The Brennan Baby

Dev had kidded Kylie that Cade’s interest in the baby across the hall was indicative of his desire to become a daddy, that she was going to find herself pregnant sooner rather than later. Kylie countered that Cade’s interest in the neighbor child stemmed from his concern for his younger sister, currently in the middle of a bitter divorce and solely responsible for her baby. According to Kylie, Cade possessed a kind of global sense of elder brother responsibility for the children of struggling single mothers.

Devlin guessed it made sense, Cade being Cade and all.

Truth to tell, it was something of a relief to know that his brother-in-law was hyperresponsible. That was exactly the kind of husband every brother wanted for his kid sister. If Kylie were pregnant, there was no question that Cade would take care of her, would stick with her and their child. Unlike Gillian’s husband, who’d been quick to split after the baby was born.

Undoubtedly that creep hadn’t been much help during her pregnancy, either, Devlin concluded, and remembered the one and only time he had seen Gillian pregnant.

He’d spotted her during a rare chance encounter in the hospital cafeteria. It had been late in her pregnancy and her tiny frame seemed ready to topple forward from the bulk of her swollen abdomen. Dev had cracked to the gang at his lunch table that she looked like an overinflated balloon and probably would’ve made another witticism or two except he caught Holly Casale observing him with her most annoying psychoanalytic stare. So he’d lapsed into silence and purposefully directed his gaze away from the very pregnant Gillian.

Had it been Holly or someone else who’d informed him when Gillian had given birth? He had merely shrugged his indifference. What was he supposed to do, go visit her on the maternity floor with a bunch of mylar balloons? He hadn’t, of course. She was married and a mother and lived her life in another universe from his.

And now it seemed their separate worlds had intersected, thanks to the random assignments made by the housing department. It was weird but entirely coincidental, a bit of computer-generated idiocy. He and Gillian could‘ve—should’ve—shared a laugh about it except she had been inexplicably hostile upon learning they were neighbors.

And they hadn’t seen each other since that day. Out of sight, out of mind, Dev reminded himself. It was more than a cliché, it was downright good advice.

He turned his attention back to the TV set, bypassing all the current reality based dramas and sitcoms for a black and white rerun from the early sixties. “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Relaxing, he settled back to enjoy a half hour of vicarious living in a far more simple era.

In the apartment across the hall from him, Ashley Joy Morrow wouldn’t stop crying. Gillian knew the baby was teething, and she had done everything recommended in the infant and child care manual to soothe her. But nothing had worked and finally, m desperation, she called her foster mother, Dolly Sinsel, in Detroit.

“Do you think there could be something really wrong with her, Mom?” Gillian asked anxiously. “Should I take her to the emergency room?”

“She’s not hot, not cold, not wet, not pulling at her ear, not throwing up, her nose isn’t stuffy, her stomach isn’t hard, her muscles aren’t rigid,” Dolly Sinsel recited the lack of non-symptoms that Gillian had relayed to her. “That baby isn’t sick, Gillian. Sounds to me like she’s just overexcited or overtired. Put her in her crib with a bottle of juice, close the bedroom door, and then you sit down and turn on some music or the TV.”

“You mean, just ignore her? Keep her in there alone and crying?” Gillian shivered, remembering how it felt to be small and scared and all alone. “Ashley has never cried much and never like this. She—”

“She is exerting her independence. Babies need to cry to exercise their lungs,” Dolly said calmly. “Now put Ashley in the crib and make yourself a nice cup of tea, honey. You two need to unwind away from each.”

Gillian attempted to follow the advice. After all, who knew kids better than Dolly Sinsel, who’d raised four children of her own and taken in hundreds of foster children down through the years? Gillian had lived with the Sinsels from the age of twelve until her graduation from high school and had never seen her foster parents fazed by anything. Or anyone Not even the most hardcore adolescent veterans of the foster care system.

Gillian still marveled at Mom and Dad Sinsel’s unshakable aplomb as they dealt again and again with the young fire-setters, the kid thieves and liars, the screamers and marauders who’d been placed under their roof by the State of Michigan. The Sinsels were impervious to upset and insult, and while Gillian was able to emulate their attitude in her career as a medical social worker, she couldn’t muster such calm in dealing with Ashley. When Ashley was upset, so was her mother; when Ashley was happy or excited or fearful, her mommy was, too.

