Chapter Seven: Pizza Sauce is Better

We continued to play in our backyard until Aaron and I decided to take Holly back inside. The house was completely bare, so we sat on the stairs and admired our beautiful new space. I leaned against his broad shoulder, savoring his solidity and Holly's warmth in my arms. Though I had always felt as if Aaron and I belonged together, I really felt like we were a family now. "The house is absolutely perfect," I said, repeating myself for what must have been the hundredth time.

"We're going to be really happy here," Aaron agreed with me. "But I still can't believe that it's actually ours. I never thought we'd own such a nice house so soon!"

I snuggled closer to him. "Neither did I," I sighed happily, closing my eyes. My comfort was suddenly rudely interrupted by the obnoxious ring of Aaron's cell phone.

"Sorry," he apologized, gently pushing me off him and fumbling for the phone. He flipped it open. "Hello?" he said cautiously. "Oh, hey. How's everything going?" There was a pause as he listened to the tinny voice of the caller. "Oh… I see. Yeah…Well, I guess that's okay… How early can you get here tomorrow? Seven? Right, well, we'll meet you at the house at 7:15 then. Okay… Thanks, buh-bye."

He snapped the phone shut and turned to me. "That was the movers," he said. "They're a bit behind schedule, but they'll be here tomorrow morning."

"They said they would come today!" I said indignantly. "And it's already been three days!"

"They said they'd run into some traffic," Aaron said, though he looked like he shared my irritation. "I guess it's what we get for hiring el cheapo moving people," he joked.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I guess I'd rather start unpacking in the morning though. It'll be over sooner that way."

He grinned at me. "Tomorrow will be our first night sleeping under the roof of our very own house!" His eyes twinkled mischievously. "And I'm going to make sure you remember it."

XXX

The next morning we woke up bright and early so we could be at our house when the movers got there. I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of a bunch of strangers tramping all over my beautiful cream carpet with their dirty shoes, and I planned on watching them all like a hawk. Despite the fact that they were, as Aaron called them, "el cheapo movers," they turned out to be quite courteous and helpful. They reassembled the beds and tables, installed our TV and other appliances, and even helped move the furniture over and over when I couldn't decide how to arrange the living room.

By mid-afternoon when they left, most of the furniture was in place, and the kitchen was stacked full of boxes. My carpet, much to my chagrin, was a little worse for the wear, so I set Aaron to vacuuming while Holly helped me tackle the boxes. I set her down on a blanket on one of the only bare spaces of the kitchen floor. "You, young one," I instructed her. "Are going to help me unpack all of our many boxes. What do you say to that?"

"Aaa!" she said happily, pushing herself into a crawling position. She grabbed the corner of the nearest box and pulled herself onto her bootie-clad feet. She teetered for a moment, clinging to the box with both hands, and then fell onto her bottom with a whumph. "Maa?" she asked me.

"Good girl," I encouraged. "You're growing so fast, aren't you?" Now let's see what's in this box." I slit the packing tape along the seams of the cardboard and opened the flaps. Inside were the lumpy paper-wrapped parcels that Aaron and I had labored over. I pulled everything out and lined the objects up in a row on the island. "What's in this one?" I asked Holly, holding one up for her to see. I ripped the paper off and produced a bottle of Tabasco sauce. I guessed the box was full of kitchen stuff, then. "Look what it is!" I said, hyperbolizing my excitement for Holly's sake. I showed it to her and she laughed. Her little hands reached out and grabbed at the bottle. Curiously, I let her take it, wondering what she would do. Of course, she did what all babies do when they are given a new toy. She put it in her mouth.

There must have been a bit of dried sauce on the outside of the bottle, for Holly dropped the bottle, gave me a very hurt look and began to cry. "Awww," I said, picking her up and stowing the bottle safely in a cupboard. "That didn't taste good did it?" Fortunately, one of her sippy cups was sitting on the counter by the sink. We hadn't put any of those in the boxes because Holly needed them several times a day. I filled it with water and offered it to her. She jammed the protrusion from the lid into her mouth and sucked hard. "Better?" I asked when she stopped to take a breath. She gave me a watery blue-eyed look that clearly said: 'How can you do something like that to me?'

I set her gently back on the floor, letting her keep the cup with her. "I'm sorry," I said. "I won't do it again." I continued opening boxes and packages, putting away all of our spices and utensils. Pretty soon, I filled several cupboards and drawers with all of our stuff, and the paper wrapping was strewn across the counters and floor. Now all I needed was to locate a trash bag to clean all that up.

