Baby Lessons

in bed alone.
His teeth clenched as he pulled a T-shirt over his head and tugged it into place. After days, weeks and months of rigidly controlling everything around him, he’d allowed himself to become the oldest and worst sort of cliché—a dad who was hopelessly attracted to the nanny. He wondered what Queen Bee would have to say about this most inconvenient turn of events.
A lot, probably.
In fairness, he’d been attracted to Madison before she’d become the nanny. He didn’t really understand it. He’d gone months without thinking about any sort of physical intimacy at all, and then just the brush of Madison’s fingertips had nearly dragged him to his knees. It defied logic. He ached for her.
He desperately wished he didn’t—then, and especially now. If forced to justify his predicament to Queen Bee, he would have said it didn’t really matter if he found his nanny attractive because nothing would come of it. Ever. His family came first, followed by his job. There was nothing left of him after that—not even enough for a brief physical encounter and certainly not enough for a relationship. That was the sad truth of the matter.
Queen Bee would probably roll her eyes and call him a liar, not that he had much stock in her opinion. Still, the thought was infuriating.
He slammed the dresser drawer shut and stalked out of the bedroom. The hallway was dark, and even though he’d been moving about the shadows of his home every single night since the twins had been born—six months of late-night feedings, six months of midnight diaper changes and bottle washing—he stubbed his toe on the baseboard as if he’d suddenly wandered into the unknown. Lost.
He cursed under his breath and limped toward the kitchen, blinking against the assault from the overhead light in the den. Something seemed off. The room was empty. Madison and the girls were nowhere to be seen, but it looked like a baby powder bomb had gone off. Just about every surface was covered with a thin layer of the stuff.
Jack sneezed three times in rapid succession. Then he shook his head in an attempt to rattle his sinuses free and sneezed again. Once he was able to fully breathe, he took a closer look at the mess. Half a dozen diapers littered the floor. Weirdly, they seemed clean. They were just sort of...mangled? Most of the self-adhesive strips were doubled over and stuck to themselves. Jack stared down at the mess and shook his head.
Clearly, Madison had never changed a diaper before. He knew the signs well. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. There was one very important difference between his situation and Madison’s, though. Jack had never insisted he’d make a great night nanny.
A darkened iPad had been abandoned in the middle of the diaper debris. He bent to pick to up, dusted the baby powder from its screen and pressed the home button. A diagram with directions for mixing baby cereal flashed to life. Jack sighed. He was almost afraid of whatever disaster awaited him in the kitchen.
Rightly so, as it turned out. The sink was full of half-empty bottles, the microwave door was open and a bowl with the hardened remains of rice cereal sat on the rotating tray. Of course. Where Madison Jules went, disaster followed. Why would he have expected anything less?
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. He was going to have to fire her. He didn’t have much of a choice, did he? The mess didn’t matter, but the implications of it most definitely did. She’d clearly never been anyone’s nanny. He’d bet good money on the notion that she’d never babysat anyone before, either.
This is what he got for thinking with his heart instead of his head and going all tender inside at the thought of Madison as a motherless little girl. Had he learned nothing from the Natalie fiasco? His heart couldn’t be trusted. It got him in trouble every time.
Not qualified.
Not qualified at all.
He was off the hook. He could go back down the hall where she was probably creating more mayhem in the twins’ bedroom and fire her right that second. Even Wade would have done the same.
For some reason he wasn’t in much of a hurry to do so. Instead, he flipped on the faucet and let the water get steaming hot. Then he went to work, washing bottles and putting them in the electric steamer, any hope of getting a proper night’s sleep lost, once and for all.
Once the kitchen was put back together, he tackled the den. Half an hour later he had baby powder in personal places he hadn’t even realized he possessed, but his home was somewhat orderly. He took out the trash, picked up Madison’s iPad and walked with purpose toward the nursery. He’d simply hand her the tablet and let her go. Surely, she’d understand. On some level, she’d probably even be relieved.
Or, she’d hate him even more. Either way, he was doing the right thing. No question.
But his footsteps slowed as his daughters’ bedroom came into view. A faint sliver of light was visible beneath the closed door, and he waited for a long moment with his hand on the doorknob, straining to hear Madison’s voice or the quiet swish of the gliding rocking chair. He heard nothing, just the hushed fury of his own heart, pounding in his chest. Too fast. Too hard.
He turned the knob as slowly and quietly as he could, then gave the door a gentle push. It opened with a muffled groan, and a thick lump formed in his throat at the sight of what he found inside.
Madison was fast asleep in the glider with a twin tucked into the crook of each elbow, his babies pressed snugly against her soft curves. Ella and Emma were dressed in their fanciest set of matching pajamas—ultrasoft white onesies scattered with tiny pink rosebuds and a profusion of pink satin ruffles. Their names were spelled out