In
short order I had enough milk to contain the ginger inferno in my mouth, and
Amanda brought enough to share with Ellie, too, who had moved from tears to
snickers at my condition.
“One
year I dared Leo to eat some raw ginger, and he acted the same way.”
“For
reference, I would never accept a dare like that, and in the future I will
always test any gingerbread men before eating so much of one.”
She
smiled again, continuing to nibble on her cookie. She had put the laptop away,
now, and was just relaxing, and, I wagered, reminiscing on all things
gingerbread with her husband.
I
left her to it, resuming my Chandler book, but I only got about ten minutes of
the book before a baby’s cry pierced the airplane. Mikey’s baby sister had
woken up, apparently in sore need of attention.
All
around, passengers shifted and let out little groans, even those with
headphones. No one liked hearing a crying baby in an enclosed space. The volume
continued to climb, too. Kid had good lungs. Mikey’s mom sought to disentangle
herself from the girl she held, but the girl wasn’t having any of it. She
fought to clutch to her mom.
“Ginny,
I need to get Faye. Please, Ginny—no, don’t grab Mommy’s hair.”
Ginny,
for her part, wasn’t quiet, letting out frustrated groans and the occasional
scream that drowned out baby Faye.
When
free, she put Ginny into the seat Mikey had been in, and turned to the baby.
Ginny didn’t give up, though. For a minute I thought she was going to just sit
in the seat and scream, but she hopped back up and grabbed her mom’s sleeve.
“Story!” she yelled.
“After
I change and feed Faye, honey.”
“Story!”
Ginny insisted.
“Ginny,
please, I need both hands to change Faye.”
“I
can read to her,” I said.
“You volunteered? Why?”
I shrugged, rolling out the
gingerbread dough. “I wasn’t going to be able to finish Marlowe’s adventure
with a screaming kid. Knew that it was only a matter of time until some surly
passengers started grumbling, too.”
“I think you are more of a sap than
you would like to admit.”
“Everybody is a sap for something.”