Holly, having quickly recovered from the hot sauce once she had her cup, pushed herself up on her arms into a crawling position and scrambled towards the nearest crumple of paper. She plopped down next to it and grabbed at it. She hefted it over her head and brought back down to earth with and excited "Eee!" The paper crumpled even further, disturbing other bits of wrapping and causing a wave of noisy rustling. She waved her paper around some more, evidently very pleased with the results. Watching her play gave me an idea. I picked up my own piece of wrapping and decided to introduce her to a new game.

"Look at this, Holly," I said, kneeling beside her. I put it in front of her face so that she couldn't see me. "Where's Holly?" I asked. I pulled the paper away and gave a fake gasp. "Peekaboo! There she is!" My enthusiasm was infectious and Holly laughed with me.

I heard a laugh from the direction of the countertop that separated the kitchen from the family room. I glanced up, to see that Aaron had witnessed our game. He shook his head at me, but his crinkly smile gave away that he wasn't really mad at me. "I got everything unpacked and…" I trailed off, holding up the paper with a guilty grin on my face. "Peekaboo?"

Laughing, Aaron sat down next to me. We then played Peekaboo with Holly for a few more minutes until we were tired of overdoing our excitement for the sake of her entertainment. "I unpacked a few boxes upstairs," Aaron said as he leaned against a cupboard, watching Holly bash another piece of paper around. "Holly's room is pretty much done. Her crib's set up, and I put her playpen in that big room at the end of the hall."

"Good," I said. "That'll make things a lot easier when she gets tired. We won't have to carry her everywhere."

"Yup," he agreed. "I didn't do that much, though. There's still a lot more to unpack, so we should probably do some more before it gets dark out."

We scooped up Holly and her blanket and climbed the stairs together. The little living room by the stairs was completely empty. There weren't even any boxes waiting to be unpacked. "We have to get some stuff for that room," I said to Aaron. "We don't have anything to put in there!"

"Hey," he said defensively. "We're both just out of school. I mean, you're just now starting your residency. We really shouldn't have that much stuff, you know. This is a huge place compared to the old house!"

"I know," I said. "But as soon as I can, I'm going to go shopping for some furniture to fill this all these rooms!" By that point, we were walking down the upstairs hallway. I gestured to the bare white walls. "See these walls?" I asked. "Boring. We need to hang pictures, or paint it, or something!" We went into Holly's room. I admit, it didn't look nearly so large with a crib, a dresser, and a diaper station, but there was still a lot to be desired. "And for this room," I continued, "We should get a rocking chair or something. And pictures for the walls. Or maybe I could sponge paint it…" I trailed off, imagining a spray of goldens and yellows across the wall.

Aaron rolled his eyes. "It's fine, Lexie," he said as he tucked Holly into the crib. "Why don't we finish packing before we go around redecorating, okay?" I knew there was mor to what he was saying – basically how we didn't have the money to spend on a lot of new stuff. I thought guiltily of all the plans I had made for our wedding, too. All of that would cost quite a pretty penny as well. The house had already put us farther into the red than we would have liked, and our budget was going to be very slim for a while.

Aaron led me back down the hall to the master bedroom, but I couldn't resist peeking into the guest bedroom on the way. There were no boxes in there either. Great. Another empty room to fill.

x.X.x

We unpacked boxes for the rest of the afternoon, deciding that it was better to just get it over with; otherwise we'd never do it. We filled several large bags with packing paper, and Aaron collapsed the boxes and stored them in the garage while I ordered pizza for dinner. We set up Holly's high chair next to the island in the kitchen, where we thought we would eat most of our meals. Holly woke from her nap, crying and famished. While I waited for the pizza to arrive, I gave her a cup filled with juice and decided to give her a little baby food.

We began experimenting with baby food and other soft foods shortly before we moved, but we had put it off until we were more or less settled in. Fortunately, baby food doesn't spoil, so we packed several jars to open when we were moved in. And then the moment of truth came. I was about to see if Holly would accept the mashed carrots, or if she would be stuck living on juice and baby formula for the rest of her life.

I unscrewed the jar of orange goop and stirred it with a little plastic baby spoon. Not very appetizing, but then again, someone with Holly's appetite should be able to eat anything and everything, right? I sat before Holly and showed her the jar. "Look at these carrots!" I said. "I wonder what they taste like?" I offered her a tiny amount. She cautiously opened her mouth when the spoon approached. "Good girl," I said when she took the food. I could see her tongue moving experimentally in her mouth. She swallowed.

"Aaa!" she said, reaching a hand out for the spoon.