“Grandma Dolly says you’d rather be alone,” Gillian told Ashley as she carried the howling baby into the small bedroom filled with toys and baby furniture and bright posters of cartoon figures on the wall.

She put Ashley into her crib with its cheery Winnie the Pooh sheets and handed her a bottle of apple juice. Shrieking her displeasure, Ashley pulled herself to her feet and threw the bottle out of the crib. Distressed, Gillian put it back in, then quickly left the room, closing the door behind her.

While Ashley’s roars of infantile fury echoed in her head, Gillian turned on her TV set. Nothing claimed her interest, not even the hurricane currently being tracked in the Caribbean by the Weather Channel. She decided to forego the suggested cup of tea. Her stomach was in knots and her throat felt too tight to swallow. The baby’s cries continued unabated, sounding less angry and more and more piteous.

Gillian looked bleakly at her watch. Only six and a half minutes had elasped but it felt like an eternity. Poor little Ashley, exiled to her crib. Gillian wondered if she felt unwanted, alone in the dark world without anyone who cared.

It was a horrible feeling that Gillian knew all too well. To imagine Ashley having to experience such despair was unbearable. She rose to her feet and fairly flew into the nursery. With all due respect to Dolly Sinsel, isolating the baby felt all wrong.

After all, it wasn’t as if Ashley had tried to burn down the house or stone a neighbor’s dog; she didn’t need a stint in solitary confinement as punishment. Ashley was cutting a tooth and she was uncomfortable. Why shouldn’t she cry?

Gillian arrived at the cribside just as Ashley succeeded in pulling the rubber nipple off the top of her bottle and turning it upside down, emptying the juice The baby was so shocked by her sudden soaking, she stopped crying and looked up at her mother with astonished blue eyes.

“Oh, Ashley, you’re all wet and so is the bed!” Gillian was dismayed.

Ashley was furious that she’d been doused. She began to howl again.

“It’s all right, sweetheart.” Gillian picked her up and cuddled her. “I’ll put you in nice dry jammies and then I’ll change the sheet.”

She sponged the sticky juice from the baby, then dried and dressed her in fresh, aqua cotton footed pajamas. And discovered that there were no more clean crib sheets. The other six were in the laundry basket waiting to be taken to the washer and dryer in the basement of the building.

“I’m sorry, Ash. I didn’t realize how low we were on crib sheets and we’ve been so busy after work, I haven’t gotten around to doing the laundry,” Gillian lamented aloud.

Ashley babbled a few syllables in response. Gillian was so relieved that the baby had stopped crying, she felt almost giddy. “We’ll go next door and ask Shelly or Heather if they’ll stay with you while I go downstairs to do a load of laundry now, okay? You like Shelly and Heather, they’re operating room nurses at the hospital, and they gave you some ice cream the other day, remember?”

She carried Ashley into the hall and walked to the apartment on their left, talking to her daughter all the while. Gillian knocked long and loud before she conceded that neither Shelly nor Heather was there.

Gillian sighed. She’d hoped to avoid having to tote Ashley and the laundry basket down to the basement laundry room but with no one to watch the baby, she had no other choice. She wasn’t about to leave Ashley alone in the apartment and she hadn’t met any other neighbors yet... Her eyes flicked to the apartment door across the hall from her own, Devlin Brennan’s door. Assistance from that quarter was not an option. She would never ask him to watch her baby, not even for a moment.

And then the door opened and Devlin stepped into the hall.

Gillian froze. It was as if her thoughts had conjured him up! She stood stock-still, clutching Ashley, and staring at him. He was wearing a faded Detroit Lions T-shirt and jeans, simple and common enough clothes but the way they showcased his male attributes—his muscular arms and broad chest, his long lean thighs and flat belly—evoked a reaction within Gillian that was neither simple nor common. His face was darkened by the shadow of a beard, reminding Gillian of how sexy he looked in the morning when he awakened, unshaven and aroused.

She scowled at the renegade memory. This was no time to recall anything about her three-month lapse of sanity that had characterized her affair with Devlin Brennan.

