Donald had never heard anything more piercing.
By now the boys had to have been exhausted from eighteen hours of sporadic crying and screaming, punctuated by a projectile of some kind being hurled at their uncle. It could be a toy, a fistful of food, or -
Well, it could be any number of things.
He'd expected as much once Della was gone, but still found himself pitifully unprepared for it.
His parenting books were filled with notes on how to deal with the noise, the mess, and the crawling precariously close to an outlet he'd forgotten to babyproof, but for some reason he hadn't considered the challenge of handling all of those variables coming from three different sources all at once.
If Huey couldn't see his uncle or his brothers, he cried for fear that they'd disappeared altogether, so Donald would pick him up to comfort him.
If Dewey saw one of his brothers being held or fed, he cried for the same attention.
Louie was mostly alright when he dozed off, but when he woke up and realized he was still in the drafty, brightly-lit outside world instead of his familiar egg, oh boy, did he cry.
They were all wide awake that night.
As thoroughly exasperated as Donald was, he couldn't blame them. They were scared, lonely, confused, with no clue how to navigate their new world. Aside from being blood relatives, that was the first thing they all had in common with each other.
He tried every picture book in the houseboat. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Little Red Hen, Twenty-Minute Meals.
Okay, so the cookbook wasn't going to capture their imagination. A bedtime story was not in order that night. Donald leaned his head against the arm of his chair in front of the crib and sighed. From that angle he noticed Huey staring out the window - still crying, but looking out as if he was searching for something. Maybe he was just curious about what was outside, but Donald couldn't shake the possibility that a part of them knew more about their family than they could possibly understand now.
He took a deep breath.
Look to the stars, my darling baby boys…
He squeezed his eyes shut, anticipating even higher screeches from them in response to his voice. But the noise started to dissipate. They still babbled and cried a bit, but when he opened one eye he saw them staring up at him curiously.
Life is strange and vast
Filled with wonders and joys
The crying finally gave way to contented cooing.
Face each new sun with eyes clear and true
Huey's eyelids started to flutter. Dewey smiled, and Louie nuzzled his face into his brother's side.
Unafraid of the unknown,
Because I'll face it all with you.
He didn't know if it was the simple fact that lullabies are soothing to babies, or if they recognized the melody from before they hatched. Maybe through their uncle's already unintelligible voice and the language they had yet to grasp, they'd somehow heard their mother's words. Whatever the reason, it worked. With one last little babble from Dewey, the boys finally fell asleep.
Donald stepped out onto the deck and looked up. He wondered if the boys could feel the empty space the same way he did. For a moment, he entertained the notion that Della could hear him from somewhere and was taking comfort in her brother's tiny success. It tore away at him to know that she wasn't there to see the children she'd already loved so much.
But he could love them enough for a family of fifty.