Gertie

Chapter 7

Sami answered the door to find Lexie Carver standing there with a huge box, "Lexie! Hi, Mom said you might be stopping by."

"Where is she?" Lexie asked, dragging the box into the apartment. "I'm ready to see the baby!"

"Mom's finishing up Gertie's feeding. Believe me, that baby has no patience. If you don't feed her as soon as she starts fussing, she gets herself so worked up, she can't even eat when you shove a boob in her face," Sami said.

Marlena started laughing as she came out of the bedroom with a very sleepy baby, and said, "She get hangry just like her Daddy. There's nothing wrong with being a woman who knows what she wants in life, Samatha."

"She's got moxie, that's for sure!" Sami said laughing. "Lexie, would you like something to drink? I made some tea earlier."

Lexie was staring at Gertie in Marlena's arms, with hungry eyes, and she told Sami, "No. No, I'm fine."

"Okay. Hey, Mom? I was going to run over to the fish market, and get some of Grandma's chowder for dinner. Are you okay with that?" Sami asked her, already fetching her jacket out of the closet, and pulling her hat over her ears.

"Chowder sounds amazing. It's been so cold lately," Marlena said. "Can you tell Caroline and Shawn I said hello?"

"Yeah," Sami said. "I was going to bring some pictures of Gertie with me, too."

"Sami, how many times do I have to tell you? Her name is Gertrude."

"Mom, come on! It just rolls off the tongue. Don't worry. I like Gertie, and I think it's going to catch on. You'll see," Sami said with a laugh, as she left the house.

"That girl will be the end of me," Marlena mumbled, shifting a food drowsy baby in her arms.

Lexie held her arms out, "Hand over the baby, Marlena."

Marlena laughed, "Don't you have your own child?"

"I do, but she's in the terrible two's and honestly, everything pisses her off. Yesterday she got angry that I cut her sandwich into a triangle. A triangle! She was screaming that I did it wrong," Lexie said, snuggling Gertrude against her chest. "She's not little and sweet with the baby smell anymore, although she's an angel when she's asleep."

"Johanna is a beautiful little girl," Marlena said. "But I understand what you mean. When Eric and Sami were toddlers, he whined incessantly, and she destroyed everything in her path. It's those learning years."

"Yesterday she was so quiet, I became suspicious. Do you know where I found her? I found her in the kitchen. She was almost inside the refrigerator, with a piece of red velvet cake in each chubby little hand, and frosting smeared over her face, because she'd taken a bite from one!" Lexie told Marlena with a sigh. "She wasn't even remorseful. She smiled at me!"

Marlena's head tipped back with a laugh, "I'm so glad I have Sami to help me when Gertrude gets older." She touched her daughters cheek softly, "I had forgotten exactly how little sleep you actually get with them when they're this small, and with breastfeeding this little munchkin, I seem to get less."

Lexie looked at Marlena, and she asked her, "Have you gotten ahold of John?"

"No," Marlena replied. "I tried, repeatedly. I tried. He didn't return any of my calls. I'm just...I'm going to do this on my own."

"Maybe he never got the messages? It's possible, right?"

"He didn't get twenty-eight separate messages?" Marlena said incredulously. "I refuse to believe that. I can't continue to call, and get no response. It becomes...disheartening. John has a wife, and a son...he's got commitments to them. I'm not begging him to contact me, Lexie. I'm not begging him to know his own child."