Free Morning by Nancy Thayer

Jones, who was struggling with a crusted scalloped potatoes pan, looked over her shoulder.
    “Damn!” Jamie said. “She always does that. Just when my hands are wet. I’ve got to feed her. I know that cry, and it’s been four hours. Would someone get her for me while I finish this pan?”
    It was only natural for Sara, the only woman doing nothing, to say, casually, “I’ll get her, Jamie.” No one fainted from shock, so she turned from the kitchen, her heart racing. She had really had so little to do with babies before. She wasn’t even sure how to carry one.
    But Sheldon handed his daughter over to Sara at once. “She’s soaking,” he said, his eyes fixed on the television—it was first and goal—“you’ll have to change her.”
    “Um,” Sara began, slightly alarmed.
    “The diaper bag’s in the guest bedroom upstairs,” Sheldon said. Then, as his team scored, “All right!” he yelled, and left her to her fate.
    The baby cradled carefully in her arms, Sara left the living room full of yelling, clapping, stomping men, and made her way through marauding children up the stairs. The little girl wailed and thrashed her legs and arms determinedly, hitting Sara in the chin and chest. Sara was amazed at the strength of this six-month-old, at the difficulty she was having holding her as she twisted in her arms.
    “Sssh, sssh, there, there,” she said. “You’re okay, sweetie,” she said, lookingdown at the baby, who had a pink ribbon tied around a whale’s spout of dark hair. She gave the baby a big smile.
    “A aaaaaaaah !” the baby screamed, her face contorted.
    In the bedroom, things only got worse. Sara had never changed a baby before, but would rather die than admit that to any of the other women. And surely she could do it, she was not an idiot, it was not that hard.
    But the baby girl was enraged now because she was hungry and wet, because she didn’t know this stranger, because this woman was handling her with clumsiness instead of the rapid efficiency she was used to from her mother. Sara gently put the baby down on the bed and unsnapped her terry-cloth jumper. She pulled at the tape holding the wet diaper together, then stood a moment wondering what to do with the diaper. She couldn’t put it down on the bed, it was so wet it would soil the quilt, she couldn’t leave the baby to cross the room and put the diaper in the wastebasket. Her hesitation made the little girl furious. The baby kicked her fat bare thighs as if she were in a bike race, and her cries became frantic screams. Sara might as well have been pinching her.
    Sara bent over the baby, her face growing hot with shame and frustration—and to her absolute horror, with anger: how could this baby embarrass her this way? She was doing her best.
    “Sssh. Sssh. You’re all right, little Rosemary. I know you want your dinner. Let’s change your diaper. Just give me one more minute, please,” she whispered at the screaming child.
    But little Rosemary flailed her arms and legs and twisted her body, turning over, so that Sara had to get hold of the chubby little creature and turn her back over on top of the dry diaper. This made the baby even madder, and her screams would have drowned out a fire engine’s. Sara’s heart was thudding and her hands moved like great clumsy wooden sticks.
    Suddenly, flashing across the room, an angel of mercy to the rescue of a tortured child, came The Virgin, Mary. She grabbed up the distressed baby and held her against her chest, whispering in her ear. She stroked the back of her head. The baby’s bare bottom hung down over her arm.
    Sara hoped the baby would shit on Mary’s sweater.
    But of course Rosemary didn’t. Instead, leaning back and looking up, she saw a face she recognized—Mary babysat for Rosemary—and, comforted, her cries began toease.
    “Poor baby, poor wittle ba,” Mary said. “Aren’t you a foolish ba?” She jiggled the baby, smiled at her. As the baby calmed, Mary looked at