Her dour expression did not go unnoticed. “I bet the bubonic plague got a less hostile welcome,” Dev said dryly.

“I, uh, I was just seeing if Shelly and Heather are home.” Gillian started toward her apartment. His mere presence threatened her.

“Neither one is there. They’re both working till midnight for the next few weeks. I saw their names on the OR schedule,” he added.

“Oh.”

“I heard knocking out here.” Devlin felt obliged to explain his appearance. She was looking at him as if he were a serial killer closing in on his latest target—which happened to be her. “Anything I can do?”

Gillian shook her head no. She was almost to her door....

Devlin crossed the hall to block her entry, positioning himself in the frame the same way he’d done on the day he had moved into the building. But that time, at least, she’d been inside with Carmen and Mark as allies. Now Mark was back in L.A., Carmen was in Detroit, and here she was, stuck in the hall with no buffers against Devlin’s intimidating presence.

“No friends around as backup this time, huh?” He arched his dark brows.

Gillian was disconcerted that their thoughts were so similar. It was almost as alarming as being trapped with him like this, face-to-face with their child in her arms.

“I’ve been thinking about those friends of yours,” Devlin continued. “How did they know who I was? You never introduced me to them and I know I hadn’t met them before.”

Gillian said nothing.

“Did you tell them about me?” Devlin pressed.

He looked quite pleased by the possibility that she’d been discussing him with others. Such egotism deserved to be quashed! “I told them that some jerk I used to date had moved in across the hall,” she said with asperity. “When you showed up at the door, they drew their own conclusions. And they’re more than friends, they’re my family,” she added proudly.

“Your family?”

“You find it so hard to believe that I could have a family?” Gillian was instantly, angrily on the defensive.

“No, of course not, but—”

“But you visually stereotyped Carmen and Mark and decided that we don’t fit together genetically. Well, so what? We can’t all be whitebread chromosonal clones, like you and your sister ”

And Ashley. Gillian gulped. Why had she ever introduced the potentially explosive topic of genetics and family? Being in Devlin Brennan’s presence seemed to scramble her wits and remove the usual barrier of caution between her thoughts and words. All the more reason why she must avoid him. “Move, Devlin. I have things I have to do and—”

“Are you all adopted or something?” Devlin studied her with an intensity that unnerved her.

She looked away from him, focusing on Ashley, who was gnawing on her tiny fist. “We were unadoptable but we did share a foster home together for a number of years.” Stop staring at me, she silently ordered.

If he received her telepathic command, he did not obey it. He continued to gaze thoughtfully at her. “Thinking back on it, you never mentioned your family while we were seeing each other. Not a word. I don’t even know the names of—”

“There are too many names to name,” Gillian said flippantly. “At one time or another I was probably a foster sister to everybody who passed through Family Services in Detroit.”

“But how did you end up in foster care? What happened to your—”

“Devlin, these questions are pointless. And too late,” she couldn’t resist adding.

“Maybe I should’ve asked them before,” he conceded. “And maybe you should’ve volunteered some information, Gillian.”

“Maybe I sensed that learning my family history wasn’t exactly a priority of yours,” Gillian retorted defensively. Telling her family history was never a priority of hers; she was ashamed of it. “As I remember, you wanted to do other things than talk.”

“True, but we sure spent plenty of tune talking anyway.” Devlin smiled slightly. “I told you about my folks and my sister and all the places we lived, among other things. For that first month we were together, I sometimes wondered if we were ever going to do anything but talk.”

“I know, I know. You expected sex on the first date and I held out for a whole month. Well, if you were so bored, you shouldn’t have called me back.”

“I didn’t say I was bored, did I? I liked talking with you. You’re the only other person I’ve ever met who knows as much about TV shows as I do. The only other person I’ve ever met who’s seen every single episode of ‘Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp’ and remembers all the plots. Or at least the only one who’ll own up to it.”

“Well, you’re the only other person I’ve ever met who knows all the words to every song in the five volume set of TV theme songs,” countered Gillian. “You actually used to ask to hear it. Most people beg for mercy if I try to play it.”

“I ended up buying my own five volume set,” Dev confessed wryly. “I missed listening to yours when you took it back.”

