosity and sit next to my sister.

“I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.”

She shakes her head. “No, you’re not. You’re just messing around like you always do. I’ve just completely lost my sense of humor.”

Taking her hand in mine, I pull it over and rest it on my leg, letting our fingers lightly twine together. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m hiring you a housekeeper to do all the laundry and the cleaning.”

“But…”

“No buts! And I’m hiring a nanny to help with Cassie.”

Jana yanks her hand away. “Absolutely not. No way will I allow that to happen. She’s already had her mother taken away. I won’t let her be raised by a stranger.”

I take my sister’s hand back. “Okay, fine. But I’m hiring the housekeeper. I know you wanted to do it all yourself, but it’s just too much. You’re only twenty-five. You didn’t have any time to plan for this, to prepare. You had to quit your job…”

She snorts bitterly. “I was working in a clothing store.”

“You were making good commissions and it got you out of the house.” We both know with the trust fund money she gets every month she has no need to work, but like me, she goes crazy just sitting around.

Jana turns her head to look at me, and I look at her too, even though the sight of her watery eyes nearly tears me in two.

“I need to do right by her, James. I need to show Cassie that her family is here for her and we’re not going anywhere. Jeremy can’t do that right now, so I need to.”

Anger at Jeremy rises up and nearly chokes me. Yes, he’s steeped in misery and pain, but for God’s sake … he has a baby here! But when I look at my sister’s expression, I wonder if she’d be all right with Jeremy getting his shit together and taking over as full-time parent. Would she be okay having Cassie taken from her, after three months of being her mother?

It doesn’t matter because it’s not going to happen. Jeremy is too far gone for that. Attempts to get him into rehab have so far failed, and he’s proven himself very difficult to find when he gets it into his head to be lost.

I stroke my sister’s hand to calm her down. “Listen, sis, this is all going to turn out fine, I promise. Every new mom needs a little help and you’re going to get it. I’m not going to argue with you any more about it. I’m paying for the housekeeper and I’m coming to babysit next weekend.”

She gives me a weak smile. “Actually, I was kind of thinking I’d bring her to your place.”

I frown. “My place? I don’t have any baby stuff there.”

“Well,
get
some. I’m thinking she needs to spend more time with you as she gets older. She needs a male role model in her life.”

“So get a boyfriend.” I said it kind of as a joke, but Jana apparently doesn’t appreciate my sense of humor these days.

She punches me in the ribs.

“Ooph.
Ow! You have rings on, no fair.” I lean as far away from her as I can without actually getting up.

“As if I have time to date,” she growls. “Are you insane?”

She looks like she’s ready to hit me again, so I hold up my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I get it. Your life is over. You’re going to die a spinster.”

She shakes her head at me. “You should probably leave now.”

I turn around and grab Cassie’s little legs, dragging her slowly across the bed. “Clean up on aisle four.”

Jana crinkles up her nose. “Oh, God, that’s a bad one.”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

I start to stand, but Jana grabs my sleeve and stops me. “Not so fast. You need a lesson in diaper changing.”

My face goes white. I can literally feel the blood leaving my head. Suddenly, I’m faint.

“I’m sure I can figure it out. When the time comes.” I beat it out of there without looking back and run down the stairs.

“You’re a doctor for God’s sake!” my sister yells down after me.

Doctor Scmockter. We never had to change shitty diapers in med school. The very idea of seeing my tiny niece’s girly parts covered in … Oh, Jesus … I can’t even think it in my own head.

My shirt is sticking to me by the time I take my seat at the kitchen table again. I can hear my sister laughing her ass off upstairs for a long time after I’ve left her there with that nuclear disaster of a diaper.

The idea of babysitting Cassie overnight has my mind spinning. What are the chances she won’t poop for a twenty-four hour period? I’m going to have to Google that. I won’t panic until Google tells me to panic. Picking up my phone I stare at the screen, wondering if I should look it up now using my browser app. Instead, I send a text to my attorney.

