It was harderthan trying to reason with Hank Wyatt. Margaret spent a couple of minutes retying the knots in the rope around her waist. She turned and walked toward the banana plant. As Margaret reached for a banana, the rope went taut as a clothesline.
“Not again,” she muttered. For what seemed like the tenth time in the last hour, Margaret turned and followed the thirty feet of rope. This time, it was threaded like Maypole ribbons around and through three hibiscus bushes and two spiky pandanus palms.
Right in the middle of everything stood Annabelle, the opposite end of the rope tied securely around her waist. She grinned at Margaret, then on chubby feet she began to weave in and out of the bushes, tangling the rope and poking her head out. “Peekaboo!” Then she laughed and laughed and did the same thing all over again.
The rope tugged at Margaret’s waist again and again. Annabelle seemed perfectly happy to tangle the two of them to anything and everything nearby.
Margaret’s neighbor’s two pet pugs had been easier to care for than this one child, and those dogs had half dragged her down Taylor Street chasing an alley cat.
There was a logical way to handle this. There had to be. She thought about it for a few minutes. Her leash idea had made sense, but now? She glanced at the rope twisted through the trees and bushes. It looked like a game of cat’s cradle.
Lydia ran up the beach with a bucket. Margaret looked up, the rope looped at her feet, and waved. Lydia slowed down, looking at her sister, then at the rope. She set down the bucket filled with mangoes. “My mama used to play with her.”
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You know, fun little games like all mothers do with children.”
“I don’t know, Lydia.”
The girl cocked her head and stared at her as if she were an oddity. “Why not?”
“I haven’t been around children much.”
“Don’t you like children?” There was a challenge in her tone, as if she expected Margaret to admit she didn’t like her.
“It has nothing to do with liking or disliking anyone or anything. I just don’t know any children. I don’t know how to entertain a baby.”
Lydia turned away and seemed to think about that for a minute.
Margaret stood there equally quiet. She didn’t know how to make Lydia understand that they weren’t opponents. Or how to reach across the awkwardness of the moment.
Theodore called out to Lydia. She muttered something and ran off down the beach, seemingly eager to leave.
As Margaret watched her run away, she wondered what it was Lydia expected of her. There seemed to be a challenge to everything she said, as if she thought Margaret didn’t measure up to what an adult should be.
Margaret plopped down hard in the sand, hugged her knees, and rested her head on them, feeling like a failure for one of the few times in her life. She sat there thinking, unable to reach a plausible solution.
When faced with a dilemma in her work, she had made notes, analyzing the problem from every angle, listing all possible solutions. This method forced her to view all sides of a problem. The process opened her mind while the words kept her focused.
She looked down at the sand and began to scribble words with her finger. Girl. Anger. Loss. Orphan. Child. Mother. Baby.
Nothing came to mind. No word triggered an answer. She glanced up, frowning. Then she saw Annabelle, and any thoughts she had went off with the wind.
The child was curled beneath a hibiscus bush, a bright orange flower clutched in one small hand and two fingers of the other hand in her mouth. She looked to be sound asleep.
Margaret stood and walked over to the child, squatted down and untied the rope. Annabelle was asleep. Margaret reached out and slowly pulled her fingers from her small mouth. Annabelle sighed but didn’t wake.
Her skin was so soft and pale, unlined by time. Her cheeks were bright pink, her curly hair as deep an apricot color as the hibiscus blossom clutched in her pudgy fingers.
Her head rested on one plump arm, and her fist was next to her mouth. Her little bare toes were curled into the pale sand and waxy green hibiscus leaves clung to the ragged hem of her pique gown. She looked utterly at peace.
How could one small and happy little child create such havoc? Margaret was fast gaining a new respect for motherhood, something she hadn’t thought much about until now.
She had never watched a baby sleep. What amazed her was how quickly children could fall asleep. One minute they were running and laughing and playing and the next minute they would be asleep. Sound asleep from what she had seen in the last couple of days.
