“A lot.” That was the obtuse answer Neil gave everyone except me and our accountant, but anyone could just Google the project and find out the official tally. “But don’t worry. There have been major donations, both corporate and private, that will keep this place going under its own steam.”
“Your father is in a unique position to provide start up as well as encourage high-profile, high-dollar philanthropy,” I added. That was how I kept myself from freaking out about the possibility that even after all of this work and money spent, the center could conceivably fail.
“And there are several existing groups working with us and sharing their income to—”
Olivia cut him off by making a sound like a soft-serve ice cream machine breaking down. And the sound did not originate from anywhere north of her diaper.
“Well, thank you for your support,” Neil said dryly, and handed her off to Emma. “I believe this belongs to you?”
For as much as Neil loved his granddaughter, he was adamant that his diaper-changing days were over.
“Let me change her!” I eagerly volunteered. “I can show off my skills. I’ve been practicing.”
“Practicing?” Emma raised one brow. Her facial expressions were eerily like her father’s.
“Yes,” I deadpanned. “I’m paying someone to teach me how to change a diaper, and they let me practice on their baby.”
Emma’s jaw dropped. “Sophie, I want to believe that you are joking, but we both live in this city, and we both know—”
“Chill out, I’m fucking with you.” I shook my head as we started walking toward the restroom. “But think of the missed opportunity. You could be renting this beautiful baby butt out to strangers for diaper training.”
“I’m not sure if I should be disturbed by the fact that you’re advocating selling my daughter’s bum, or if I should applaud your ingenuity.”
“You get your unfettered capitalism from your father.”
The gender-neutral restroom had a separate facility for parents with small children. There was a built-in changing table with a molded plastic oval to prevent a baby from rolling off.
“Wow, they’ve really thought of everything,” Emma said, running her fingers over the smooth plastic.
I gently laid Olivia in the recessed groove but kept one hand on her as I rummaged in the diaper bag Emma set on the counter beside me.
“I don’t think she’s going to manage to flop out,” Emma said, though I could tell from her smile that she appreciated the care I took with her daughter.
“It only takes a second,” I repeated the word
s my grandmother always had said about potential infant disasters.
Emma watched me as I slid the new diaper beneath Olivia’s bottom before undoing the one she was already wearing. “You’re getting really good at that.”
“Thank you. That’s high praise, coming from an expert.” I wrinkled my nose and made a goofy face at Olivia as I cooed adoringly, “Oh, my goodness, it smells like a sewer in your pants!”
Emma laughed. “You’d be a great mom, you know?”
It was a well-intentioned comment. Though Emma was aware that her father and I had aborted a pregnancy early in our relationship, and I had, on occasion, mentioned to her that we weren’t planning on having children, I was sure that I’d never told her definitively that I didn’t want any and that the subject wasn’t up for public discussion.
“Well, in another life, maybe,” I said, intentionally glib.
“Or in this one.” Emma shrugged. “I see the way Dad is with Olivia. He’s always loved babies.”
“Your father can’t have children, anymore,” I reminded her. In fact, one of Neil’s biggest fears was that we would accidentally get pregnant, and the baby would be all messed up from the chemotherapy he’d gone through. Though the chances of conception post stem cell transplant were statistically rare, thoughts like that kept Neil awake at night.
“He can’t, but it’s not like there aren’t—” She stopped herself. “That’s not fair of me, is it? If you two wanted children, you would have had them, by now.”
“Yup,” I agreed. “And we had the chance. We didn’t take it.”
I rolled up the baby wipes into the dirty diaper and slipped it into one of the provided disposal bags before dropping it into the waste bin through the hole in the counter. Emma picked Olivia up while I went to wash my hands.
“Besides,” I went on as I waved my wet hands in front of the automatic paper towel dispenser, “if we had a baby of our own, we couldn’t enjoy your baby so much.”