Think About Love by Vanessa Grant

dark, filled with some emotion she couldn't decipher, his voice cold. "What have I taken from you? Car keys?"
    "Yes, the keys. The baby, insisting you carry her because she's heavy, as if I'm incapable. You took away my right to decide when I'm tired, when I go to bed, sending me off to bed like a child Friday night. Now you're deciding when I'm going to tell my grandmother, and how. Did I try to tell you what to say to your family, when to say it?"
    "For Christ's sake, Sam—"
    Behind them, Kippy whimpered.
    Cal ran a rough hand through his hair, then growled in a low voice, "Sam, you're on edge. It's been a tough week and—"
    "Damn you! Don't minimize me, treat me like some bimbo who doesn't know what she feels, what she wants."
    Kippy's whimper turned into a wail. Samantha felt like wailing along with her.
    "I'll get her," she said, reaching for her seat belt.
    "I'll look after it," said Cal. He had the door open and was easing Kippy out of her baby carrier before Samantha finished unfastening her seat belt.
    "That's exactly what I mean," she protested when he sat down in the front seat with Kippy in his arms. Her voice rising, she said, "Ever since I said I would marry you, you're acting as if you can just... just take over for me. As if I'm not capable of caring for my own niece, as if I need you to do the littlest thing."
    Kippy seemed content in Cal's arms, had curled up and tucked her head into the curve of his neck. Samantha felt as if she'd been walking out in the ocean and suddenly the ground dropped away from under her feet, leaving only churning swirls of water.
    "You don't want my help with the baby?"
    "No, Cal. No, I don't."
    He gently shifted the baby. "You'd better take her, then."
    She accepted the warm weight of her niece, and as the transfer was made, Kippy stretched her neck and began to cry.
    "Cal—"
    "I think I'll walk."
    The door opened, then closed, and his long, lean body became only an image in the side mirror, walking toward Albert Street.
    "Cal!"
    Kippy responded with a wail.
    She couldn't go after him, running, clutching a crying baby.
    She rocked Kippy in the small space behind the steering wheel, felt her own shouted words echoing back at her. No wonder Kippy was crying. She'd been shouting at Cal—had done entirely too much shouting the last few days. She never lost her cool, but she was losing it all over the place now. She'd been ranting at Cal, listing his faults in a tirade, just as if....
    Just as if she were her own mother.  
    No wonder he'd walked out.
    Kippy wailed louder, and Samantha pushed the car door open and began walking the baby along the sidewalk outside the BC Access building. "I'm sorry, Kippers. Settle down and I promise I won't do any more shouting."
    The words had just boiled out of her, as if she had no control at all. She had to get control.
    "The shortest engagement on record," she murmured to Kippy, whose cries had turned to snuffles. "Are you ready to go shopping?"
    Kippy didn't answer but consented to be fastened and belted into the backseat of the car. When Samantha slid into the driver's seat, her niece was watching her soberly.
    "We're going to the bookstore to find a book about babies," Samantha told her. "Dorothy didn't need one, I guess, but I do. Then we'll go to the hospital, stop in the washroom while I comb my hair, maybe put some lipstick on. By then I figure I'll have stopped looking like a woman been screaming at a man."
    How could she have lost control like that?
    She started the car, drove to Albert Street, and turned downhill, the direction Cal had turned as he walked away.
    No sign of him, which was a relief because she didn't know what to say to him—and a worry because it wasn't over. They'd have to talk again. He'd find his way to Gabriola Island, she supposed. He'd have to return for his helicopter. Then they'd talk, say good-bye, because this obviously wasn't going to work. A business deal, he'd said, but she'd been deluded to think she