"More?" I asked. I gave her a bigger spoonful, and she swallowed it without protest. Within a few minutes, she had devoured the entire contents of the little jar. I scraped out the last bit with my finger and held it out for her to lick. "That's it, Holly," I cooed. "All gone. I'm so proud of you for eating the whole thing!"

But Holly was having none of that. Her tiny face screwed up and turned red, and she let out a little wail when I didn't offer her any more food. "Still hungry?" I said, opening another jar. The label told me that it was rice cereal Holly perked up when I dipped the spoon into the cream-colored mush. She opened her mouth for me before I even approached her with the spoon. "You were still hungry," I said, unsurprised. In the distance, I heard the doorbell ring and the deep rumble of Aaron's voice thanking the pizza delivery person, but I was completely focused on watching Holly eat. She gulped everything down, and I never had to coax her mouth open. So much for all of those tricks to get babies to eat. I could tell that I would never have to play "here comes the airplane" with Holly.

Aaron entered the kitchen bearing a steaming pizza box. He set it down on the counter and began slapping slices of the mouth-watering pepperoni pizza onto two plates. "So she likes the baby food, huh?" he asked rhetorically. "I knew she would. Is that her first jar?"

"Second," I replied, scraping the last pit of gooey rice from the glass. "And she looks like she's still going strong." I opened yet another jar of baby food: pureed pears. I handed it to Aaron. "Your turn," I said. "I'm hungry!" Aaron set down his half-eaten pizza and held out a heaping spoonful of baby food for Holly. She took it instantly.

"Hungry baby, aren't you?" he asked her as she ate a few more spoonfuls, his voice taking on a gentle tone. He lowered his voice to a loud whisper. "But I bet if you were really hungry, you'd ask Mama over there for a bit of her pizza." He winked at me.

"Aaron!" I said. "I can't give her pizza! She'll choke!"

"Give her a little bit of sauce on your finger," he said. "I bet she'll like it." I thought about that. What did I have to lose? It wouldn't hurt Holly, and she would probably like it. I peeled back a layer of melted cheese from the crust and scraped up some of the pizza sauce with the tip of my finger.

"Okay, Holly," I said, leaning over Aaron to give her the sauce. "Here it comes!" Her mouth closed over my finger and I felt her tongue probing at the sauce. "Is it good?" I asked when she released my finger, licked completely clean. She answered with one of her unintelligible baby noises.

"I think that's a yes," Aaron laughed, giving her another serving of baby food. "Come on, Hol," he said when her mouth remained closed. "You like this stuff!" He tickled her lip with the edge of the spoon. "Open up," he coaxed. "You know you want to!" Holly shrieked again, only this time it wasn't a happy-baby noise, she sounded angry, like she was about to cry.

"I have an idea," I said, scraping up more pizza sauce. "Let's see if she eats this." I held out my finger and Holly sucked the sauce off. "She doesn't like the baby food," I told Aaron smugly. "Pizza sauce is better." He laughed and wiped the spoon off and filled it with sauce from his own slice. Holly ate it.

"Look at that," he said. "She has a taste for junk food already!"

x.X.x

The first rays of sunlight peeked through the trees by our window and hit me full in the face. I groaned, rolled over, and stuffed my head under said pillow. "Next time, we're closing the blinds," I mumbled to Aaron. Peeking my head out from my safe cove of darkness, I saw that it was barely 6:30, a.k.a. way too early to get up after a long night. I grinned a little into my arm; Aaron had kept his promise and the first night in our new home really was something to remember.

I tried to go back to sleep, but the bright sunlight wouldn't let me rest. Giving up, I pushed myself out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. The hot steam of the shower would wake me up.

It was halfway into my shower that I realized that we had forgotten to unpack the shampoo. "Shit!" I said into the pouring water. I groaned again and leaned onto the glass wall of the shower. This was not a good way to be starting off the day… the day that I would begin residency at the local hospital, Anna-Jacques.

Turning off the water, I wrapped a towel around myself while I hunted through one of the cardboard boxes stacked in the closet. The shampoo wasn't in the first one, or the second. Not the third, either. Finally, I discovered the tall purple bottle in the sixth box in.

Returning to my shower, I saw, through the doorway that separated the master bath from the bedroom, that Aaron had gotten up. I hoped he had gone down to make breakfast. He made the best pancakes in the world.

Forty-five minutes later, I was ready for the day, though it did take me quite a few tries to come up with the perfect first-day-of-work outfit. Finally I decided on a pair of khaki pants and a light blue button-down blouse. I would be getting scrubs anyway, so I told myself that it didn't really matter.

Luckily, I remembered an old professor's words of advice – to wear comfy shoes. It was hard to leave my cute kitten heels behind, but I decided that for the well-being of my feet that my white tennis shoes would be better.