“I bet your TV theme songs aren’t kept anywhere near your ultracool CD collection with all the right titles. After all, you like to pretend you’re such a blues fan ”

“I am a blues fan!” insisted Devlin.

“Sure you are.” Gillian arched her brows. “And I’m Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp’s secretary.”

“Everybody but you pays homage to the blues, Gillian. The blues are universally cool. You are the first and only person I’ve ever known who says they’re dull and dreary.”

“Which they are. I like to listen to cheerful, peppy music.”

“Cheerful, peppy music is insipid.” Devlin grinned. They’d had this pseudo-argument many times before.

“You’re saying that the ‘Brady Bunch’ theme is insipid?” Gillian feigned shock. “That’s blasphemy!”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Guilty as charged.”

They both laughed. Ashley regarded them curiously and said something that sounded like “Glx.”

Devlin smiled at the baby. “Are you offering an opinion, Ashley? What does ‘glx’ mean?”

Gillian stared from the child to the man, and apprehension shivered through her. What in the world was she doing, laughing it up with Devlin Brennan, her daughter’s father? Who had no idea that he was her daughter’s father!

And she fully intended to keep it that way. She’d known from the moment that the stick in the home pregnancy kit had changed colors that she was going to have and to raise her baby alone. Mark and Carmen and the others might tease her about being an optimist, but Gillian knew that she was actually a realist.

Which was why she’d chosen not to involve anyone else in her pregnancy and Ashley’s existence, except her beloved “fosters” who’d already proven themselves to be loyal and trustworthy. She knew they wouldn’t hurt her, and she was equally certain that Devlin Brennan would. So she hadn’t given him that chance. Nor would she.

Ashley started to bounce in Gillian’s arms, leaning toward Devlin. He interpreted the baby’s movements as a bid to go to him and held out his arms, ready to take her.

Gillian was not about to hand over the baby to the man who’d fathered her. She pulled back, tightening her arms protectively around her child. “Good night, Devlin.”

Her voice, her expression, was cold enough to freeze fire. Devlin stared at her, baffled by her abrupt shift in mood, from laughing to glaring. From accessible to icily remote He placed a hand on Gillian’s shoulder She was rigid with tension.

Their eyes met. “Why?” he asked quietly.

A flash flood of fear surged through her. What had she given away? He couldn’t have figured out the truth about Ashley, could he? “W-what do you mean?”

“Why did you break up with me?” He amazed himself by asking the question he’d vowed never to ask her.

Her panic dissipated. There was nothing to worry about, his question was all about ego. His own sizable one. “Like you care.” Gillian laughed coldly.

“Maybe I’m curious After all, you never gave me much of a reason why.” Even to himself, he sounded frustrated and accusing, but he couldn’t stop now. “Until that night, you never even gave a hint that you were unhappy or—dissatisfied. Right out of the blue, you said ‘things aren’t working out’ and you left me.”

“You really expected a detailed in-depth analysis?” Gillian mocked. “Is that what you do every time you break up with someone, Dev?”

Devlin thought of all the relationships he had ended down through the years. There had never been a detailed in-depth analysis exploring the whys and wherefores of breaking up, not even one. His modus operandi was simply to never call the woman again and to avoid returning her calls. His rejectees eventually got the hint—it was over. It was up to them to figure out why, if they wanted to.

Now he was the one who had been rejected for no discernible reason.

What goes around, comes around, he recalled his late grandmother Brennan warning in hushed ominous tones. It seemed old Grandma had been on to something.

“Point taken,” he murmured. “Just one question before we close this discussion for good. Why are you so angry with me, Gillian?”

Gillian flinched. “How can you even ask me that?” she blurted.

“Because I don’t know. You broke up with me because you wanted to, so why should you be mad at me? Unless you’re bitter toward all men since your divorce?”

Gillian stared at him, wondering what to say. Far from being embittered by her divorce, she tended to forget all about it, just as she tended to forget she had ever been married. Certainly she and Mark had never lived together as man and wife. He’d never even visited her during those months they had been legally wed because round trips to and from Los Angeles were beyond both their budgets. Mark had saved his money to afford plane fare to see Ashley as a newborn No, she could never view Mark as either her husband or her ex-husband. He was her sweet, loyal, foster brother and always would be.

