“Here you are, little love.”
She turned her face away.
I checked the time. She should have been hungry.
I lifted her against my shoulder and gently patted her back.
“Easy, sweetheart. Grandma’s here.”
She cried harder.
I walked slowly around the chair, rocking her the way I had once rocked Abby. Usually the familiar motion comforted her, but that afternoon nothing seemed to help.
After asking a nearby mother to keep an eye on Dolly and Sophie, I took Grace into the restroom.
I changed her diaper, checked her clothes, examined her fingers and toes, and made sure nothing was pinching or irritating her.
Still, she cried.
By the time I returned to the pool, my blouse clung damply to my back. My arms ached, and a familiar feeling of helplessness was beginning to rise inside me.
Then a man’s irritated voice cut across the pool deck.
“Is that baby going to scream all afternoon?”
I turned.
A man reclined on a nearby lounge chair beneath a large umbrella. He wore an expensive cream-colored linen shirt and dark sunglasses. A gold watch flashed on his wrist.
His mouth was twisted in annoyance.
“I’m sorry,” I said, instinctively lowering my voice. “She’s having a difficult moment. I’m trying to settle her.”
He removed his sunglasses just enough to look directly at me.
“Well, try somewhere else.”
For a second, I thought I had misunderstood him.
“Excuse me?”
“I paid to relax,” he said. “I didn’t pay to spend the day beside a crying infant.”
Several people nearby stopped talking.
Some turned their heads. Others stared carefully at their phones, pretending they could not hear.
My face grew hot.
“I understand,” I said. “I’m doing everything I can.”
“Obviously, it isn’t working.”
Grace continued crying against my chest.
The man gestured toward Dolly and Sophie.
“If you can’t control your little daycare, perhaps you should take them home.”
The word daycare struck me like an insult.
These were not random children I had brought to disturb him.
They were my granddaughters.
They were the pieces of my daughter that remained in this world.
“Sir, please,” I said. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”
