Baby Benefits by Emily McKay

something inside of Raina swelled, choking off her air supply and clogging her throat. An image flashed through her mind of the Grinch’s heart expanding until it popped through the wire cage. She wanted to squeeze Isabella closer to her chest, to nuzzle the soft spot on the back of her neck, to relish the sensation of those tiny moist lips drooling on her.
    And how sick was that?
    She wanted baby drool? Had she completely lost her mind? This wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted a life of her own. She wanted to go to culinary school. She wanted wire whisks and spring form pans. She wanted crème brûlée torches and chafing dishes.
    She did not want to spend her days feeding mashed bananas to a drooly kid. She didn’t care how cute she was.
    Thrusting Isabella away from her, Raina held her at arm’s length and met the girl’s gaze. “Hold on there, Cindy-Lou Who. I’m not falling for this act. I’ve got younger siblings. I know for a fact you little ones can be sneaky as hell.”
    Isabella’s tiny brow knitted in confusion. What’s not to love? What could I possibly do to be cuter? she seemed to be asking.
    “All I need from you is a little cooperation. I’m not the one you need to be charming. You need to send some of that cute Derek’s way. Make him go all mushy inside.”
    If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn Isabella shrugged as if to say What the hell. Then she once again reached her arms out to Raina, her tiny fists opening and closing in a gimme-gimme motion.
    Instinctively Raina pulled her close to her chest, this time bracing herself first for the rush of hormones that holding Isabella stirred up inside of her.
    Pushing all the warm gooeyness aside, she tried to focus on the task at hand, considering what she could possibly teach Derek about being a father. Everything she knew about babies was pure gut instinct. It was nothing she’d learned from a book or an expert.
    Isabella met her gaze, her blue-gray eyes wide and trusting.
    “Kendrick used to look at me just like that,” Raina murmured. Unbidden, an image of Kendrick as a baby drifted into her mind. “You remind me of him, you know. I was about eleven when he was your age. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. I didn’t have to play with dolls, because I had a baby brother. All I ever wanted to do was play with him, feed him and cuddle with him. I couldn’t wait to grow up and have a baby of my own.”
    Sadness washed over her as she felt a pang of loss deep within her soul. She’d wanted a family of her own so badly as a child. Then her father had left and suddenly helping with her brothers and sisters wasn’t something she got to do, it was something she had to do. From the age of fourteen on, she’d picked up Lego blocks, wiped snotty noses and shuffled kids from one spot to another. When she’d left for culinary school at eighteen, she’d sworn off kids for life.
    Then a scant year later, her mother had had a stroke, forcing Raina to walk away from her scholarship to help out at home. Which meant more snotty noses and mac ’n’ cheese and checking homework. This time on top of a demanding job. She felt like she’d raised an army of kids, rather than just four.
    Somewhere along the way her own dreams of motherhood had been buried under the dump truck full of responsibilities she’d been too young for. She felt much older than her twenty-eight years. Now, as she stood swaying back and forth with Isabella in her arms, sentimentality flooded her.
    She remembered all her siblings at this age, even Lavender, who was only three years younger than she. Suddenly, it seemed as if the years had passed too quickly. How could she have known that one day she’d miss the hours she’d spent playing dolls with Cassidy? Or the slumber parties she’d planned for Jasmine and Lavender? Or the times when Kendrick couldn’t sleep and she’d crawled into bed with him, cuddling his teddy bear between them as she told him stories