After checking Holly's room to assure myself that she was still sleeping peacefully, I bounded down the stairs and promptly ran into my fiancé.

"Hello, dear," he said. "I was just coming up to get you. I made pancakes!" I grinned as I followed him into the kitchen. How did I get so lucky? He was perfect.

Aaron and I chatted over our breakfast, deciding what our plan for today would be. He was due to start his actual work today, too, so we would drive over to the hospital at nine together. I briefly worried about what to do with Holly, but Aaron told me that they had a daycare service located just outside the ER, so if there were any problems Aaron would be right there to help.

"And it's free for doctors," he told me as he poured more syrup onto his already-drenched plate. Though he did make the best pancakes, I never approved of how much sugar he had to drown them in. You'd think he would know better, too. After all, he was a doctor.

"That's a bonus," I replied.

"Yeah, it's just a regular daycare… at least, that's my understanding of it. Other people who don't work at the hospital drop their kids off at it. But to use the hospital space, the owners worked out a deal with them that all the workers on payroll at the hospital could use it for free. Pretty sweet, eh?"

"It'll be really nice," I agreed. "Do you think they'll be able to handle Holly's eating habits?"

He ran a hand through his hair. Not a good sign. "Yeah, probably," he said, sounding less than sure. "I'll tell them to let her eat until she's satisfied when I drop her off, and if there are any problems, I'll be close by."

"Okay," I said. "I feel bad about leaving her in such a strange place, though. Especially since we just moved!"

"She'll be fine," Aaron assured me.

I heard a faint gurgle and glanced at the stairs. "Your turn," Aaron gave me his lopsided grin. "I got her yesterday." I heaved a fake sigh before ascending the stairs and making my way into Holly's room.

"Where's my little princess?" I murmured. "There she is!" I lifted Holly out of her crib and held her close to my chest, delighting in the feeling of her warm body bundled close to mine. Still sleepy, Holly gave a small yawn, her little mouth opening. I melted. "Holly, Holly, Holly," I sang, cradling her in my arms. "How am I going to let you go to that daycare today? I'd love to stay home all day with you!"

"Lexie? Are you getting ready? We have to leave in twenty minutes!" Aaron yelled from the bottom of the stairs.

"Coming!" I shouted back, making my way over to the dresser in Holly's room. "What shall we dress you in today?" I asked her. Holly just cooed at me.

After we were completely dressed and ready to go, Holly and I went back downstairs. I handed her off to Aaron, who was waiting with a jar of baby food and a cup of juice. I dove into the large diaper bag sitting on the counter and went through it, just to make sure everything Holly would need was there. Blanket, bottles, diapers, more bottles, powdered formula, juice, a jar of baby food… Good. When we were all ready to go, I grabbed a bottle out of the refrigerator on my way out to the mud room to give to Holly in the car.

It only took us about ten minutes to find the hospital. I smiled; at least the commute wouldn't be terrible.

x.X.x

I paused, leaning up against the nurse's counter. When I arrived in the pediatric wing, there were no instructions or a day to learn for me. I was to be trained on the job. For a while I shadowed one of the doctors, but after lunch they switched me to running papers all over the wing, from office to office, and filling out forms for different children. I hardly got a minute to myself just to stand still, and this was only the first day!

I mean, I'd heard horror stories of how the residents were treated badly, but I had always ignored them, thinking them to be wives' tales or the like. At least I had to admit that these doctors weren't exactly being mean to me, not on purpose. It just seemed that the only pediatric office in all of Newburyport was awfully busy. And they were just glad to have someone knew to pile all the boring, no-fun jobs on to.

Lunch had been a hurried affair, eating quickly in the back room with some nurses. I had planned on visiting Holly downstairs in the daycare but I didn't even have time to stop at in the ladies' room, much less take a trip all the way down there. The hospital was huge; six floors, plus some underground facilities. The ER was on the ground floor, and the pediatric wing was all the way at the other end of the building on the fifth floor. Even though Aaron and I were working in the same building, we were actually pretty far apart.

A nurse saw me leaning against the counter and stopped. I mentally kicked myself for not remembering her name – there were so many people! – as she said, "Oh, don't worry… it's not usually like this… Mondays are just always horrible." I nodded weakly.

"I sure hope it's not like this every day!" I responded.

She smiled. "Here, how about you take a break from running slips? I could use someone's help recording info in the next few rooms." She led the way down one of the hallways that branched out from the main lobby area. "I'm Penny, by the way. And of course you're Dr. Turner – everyone's heard about you! We've been waiting for the new resident to arrive for days!"

