Free Heads or Tails by Leslie A. Gordon

Examiner bagged in light blue plastic, resting on our Welcome mat. We’d purchased our mid-century flat six years before. It was a top-floor one-bedroom that hadn’t needed much work. Still, little by little, we’d upgraded certain elements — replacing the kitchen cabinets, refinishing the floors, adding a nicer vanity to the bathroom. The year before, we’d splurged for an uber comfortable L-shaped couch and high-definition TV, perfect for viewing our beloved Sharks games. The first night with the TV, we drank beers and marveled that we could even see Evgeni Nabokov’s chin stubble. We enjoyed the convenient Cole Valley location and the flat’s cozy feel — the one bedroom, just for us.
    It was nearly nine-thirty when I finally inserted the key into the door and crossed the threshold into our home. Jesse, whose body clock was totally opposite of mine (me, being the night owl), was asleep, probably worn out from the day’s training swim. After washing up, I delicately placed the car seat at the foot of the bed and crawled under the covers myself. I couldn’t believe my luck that the baby stayed asleep through all of the transitions and I began to think that perhaps babysitting an infant for a few days wouldn’t be so hard after all. Lying there, I thought of Margot and Jean, shuddering silently at how sick they’d both seemed. Finally growing sleepy, I turned onto my side and hoped that without the burden or distraction of the baby, the two of them would be able to get themselves healthy soon.
    Then, at two-thirty on the nose, Gretchen shrieked awake, sounding as if she were being stabbed. Jesse shot up in alarm, the way he always did during even the mildest middle-of-the-night earthquake.
    “Jesus fucking Christ!” It spewed from him like a reflex.
    My own heart rammed against my ribcage. It took a moment to catch my breath, to determine where the howl originated. Then I remembered.
    “I’ll get her!” I said and stumbled out of bed, clumsily making my way to the car seat, jamming my knee on the open door on the way.
    “Is she hungry?” Jesse asked. “At this hour?”
    “I don’t know.”
    I fumbled with the car seat buckle and lifted the baby up. Somehow, she seemed heavier than she had a few hours before. When I wrapped my forearm underneath her, I realized why — she was soaking.
    “She’s wet.”
    Jesse flopped back onto the pillow with a thud. I whisked the baby, still crying, out of the bedroom and crisscrossed my way around our flat trying in my mid-sleep haze to remember where all of her provisions were. I located the duffle bags near the entry way and tried to remember which one contained the diapers. I looked around for a place to put the baby but there were no extra hands and the little bouncy seat I saw Jean using at Margot’s hadn’t fit in the overstuffed bags. I tried leaning the baby up against one duffle bag while I searched the other but she instantly slid down and sobbed harder. I picked her up again and pawed through the bag with one hand. Her shrieks turned into pathetic, resigned whimpers punctuated by gasps.
    The temptation to ignore her, even to just walk away was visceral.
    “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I whispered, unclear whether I was talking to myself or to her. In seconds, a sheen of sweat formed on my forehead.
    Finally, I found a diaper and lugged the baby over to the couch. I put the new diaper under her, as I’d seen Jean do, before opening the old one. Fortunately, she was only wet. But as I slid the old diaper off her, she peed again. Because the new diaper wasn’t yet secured, urine dribbled sideways off the diaper and onto the couch. Our beloved, still-new couch.
    “Shit.”
    Then I realized that the pee had not only dripped onto the couch but across the sticky tape of the diaper that I’d just exposed after peeling off the paper protective layer. So its stickiness wore off and I had to ditch that diaper, pick the bare-bottomed baby up and go dig up