Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 18 - Nicotine Kiss by Loren D. Estleman Page A
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
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feet in blue fleece slippers. She had a trim waist, athleticlegs, nice ankles. She was five-four but looked taller. She wore her hair in bangs with a ponytail; two minutes from shower to fixed. Motherhood breeds efficiency. “I’ll hold onto him for a little, if you don’t mind. He’ll fuss if he isn’t asleep before I put him in his crib.”
I said I didn’t mind. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t have changed anything if I had.
The living room took up the front half of the ground floor. A rug with Oriental borders covered the hardwood floor to within eight inches of the walls. It was the most expensive thing in the room. A cheap new sofa with two matching platform rockers, an old green naugahyde recliner for the buttocks of the master of the house, a glass-topped coffee table stacked with books on infant care, and an electric fireplace answered for the rest. Family pictures in plastic cubes crowded the mantel, above which hung a Thomas Kincaide print of a medieval-looking lighthouse where the Seven Dwarfs spent their summers. TV, VCR-DVD combo, a speaker telephone to free both hands for diapering. There was the usual truckload of baby stuff testifying to the reign of the little tyrant in the blue blanket. A comfortable room, sprinkled with potpourri, faint cooking odors, and scented Lysol.
I consented to an offer of coffee and sat down in one of the padded rockers to stretch my leg, hooking my cane over the arm, while she carried the baby through an arch into a kitchen the size of my living room. I heard the disheartening sound of a jar opening and boiling water pouring into two mugs: The coffee was instant. She came back thirty seconds after she left, juggling the baby and both mugs with the fingers of one hand twined through the handles. I struggled to get up and help.
“I’ve got it,” she said. “After three months, I could join the circus.”
I leaned forward far enough to unburden her of one of the mugs and sat back to warm my hands around it. “He seems small for three months.”
“He’s a triplet. His brothers didn’t make it out of the incubator.” She lowered herself and Jeffie into the other rocker without spilling a drop, from mug or baby. She smiled down at it and planted a kiss on the crown of its coarse black head. “We tried for years. ‘Patience,’ a word we both came to despise, along with doctors and nurses and snippy receptionists and the magazines in waiting rooms:
Sports Illustrated, U.S. News and World Report
—
Runner’s World
, for God’s sake. You know how fast-food restaurants purposely design their seats to be uncomfortable, to keep the traffic moving?”
“I wouldn’t know. I drive by the window.”
“I think doctors’ office managers choose the magazines they subscribe to for the same reason, to discourage you from taking too much of their time. It turned out there was nothing medically wrong with either of us, but I finally took fertility pills. At the clinic they suggested artificial insemination—AI, they call it. Oral was willing, but I set myself against it. Too much like mixing martinis. Anyway we conceived finally, and after twelve hours in labor I agreed to a C-section. Jeffie was stronger than either of his brothers. He’s a special child, and that’s why I named him after Jeff. What happened to your leg?”
“I fell on the ice. Tell me about Jeff. He isn’t your brother.”
“Oral doesn’t know that. He didn’t lie to you. I’m the liar in this marriage.”
She sounded proud of it. I said nothing and sipped from my mug. What was inside bore a closer resemblance to a lemon Fizzie dissolved in radiator water than it did to coffee, but I didn’t comment or gag. I’d had worse, much worse. In order to get the answersyou need, you have to put up with the ritual of hospitality. I groped for my pack of cigarettes.
“No one’s smoked in this house for ten years. I made Oral give it up after we married.”
I apologized and put it back. I hadn’t
I said I didn’t mind. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t have changed anything if I had.
The living room took up the front half of the ground floor. A rug with Oriental borders covered the hardwood floor to within eight inches of the walls. It was the most expensive thing in the room. A cheap new sofa with two matching platform rockers, an old green naugahyde recliner for the buttocks of the master of the house, a glass-topped coffee table stacked with books on infant care, and an electric fireplace answered for the rest. Family pictures in plastic cubes crowded the mantel, above which hung a Thomas Kincaide print of a medieval-looking lighthouse where the Seven Dwarfs spent their summers. TV, VCR-DVD combo, a speaker telephone to free both hands for diapering. There was the usual truckload of baby stuff testifying to the reign of the little tyrant in the blue blanket. A comfortable room, sprinkled with potpourri, faint cooking odors, and scented Lysol.
I consented to an offer of coffee and sat down in one of the padded rockers to stretch my leg, hooking my cane over the arm, while she carried the baby through an arch into a kitchen the size of my living room. I heard the disheartening sound of a jar opening and boiling water pouring into two mugs: The coffee was instant. She came back thirty seconds after she left, juggling the baby and both mugs with the fingers of one hand twined through the handles. I struggled to get up and help.
“I’ve got it,” she said. “After three months, I could join the circus.”
I leaned forward far enough to unburden her of one of the mugs and sat back to warm my hands around it. “He seems small for three months.”
“He’s a triplet. His brothers didn’t make it out of the incubator.” She lowered herself and Jeffie into the other rocker without spilling a drop, from mug or baby. She smiled down at it and planted a kiss on the crown of its coarse black head. “We tried for years. ‘Patience,’ a word we both came to despise, along with doctors and nurses and snippy receptionists and the magazines in waiting rooms:
Sports Illustrated, U.S. News and World Report
—
Runner’s World
, for God’s sake. You know how fast-food restaurants purposely design their seats to be uncomfortable, to keep the traffic moving?”
“I wouldn’t know. I drive by the window.”
“I think doctors’ office managers choose the magazines they subscribe to for the same reason, to discourage you from taking too much of their time. It turned out there was nothing medically wrong with either of us, but I finally took fertility pills. At the clinic they suggested artificial insemination—AI, they call it. Oral was willing, but I set myself against it. Too much like mixing martinis. Anyway we conceived finally, and after twelve hours in labor I agreed to a C-section. Jeffie was stronger than either of his brothers. He’s a special child, and that’s why I named him after Jeff. What happened to your leg?”
“I fell on the ice. Tell me about Jeff. He isn’t your brother.”
“Oral doesn’t know that. He didn’t lie to you. I’m the liar in this marriage.”
She sounded proud of it. I said nothing and sipped from my mug. What was inside bore a closer resemblance to a lemon Fizzie dissolved in radiator water than it did to coffee, but I didn’t comment or gag. I’d had worse, much worse. In order to get the answersyou need, you have to put up with the ritual of hospitality. I groped for my pack of cigarettes.
“No one’s smoked in this house for ten years. I made Oral give it up after we married.”
I apologized and put it back. I hadn’t
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