Standing By

Another Unplanned Journey

(Rob)

"Will you take her?" Kelsey grumped, salting the potatoes, sliding an oven mitt on her hand, and kicking at the refrigerator at the same time. "I got my hands full here."

I looked up from the TV show I was watching—trying to watch, through the chaos of Christmas afternoon. Kelsey was practically cooking everything we had in the refrigerator; my sister Jen had showed up unexpectedly, thinking we were doing Christmas as our house for some reason, and then decided to clean our dining room for even more obscure reasons; and Lydia had woken up on the wrong side of the bed. I was tempted to put her back in it and make her try again.

"Rob!" Kelsey yelled again. "Would you help? Don't you hear her screeching?"

"Course I do. It'd be hard not to," I remarked, begrudgingly finding my feet.

"Well, get her, Rob!" Jen ordered, throwing a fork in my direction.

"I'm working on it!" I snapped, one last longing look at my show. "What're you doing, anyway? Our dining room was—"

"A mess!" Jen yelled at me. "Old milk cups, hot dog pieces, and doll clothes everywhere!"

"So?" I hollered, going down the hall to extract my daughter from the coat closet. I scooped her up and placed a finger on her hollering mouth, tossing a mitten aside. "You don't need anything in there right now, sweetie."

Apparently, she thought she did, leaning way over to reach for the fuzzy mitten. "Stop," I told her, righting her in my arms.

Still crying over the mitten, she stuck my finger in her mouth and started chomping on it.

"Oww," I grunted, popping Lydia's jaw open and pulling my finger to safety. "No, sweetie, we don't eat Daddy. Are you hungry?"

She nodded, still trying to pull my hand up to her mouth. I circled through the kitchen, grabbing a roll from the bread basket.

"That's for dinner, Rob!" Kelsey complained.

"It's for Lydia. She's hungry," I explained, giving her the roll. Determined to make me a liar, she took one nibble from it and tossed it on the floor.

"Oh, just get out of the way," Kelsey ordered, balancing a cookie sheet with more rolls on it. "Give her some Cheerios."

"Do you want Cheerios?" I asked Lydia, who shook her head then nodded.

"Don't ask her, just give it to her," Kelsey advised, pushing rolls into the bread basket.

Whatever. I moved over to the pantry and was rustling through it when Kelsey decided it was imperative to get out the cranberry preserves right at that moment. She pushed me aside.

"Will you get out of the way?" she exclaimed. "Jeesh!"

"I'm trying to get our daughter to be quiet and she said she's hungry!" I snapped right back, jostling for arm space in the pantry. My phone started ringing in my pocket as I pulled out the cereal box. Ugh. I sat Lydia in her high chair and poured out a handful of Cheerios onto her tray, pulling out my phone. One missed call from Austin, one missed call from Chance. Austin left a voicemail, so I flipped to it, expecting a cheerful 'merry Christmas!' Instead, I froze in place, hearing an uncommon sense of urgency in Austin's voice.

"Rob. It's me. Call me back right away, please. Super important."

Anxiously, I started to call him back, only to have another voicemail chime in, this time from Chance. Chance? Austin had requested right away and sounded majorly stressed. Hmm. Call Austin right back without pause or check on Chance?