CHAPTER 25
Maggie
For a couple seconds Mama just stands there frozen with the baby in her arms. It’s as if she hasn’t heard Evie say that Willa is running a fever and we had the aspirin with us, and that she tried to bring the fever down with a cool rag but it’s not working.
But then the moment passes, and something big and fierce rises within Mama. She turns to me. “Put that basket down.”
When I do, she hands me the baby.
“Don’t bring this child near Willa,” Mama continues, speaking to Evie and me like we are soldiers getting our marching orders. “Warm some milk in a pan and see if you can get him to take any. Squeeze it into his mouth with a dropper if you must. Then wash the filth off him. Maggie, you run over to the church when he’s fed and cleaned up and ask for Mrs. Arnold. Tell her what’s happened. And tell Uncle Fred he needs to go to the police and tell them we have this baby in our care. I don’t want us all getting arrested for kidnapping. See if he can get one of his doctor friends to come look at him. And don’t forget what I said. Don’t bring him anywhere near Willa’s room.”
And then she picks up the basket and races up the stairs with it.
Evie watches her go and then she turns to me. “Who is that?” she says, looking at the baby.
“He’s an orphan. We don’t know his name. I found him. He hasn’t been fed or changed in who knows how long.”
Evie stares at me for a second. “How do you know all that? How do you know he’s an orphan?”
I hesitate and she notices.
“His mother was dead in the next room,” I finally say.
Evie looks both horrified and doubtful. “Are you sure?”
A warm ribbon of shame wraps itself about me, but I shake it off. “After all that’s happened, you really think I don’t know what a dead person looks like?” I drop my coat on the floor and bring the naked baby close to my body, making my arms his blanket. He tries to squall, but he can barely make a sound now, he’s so weak. I move past Evie to go into the kitchen to warm up the milk.
“And you justtookhim?” she says, following me.
“What else could we have done?” I open the icebox and pull out a bottle of milk.
Evie’s brow is creased with consternation, but she says nothing.
I look down at the baby in my arms, whimpering and rooting at my chest for nourishment and comfort. “Does Willa have it?” I ask. “Does she have the flu?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Her words settle around us both as she takes the milk bottle from me and pours some in a pan. Then she lights the stove and puts it over the tiny flame.
“What was it like down there?” Evie says as we both stand there, looking at the baby.
“It was awful.”
“He needs a diaper.”
I think of the clothes and diapers that were Henry’s and that are now folded and tucked away upstairs in Mama’s cedar chest. Evie isthinking of those things, too. I know she is because when I say, “Mama won’t mind, will she?” she just says she’ll go get a diaper, a blanket, and something for the baby to wear.
“We’ll need to put some cornstarch on that rash,” Evie says as she turns to go upstairs.
When she comes back a few minutes later, her arms full of everything that had been Henry’s, my throat swells a little, and I must look away. The milk is warm now, and I blink back my tears as I take the pan off the stove and turn off the gas.
“Let’s put the milk in a bowl and dip a cloth in. Maybe he can suck the milk off that,” Evie says. “You can feed him while I clean him up. Maybe he won’t mind so much then.”
So that’s what we do. We spread out one of Henry’s soft blankets on the kitchen floor and put the baby on top. He screws up his little face in protest, but he doesn’t have the strength to fight much. I dip a cloth into the warm milk and put it to his mouth and it doesn’t take long for him to figure out if he sucks the cloth, he can get the milk. While I feed him, Evie washes his red and blistered private parts with cool water and cotton wool. Then she sprinkles cornstarch all over the redness and puts one of Henry’s diapers on him. Once he’s diapered and has a little milk in his tummy, he lets us wash the rest of him. As he is drifting off to a contented sleep, Uncle Fred comes in from the funeral parlor, probably to get some lunch. He sees us there on the floor with the baby now lying silent and unmoving on the blanket. He no doubt thinks someone has used the front stoop to drop off an infant dead from the flu.
“What’s all this?” he shouts, yanking down his mask.
I tell my story all over again, and this time when I get to the part where I say the baby was alone except for his dead mother, the ribbon of shame doesn’t feel as hot. As I repeat the same things that I told Mama and Evie, I become even more convinced that he is without a doubt a child without parents and a brother to a dying sister.
