RUBY.
"Something is wrong," I said to Toby without taking my eyes off Jeremy.
"With Jeremy?"
"Yeah."
"He looks fine to me," Toby answered my distress calmly.
"Just watch, he is about to reject the bottle and resume crying in three," before I could continue counting he proves me right. Jeremy pushes the nipple of his bottle from his mouth and lets out a sharp cry. I bring him up to my shoulders and begin to rock him.
"Babies cry, how is that the big deal?"
"The big deal is that he has been changed and fed but he's still crying," I cried. "I don't know what to do anymore."
"Please just calm down, I'm sure there's a simple solution. Let me just google it." He rushes out probably to get his phone and continues to rock Jeremy. At this point, I'm trying my hardest to keep my frustration at bay.
He returns to the room, looking down at his phone. "Has he slept enough?"
"I don't know, you met us sleeping. He must have slept enough to have the energy for all this crying."
"Okay, you've fed him so maybe he's overfed. When was the last time you fed him before this last feeding?"
"Before he slept."
"How many hours ago was that?"
"I don't know, It's hard to keep track of time at this point."
"You know you're not helping right?"
"Well, neither are you, shouting stupid questions at me while you watch him howl."
"Let's not argue," he pleaded. "Let's swaddle him, then play some white noise, maybe we'll be lucky and he'll fall asleep again." So we did just that. We played some white noise, swaddled him and lay him on his tummy in his crib.
"He's still fussing," I said to Toby.
"But it's reduced, it says to just leave him there till he falls asleep," he said referring to the article he just read.
"We should go to the hospital again, just to be sure everything is alright. He wasn't crying like this before."
"I don't think it's anything to worry about, it might just be colic."
"Okay, Dr google," I laughed as softly as possible so as not to wake Jeremy up. I checked to find Jeremy asleep. I heaved a sigh of relief and gestured to Toby for us to leave the room.
"Speaking of hospitals, I just remembered that I was supposed to inform you that we are starting the campaign trail out at one," he said, closing the door shut behind us.
"When?"
"Tomorrow," he said sheepishly.
"And you're just telling me now."
"It slipped my mind."
"Who is going to take care of Jeremy? I can't go," I said with finality and continued down the stairs
"You have to go, we'll find someone to babysit him," he said following behind me.
"I don't know about that," I said, contemplating his words. I didn't know if I could trust anybody with Jeremy just yet.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it. I will have the agency send someone."
"I don't know how I feel about a stranger being around Jeremy."
"It's safe, all our maids are employed through them. They run a background check and we double check before hiring any staff," I listened to him say as I poured a glass of orange juice from the fridge.
"Okay," I said before bringing the glass to my lips.
"It's settled then, I'll give them a call right away."
"You don't have to worry, you can watch them on the nanny cam on your phone," Toby whispered into my ear as he gently pried my fingers away from the sides of Jeremy's crib. The nanny watched us with a small smile on her face from her position close to the door. Toby pulled me toward the door. It seemed my legs had lost their ability to function on their own.
"Take good care of my baby body," I said to her.
"You have nothing to worry about," she said in a slightly accented English that hinted that she was of Spanish descent.
"Bye," I waved at her and then turned to wave to Jeremy's crib.
"Don't bother, we'll lock up after ourselves," Toby said to her when she made to follow us.
Toby gently urged me out of the house and into the elevator.
"I'm fine," I said, shaking his hands off me. I dusted the nonexistent dirt off my navy blue pantsuit. I looked straight ahead of me, trying my best to act tough even though leaving him with the nanny was hard for me. This was the first time we were going to be apart for so long since he was born.
I made it to the car almost five minutes into the drive before checking the nanny cam footage on my phone. I had an itch to check on them right from the elevator but I held back. I was proud of myself for not giving in instantly but five minutes of tapping the seats nervously were enough to have me digging through my purse in search of my phone.
"Are you going to watch that all the way there?" Toby asked.
"Don't judge me," I said and continued to watch the nanny feed Jeremy. I watched the footage until we arrived at the hospital. We came down from the car and warmly greeted Toby's parents as the cameras clicked away behind us. The class was wearing a cream suit and pencil skirt while Toby and his father were both wearing a generic black suit.
"Welcome to the children's cancer hospital, we are grateful for your donations and your time. How humane of you to not just give money to our cause but to also come to visit the children," the lady said as she led us through the halls. The place was nice for the hospital. The walls were painted brightly with cartoon characters at different points. They did a good job of making it look lively.
We came to a door and she ushered us in before entering. There were about a dozen children dressed in plain clothes with aprons over them painting happily.
"Hi, children! You have visitors," she said to the group. A young lady who I didn't notice among the children rose to greet us but the children hardly paid us any attention, they just continued their activities. They handed aprons to us and encouraged us to create our artwork and mix with the children and help them with whatever they needed.
Toby was the first to hunch down on the carpet at a table with some children then George and Clara sank looking uncomfortable. I scanned the room and noticed a little girl of about six years who was off on her own so I decided to approach her.
"Hi there, what are you drawing?" I asked the little girl.
"My friend, we met here and now she's dead," she burst out into tears. The more I tried to comfort her, the more she cried, attracting the attention of the rest of the room. Some children even looked like they were about to follow her example when the cameraman walked in. Just great, I could see the headlines already. "Ruby Daniel Makes Sick Children Cry."