Angeline had begun to cry in the night again. From the cradle resting just beside the bed, Belgrieve suddenly heard her loud wailing, and he jolted up. Without even sparing the time to strap his prosthetic leg on, he frantically peered into the cradle and saw the infant with black hair which melded with the darkness of night crying her heart out.
“Now, now. It’s okay.” He lifted her up and gently soothed her until the infant stopped crying and closed her eyes. He returned her to the cradle, but it wasn’t long before she was crying again. These past few nights since he had picked up the girl in the mountains, Belgrieve had hardly gotten any sleep. As soon as he dozed off, the baby would cry him awake. During the day, he was busily navigating his crops or the mountains, so he wanted to at least rest easy at night, but the baby wasn’t having any of it.
Belgrieve massaged his temple and resignedly lit the oil lamp. No matter how many times he tried to sleep, he knew he would just be woken up anyway, so he was better off staying awake.
Looking at the baby sleeping so soundly now, Belgrieve felt somewhat resentful. He shook his head—he didn’t know who her parents were, but the baby was in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar man. Perhaps it was the faint lingering image of her parents, or the memory of their scent or their presence, that would wake her from her sleep. That was understandable. And he had taken on the responsibility to raise her when he had found her—so there was little sense in resenting her for the trouble of it all.
The autumn festival was near, and with winter following it, the nights had become terribly cold. He would never let the flames in the fireplace die out, but even so, as soon as he left the bed, his breath came out in puffs of vapor as he paced around the house.
Belgrieve flipped through an old book by lamplight, worn from the many times he had read through it. The book detailed the ecology, danger, and behavioral patterns of various fiends, past and present. Furthermore, it detailed the vegetation and ores that could be found in the dungeons that these fiends inhabited. He had brought it back with him from his time as an adventurer in the big city and would give it a read whenever he found the time. His own notes had filled in all the margins on each page. Every time he reread it, he would still find something new to write in.
Where did I put my pen? he wondered, when suddenly his mind turned to the baby. With the lamp in hand, he inspected the crib. The baby’s face was red by the light of the flame, and her glossy black hair reflected its light. She seemed to be asleep. Belgrieve gazed at her, relieved, but perhaps the lamplight was too radiant, as the baby grimaced and groaned.
“Ah, sorry...”
Belgrieve quickly pulled the lamp away and pulled the covers over her. That seemed to calm her down again. Strangely, it seemed the baby wouldn’t cry so long as he was awake. She would keep him up at night, and over the course of his working day, he would have to feed her goat milk, change her diapers, or rock her in his arms. These past few days had been terribly busy. His friend Kerry’s wife had helped out quite a bit, but curiously, the baby had taken to Belgrieve. Whenever she was in a bad temper, it did not matter how much anyone else tried to pacify her—she would only stop crying the very second Belgrieve lifted her in his arms. And so, he couldn’t just leave her in anyone else’s care. Belgrieve would head out to the fields or mountains with the baby slung over his back.
It was quite hectic. He had looked after kids from other houses before, but that had only been temporary. Once it was time to go, the children would all return home. But this child’s home was right here. There was no breather to be had whenever he was “done” looking after her. If he’d had a wife to help him, perhaps he would have slowly built up his constitution and awareness as a parent over the course of her pregnancy—but this child had been dropped on Belgrieve out of nowhere. There was no way he was ready to be her father.
With all of that said, Belgrieve was in a bit of distress to have been roped into child-rearing he had never anticipated on top of his daily labors. He had friends with many children, and they made it seem easy enough, but this was far more than he had bargained for. He had to tend to her every need, and the diapers needed to be washed and dried every day. He didn’t have enough of them and needed to borrow quite a few from Kerry’s house. Only when he was looking after a baby did he realize the huge difference between lending a hand with babysitting and actually being a father himself.
Winter was coming; once it was upon them, he would no longer be able to dry laundry under the blue sky, and the water would be cold too. There was less sweat-inducing work during the winter, so he had gotten used to doing his laundry less frequently in the cold months—there hadn’t been much of it as a bachelor. But he couldn’t just leave the baby’s diapers soiled—he already dreaded the pain of plunging his hands into freezing water every day.
Belgrieve spread open the book, absently flipping through the pages without digesting the words. With winter approaching, he wanted to economize on his lamp oil usage, but when he considered that he would need to get up again as soon as he dared lie back down in bed, he did not feel inclined to snuff out the light.
Honestly, there was much that he saw as a hassle, and the thought would cross his mind at times that he had made a hasty decision. Even so, he never thought of it as a mistake. After he’d lost his leg, the thought of marrying hadn’t once crossed his mind—yet somehow, a baby had come to him of all people. It was a lot of hard work, but whenever he looked at the baby’s sleeping face, or when he felt her small hand grasp his finger, he felt enough warmth from the depths of his heart to dispel those hardships.
Raising a child came with its share of troubles, but his current biggest worry was coming up with a name, as the infant was still without one. Families with a lot of children seemed to grow rather arbitrary with their naming choices the more children that were born—perhaps a case of parents lashing out at their children, or perhaps a case of parents growing complacent after getting too used to child-rearing. But this was Belgrieve’s first child, and he wouldn’t even consider naming her without giving it some thought. His worries were compounding now—it had been seven days since he had taken her in, but he wasn’t any closer to deciding on a name.
Belgrieve propped up his head. It should be at least a little girly, he thought. His mind wandered to various flowers and birds he could name her after, but none of them stuck. He sighed and turned his attention to the book once more. He felt it would be shameful to let her go without a name for too long, but he was so fixated on the problem that he was getting nowhere with solving it. He was simply too out of his depth to focus on it in the first place. He was still mulling over this dilemma as his eyes passed over a certain passage of the book.