"Oh, call me Alexa," I said, as we turned into a room. They had been waiting for me? And 'Dr. Turner' sounded so weird… I wondered if I could ever get used to it. But knowing me, I would have just gotten used to the new-sounding name when Aaron and I got married and my name then changed to 'Dr. Callaghan.' I gave a small laugh under my breath. I hadn't stopped to think that Aaron and I would have the exact same name at work!

As I worked alongside Penny, I allowed my mind to drift a bit to our upcoming wedding. We hadn't actually made any plans yet, but we knew we were going to do something simple with a few close friends and our families. Neither of us wanted a big formal church ceremony, and now that we lived near the ocean, I had been thinking about getting married on the beach.

x.X.x

After a long day of hard and boring work, I was grateful to finally slide into the passenger seat of Aaron's car. We were fortunate to have similar hours. He got off about half an hour before I did, so he spent it with Holly. "How was the daycare center?" I asked him, scrutinizing the sleeping form in the carseat. She looked fine, maybe they really did know what they were doing.

"It was great," Aaron answered. "I explained the feeding thing to them, and I guess they let her eat because she was pretty happy when I picked her up."

"Good," I said. I felt better about leaving her somewhere now if I knew they could take care of her properly.

"Oh, by the way," he added. "They commented on her ears. They thought she was absolutely adorable. 'Like an elf,' they said. I guess it's kind of ironic that we named her Holly and everyone thinks she'd be a good little Christmas elf!" I laughed a little. Holly's ears would probably lead to some teasing when she was a little older, but right now, she was incredibly cute.

"How was your day?" I asked Aaron after a few moments' silence.

"Pretty good," he said. "It was a lot like the place I used to work. I have this cool little office for when I'm not working, but today it was pretty busy so I did a lot of actual medical work. What about you?"

"Nothing fun," I said sourly. "I followed someone around in the morning, and then they had me running all over the place doing little jobs for the other doctors!"

He laughed at me. "No one said it would be easy! They start you off small, and then you get to do some more stuff. When I first started with the ER, they wouldn't let me near anyone for the first few months. All I did was fill out forms and fetch and carry for other people."

"Great," I said. "I won't get to do anything for months!"

"Yes, you will," he assured me, pulling into the garage of our house. "But not yet. Just give it a little time, and when they see how responsible and dedicated you are, they'll let you do more important stuff."

We climbed out of the car and I collected Holly from the back seat. "Hey, pretty baby," I whispered to her. "I missed you today. Let's go put you to bed in your beautiful new room; would you like that?" Holly's only answer was a slight shift of her sleeping body as she made herself more comfortable in my arms. I carried her into the house and up the stairs, lamenting the bare spaces in our house as usual. I really needed to do something about the empty rooms and unadorned walls. We'd only been in our house for a few days and I already couldn't stand it. I settled Holly into her crib and covered her with a thin pink blanket. "Sleep tight," I whispered. Downstairs, I heard the phone ring. "Gotta go," I told her, dropping a quick kiss on one of her pointed ears. I raced down the stairs and into the kitchen, towards the phone, but Aaron had beaten me to it and was deep in conversation with the person on the other end.

"Who is it?" I mouthed. He waved his hand at me distractedly. Must be a very important call, then. I wandered aimlessly over into the living room, collapsing onto our couch. This room was empty too. Our couch and coffee table went very well with the rest of the house, but I thought we needed to get some armchairs or ottomans to fill up the rest of the space. I daydreamed about all the furniture I would buy until I heard Aaron bidding goodbye to the caller. "Who was it?" I asked impatiently as he joined me on the couch.

"The adoption agency," he said. I sat up straight.

"What did they want?" I asked worriedly.

"We're still prospective adoptive parents," he assured me. "They're sending someone over on Saturday to interview us and check out the house. And to make sure Holly's okay, too."

"That should be okay," I said. "The house is fine, and so is Holly. We've been taking good care of her."

"They also want to interview our co-workers to get their opinion on us," Aaron added wearily.

"What?" I said, panicking. "But we both started work only today! Our co-workers don't even know us!"

"That's what I told them, but they said that first impressions will be fine. Better in fact." I thought about my performance at the hospital today. Had I done anything to seem irresponsible? Anything to prove myself unfit as a parent? "Lexie," Aaron said, cutting into my thoughts. "I know you're kind of upset that you aren't getting to do much real work right now, but can you please try to act like you're really enjoying it?"

"Absolutely," I said. "I sort of made a friend today, so that's one person who could probably give me a pretty good report."

"Good," he said. "It'll be fine, Lexie." Holly'll be officially ours before we know it."