“Oh God!” I gasp, hands over my mouth.
My first thought is that it’s a new-new-newborn, like bloody and fresh out of the womb. My second is that it’s sunburnt or suffering from exposure.
It’s pink. Like bright, violent bubblegum pink.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I reassure us both, hands shaking as I stretch them out.
The little pink thing moves—and it has a tail.
Oh! It’s a deformed bobcat! A hairless, deformed little animal. I recoil and play my light over the wriggling, wailing thing left in a clump of pink and white mountain laurel and realize—it’s not an animal. But it has hooves. And a tail. And itty-bitty horns.
I’d puke in panic or pure terror, but that muffin has long since been digested, and my mouth is as dry as one of those bleached cow skulls in the desert.
When the light shines on the baby’s—creature’s?—face, she raises little curled fists and rubs her eyes.
It’s a girl, judging by the wrinkly pink anatomy.
I swallow and reach for my jacket, which is tied around my waist. “Please stop crying. Please—please don’t eat me like that devil doll in the horror movie,” I whisper, bladder threatening a strike.
The crying fades the closer I get. Squinty blue eyes peer at me, and little arms beg me to lift.
“You need uppies?” I choke out, not sure what I’m seeing.
Who would leave a kid all alone, naked, in the woods? This isn’t quite a newborn, but it’s not any kind of old enough to care for itself.
Something powerful attacks me. Not the baby. A memory I think I’ve buried for a long, long time.
Two people, entering a room where I’m in my crib. Maybe I should’ve been in a bed, but I wasn’t yet. Able to stand, able to walk, not able to pull myself over without getting hurt, so I stayed still. Trapped. I raised my arms when I saw the people in suits.
The memory connects so hard that I can feel everything I felt back then like it’s happening now.I want out. I’m hungry and thirsty. I want out of these wet, dirty clothes. I want...
I want help. I want someone to save me.
I pick her up and hold her to my chest, the way no one did for me. I wrap my arms around her tightly, and her crying stops. She’s not old enough to call for “mama” like I did. Mama didn’t come. Mama left, and I was too old for someone to snatch me up and claim me as they might a cute little baby. No, I was an almost two-year-old with a speech delay and missing milestones.
No one wanted a messed-up toddler that needed speech and physical therapy, that might have brain damage or somethingequally bad, something passed down from a mother who used drugs and drank.
Just like no one would want her. This little pink baby. This little, messed-up, deformed baby with growths and some sort of prehistoric throwback tail. Clubbed feet, maybe? Warts of some kind on her head? I don’t know. I’m not examining her, I’m just holding her, swaying us both. “We’re okay, we’re okay, we’re okay,” I whisper on a loop.
Someone left me behind, didn’t care whether I lived or died.
Someone tossed her away, afraid of her differences.
“Well, hey,” I pull her down, shifting from pressing her on my chest to holding her in a cradle made of my scrawny arms, which suddenly feel much stronger. “You’re beautiful, you little pink nugget. Pretty as a rose. Pretty as—” I look at the place where I plucked her from, hoping I see a note, some clothes, a dirty diaper—anything! But I don’t. “Pretty as the mountain laurel. Laurel, that’s a girl’s name, isn’t it? Perfect name for a pretty pink baby girl like you. Although if you grow up and want to be a total badass goth chick, I won’t care. And if you change colors, I won’t care.” I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m babbling. But something is clear.
I’m telling Laurel that I’m going to be around when she grows up. Apparently.
Laurel whimpers and sucks in air. Her belly is thin and hollowed in.
She needs help, and I’m going to help her. “Let me just get you a nice policeman, and I...” I stop, the phone moving away from my ear as fast as it went towards it.
The cops will come. And they’ll give Laurel to someone who will put her in some freak show. Make her life a hell on the internet. I can already see the clickbait. “Scroll to see the pink demon baby! Watch as we stab her tail to show that it’s really connected, not a prosthetic!”
No, no. Nothing that horrific.
That won’t happen. She’ll just... Wait for someone to take her home. A forever home.
Or she’ll never be picked. People will only see what’s “wrong” with her. Then she’ll be too old. She’ll bounce around, bullied and teased, and then age out, and—