But Devlin had asked a logical, valid question, one that required a response to allay suspicion. Luckily, he’d also supplied her with the answer.

“Yes, I guess I am bitter toward all men since my divorce,” she echoed nervously. “I, uh, hadn’t realized it until now. I wasn’t even aware I was acting that way.”

“Well, trust me, you are. I take it the divorce wasn’t your idea?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I can respect that. I have an aunt and uncle who were divorced years ago and they still take every opportunity to regale anyone who will listen with all the details.”

“I’ll never do that,” Gillian pledged. Never had a promise been so easy to make.

“Do you share joint custody of the baby?” Devlin asked.

“No!” Gillian quickly turned aside, as if to shield her child from him. “Ashley is mine! No more questions,” she added sternly.

“Okay.” He moved away from the door but seemed reluctant to leave. “Now that we’ve ascertained that your hostility isn’t personal, can I offer whatever help you needed from Shelly and Heather?”

Devlin looked from little Ashley to her vigilant, wide-eyed mother. “You did need something, didn’t you? And don’t automatically say no,” he added. “I don’t think you and the baby were paying a social call at this hour, were you?”

Gillian stole a glance at him. She couldn’t fathom why, but it seemed that he wasn’t about to be fobbed off. And since he now believed that her hostility toward him wasn’t personal, she really ought to foster that delusion. Making him suspicious of her could be disastrous. Hesitantly, reluctantly, she explained her laundry dilemma.

“It’s just as well the girls weren’t here to stay with the baby. You shouldn’t go down to the laundry room alone at night, Gillian.” Devlin frowned. “The security in the building is too lax to ensure safety.”

Gillian had to smile at that misplaced concern. “Compared to some of the places I’ve lived in, this place is as secure as a fortress. But if...if you want to do something, you could carry my laundry basket downstairs,” she dared add. Asking him for anything was difficult for her, but since he’d insisted on offering aid she might as well take him up on it.

“Why don’t I do the crib sheets while you stay in your apartment with the baby?” Devlin suggested instead. “Don’t look so shocked. I mastered the use of washers and dryers years ago from sheer necessity.”

He could tell that she didn’t want to accept any help at all from him. Though she kept her face poker-straight, her eyes were expressive, revealing her internal struggle. Gillian needed his assistance, and she hated that she did. She desperately wanted to say no—but the baby had to have clean, dry crib sheets.

Her maternal instincts won out. “Okay, you can do the crib sheets,” Gillian said grudgingly.

“Thank you, gracious lady,” quipped Devlin. “Doing laundry for you is both a privilege and a dream come true.”

Gillian fought a smile because she knew he was trying to make her smile and she didn’t want to grant him even that small victory. “I’ll get you some quarters,” she said repressively.

Devlin told her not to bother, that he could afford to feed the machines with his own quarters, but Gillian was insistent. She did not want to be beholden to him in any way, not even for a few quarters.

Ninety minutes later Dev carried the seven freshly laundered crib sheets to Gillian’s apartment. Inside, he could hear the baby howling at the top of her lungs and when Gillian opened the door, she looked tired and frazzled and on the verge of tears herself She held the flush-faced, shrieking Ashley in her arms.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Gillian blurted, too desperate and worried to exert her usual control. “I know she’s getting a tooth—see, right here, her top left incisor—but she never had trouble when her four front teeth came in.”

“Incisors can be tough to cut.” Devlin recalled that fact from a long-ago child development class during his med school pediatric rotation. He rubbed his finger over the swollen bud in the baby’s mouth. Ashley tried to chomp down on his finger. “Have you tried rubbing ice on her gum?”

“Yes. My foster mother suggested whiskey, but I didn’t have any so I tried some of Carmen’s cold beer. Nothing’s given her any relief.”

Devlin frowned thoughtfully. “Why don’t I get my bag? I’d like to check her ears.”

“She hasn’t been tugging at her ears and her nose isn’t stuffy,” Gillian replied quickly. “And she doesn’t feel feverish.”

“Ear infections in babies can be tricky. Sometimes they don’t touch their ears or even seem congested. If Ashley has a fever, it’s only a slight one, a degree or two, but I’d still like to check...” He placed his hand on the baby’s head. Her dark curls were damp from perspiration. “I’ll go get my bag.”