Get the guardianship papers started. It’s a go.

Chapter Thirty-Four

HOUSECALLS DON’T HAPPEN ANYMORE IN the medical world, generally speaking, but in my particular line of work, and with the clients I have, sometimes exceptions are made. Case in point, I’m now in East Harlem, coming back from a post-operative check-up with a patient who’s had a rhinoplasty, reduction mammaplasty, and mastopexy. She had started to get bitchy about the fact that the changes to her body weren’t as drastic as she’d envisioned, but when I reminded her that Michael Jackson had the same tantrum with his plastic surgeon and won, she calmed down pretty quickly.

It’s a pet peeve of mine when someone with beautiful ethnic features wants to erase them completely. I take a lot of time getting people to see the real beauty there that I can enhance without taking away the naturalness of it. That’s why they call me a miracle worker. That’s why I can charge three times more than anyone else in Manhattan. And that’s why I’m leaving a subway tunnel in East Harlem to finally get to a spot where a taxi will pick me up when suddenly I’m accosted by a crazy person.

She comes out of nowhere. One second I’m coming out of the tunnel to the stairs and the next I’m getting plastered by something soft and wet.

“Ooph!”
she says at the same second I groan.

She clipped my ‘nads and I’m breathing hard through the slight twinge of pain. It could have been a lot worse, so I’m actually feeling kind of lucky.

She was carrying a huge bag that looks like some kind of sling made of sewn-together scraps of ragged material, but it went flying when we made impact. The expression on her face at losing it is pure terror, so I reach over and grab it from the ground, intending to give it to her and end her freak-out.

“That’s my purse!” she screams.

Here I was expecting her to be grateful, but instead she looks like she’s about to attack me, so I hold it up high.

“Easy!” I yell. “I’m just trying to help you!”

She grabs the purse and hugs it like it’s a long lost child. It’s then, when her hair moves out of her face, that I recognize her. It’s the looney bird from the fountain. And she’s wet again. What is it with this woman?

“It’s you.” I look down at my chest and see giant wet stains on my suit coat. “Am I covered in sweat again?”

I expect her to laugh, because I’m being a pretty good sport about this, but I get the opposite reaction.

“Oh, shut up,” she says, walking around me, giving me a wide berth, as if I’m the asshole that keeps getting people wet.

“You really should look where you’re going!” I yell after her.

“And you really should get out of people’s way!” she shouts over her shoulder.

I can see her somewhat fluffy and very scraggly hair in the crowd that’s slowly swallowing her up by the turnstiles. What a lunatic. I watch as she slides a card through the reader, hugging her purse to her like someone’s about to steal it at any second.

I almost feel guilty, like that’s what I was doing, trying to steal her bag, which is completely crazy, I know. But something about that woman gets under my skin and has me stopping to consider myself when normally I’d just be oblivious.

I shake my head as I move out of the tunnel and out into the rain. All this stress from my brother’s antics and Jana’s situation with Cassie is making me crazy. If I didn’t have three new clients lined up for the afternoon, I’d take the rest of the day off and go to a bar to drown my sorrows, but as it is, I don’t have that luxury.

“No rest for the wicked,” I say, running to the edge of the street with my hand out, snagging a cab headed downtown.

“Lenox Hill. East Seventy-Sixth.” I lean back and let my head drop to the seat behind me, reviewing in my mind the email I received from the attorney this morning.

A simple filing, a form signed by Jeremy, and a hearing; that’s all it’s going to take for Cassie and Jana to find some peace through guardianship. That’s my goal, now — to get the two most important girls in my life happy. After that, I’ll work on Jeremy, and if there’s anything left of me after, I’ll see what I can do about getting my shit together.

I feel better having a plan, as half-assed as it is. I fall asleep in the cab and only wake when we arrive a block from my office. I can’t believe in that short period of time, I actually had a dream. It featured a crazy woman with frizzy hair, clutching a bag to her chest and running from me.