Page 71 of Finding Basil

“Hush that, Basil,” Abuela warned.

Herb almost laughed at that, but he didn’t because he noticed something. When Basil was talking, Sage’s cry became a squeak and then he started sucking on his hand.

“See, he’s hungry.”

“We fed him half an hour ago.”

“Then he’s wet.”

The women were all staring at him like he’d lost his mind. “He’s not crying,” Herb whispered to Basil.

Sage was perfectly content sucking on his hand as long as the two men were looking in on him.

“Ladies, will you help make your point? Move away, so he can’t see you?”

They did, and Herb gripped Basil’s arm and moved him back, out of Sage’s sight.

Sure enough, a fuss started, and it wasn’t thirty seconds before he was full-on screaming.

The ladies all crossed their arms over their chests, smirking in sync as they stared. Their point was made.

“Okay, fine, I’ll give you that one, but that doesn’t help much. How are we supposed to get anything done while he needs to see us all the time?”

Herb wanted to know too, so they strolled the baby back inside the house, and they all sat around the living room to hear the good advice they should have been asking for all along.

Michelle said, “Those baby carriers that you can wear on you are one thing, or, if you’re cooking or cleaning the kitchen, set him in one of those bouncy seats, set him right on the island. He can see you moving around, know you’re right there.”

“Do that for a few days,” Katherine said. “Keep him up as much as you can, letting him nap for only a couple of hours, then wake him, wait until he fusses to be fed, or fusses to be changed. Don’t just automatically feed or change him, so you can learn what each cry sounds like. Soon, he’s going to be sleeping better at night.”

“Unless he gets colic,” Abuela added. “But that’s a whole different thing. And we can help with that too.”

It was a week before Sage was straightened out, but at the end of that week, he was sleeping almost through the night. They took him everywhere with him, even into the greenhouse, which he seemed to love. They’d sit him in his bouncy seat, and he’d stare around at all the plants, just cooing away.

When they’d got some sleep, Herb and Basil were feeling more like themselves, and Sage, well, he was the most beloved child in the world, as far as they were concerned. They adored the little boy, and they each knew it. They wanted more. Many more.

Being a farmer had been Basil’s dream all his life. Herb came to that dream much later, but that dream conquered, the newdream they both shared was their family. Their growing family. That night, they saw on the sofa-the orange sofa that Herb brought over to the new place, whether Lila bitched about it or not-and Basil held Sage on his lap as they both spoke to him, telling him stories about the time Daddy Herb moved to Foggy Basin.

“He didn’t know anything,” Basil said, “but he learned fast. Just like you will. You’ll play in the dirt, grow things, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a farmer.”

“You can be anything you want,” Herb said. “As long as you never leave home.”

The End