Adam woke up and started to fuss when I unswaddled him, and sure enough, the bottom of the makeshift blanket was full of a tarry black stool, which might have disgusted me if it had come out of any other creature in the world. I pulled a wet wipe from the package and folded the blanket up to enclose as much of the mess as I could, then began cleaning the baby up.
I rolled him carefully onto his left side, supporting his stomach with my free hand, then realized that the spot I’d been trying to wipe off wasn’t residual baby poo. It was a pale brown birthmark.
The patch stretched the length of Adam’s small spine and neck and faded into his hairline.
Goose bumps popped up all over my arms. Melanie had the same mark, in that same pale shade of brown. But she’d developed hers over our past few months in the badlands and had attributed it to a hormone-induced change in pigmentation.
How could her baby have been born with exactly the same mark?
Ana opened the door and climbed into the third row, where she sat on the unfolded half of the bench. “He didn’t find any diapers, but there’s this.” She handed me another T-shirt.
“Ana, look.” I lifted the baby and held him against my chest, so she could see his back. “Mellie had the same mark along her spine.”
Ana squinted to see in the dimly lit cargo area. Her eyes widened. “How weird that you all three have the same birthmark! It must be genetic.” She rolled up Adam’s soiled shirt and laid out the clean one for me.
“What? I don’t have that. And it can’t be a birthmark. Mellie didn’t have hers until a few months ago.”
“Well, whatever it is, you have it too,” Anabelle insisted as I laid the baby on his back on the clean shirt. “I saw it when we bathed in the river, back in Ashland.” She frowned. “That seems like a lifetime ago. So much has gone wrong since then.”
I couldn’t argue with that, but…“You’re sure? Here.” I swaddled the baby as best I could and handed him carefully to Ana, then turned my back to her. I lifted my shirt and angled my back toward the dim interior light. “Is there really something there?”
“Yes. A stripe straight up your spine. Light brown. Just a shade darker than your skin. It seems even weirder, knowing all three of you have it.”
I frowned, staring out the rear windshield into the darkened badlands. “And you’re sure it’s the same as Adam’s and Mellie’s?”
“Yes.” The SUV shifted, and her reflection in the glass leaned in for a closer look at my back. “Itmustbe something you inherited, if all three of you have it.”
“Not unless you’re secretly related to Grayson,” Eli said. “Because she has the same mark.”
Startled, I let my shirt fall into place, then turned to find the sentinel standing in the open passenger’s doorway.
“What?”
Eli flushed. “I wasn’t…I didn’t…” He cleared his throat and started over. “She turned around to put on a fresh shirt after a sparring session a couple of days ago, and I saw it. A pale brown stripe up her spine. Lighter than my skin, but darker than the rest of hers. I wanted to ask, but…”
“But you didn’t want her to know you’d seen,” I guessed, and he nodded.
“Whatisit?”
“I don’t know.” I took the baby back from Anabelle and noticed that Eli held a canister in one hand. “Is that what I think it is?”
He glanced down, as if he’d forgotten what had brought him back to the SUV. “Oh. Yes. I didn’t find any diapers, but this was in the bottom of a box with some protein bars and a jug of water. There’s a baby bottle too.”
When he held up the canister of powdered baby formula, I remembered that Reese had packed it in the box of emergency provisions and put it in the back of the SUV when we’d left Ashland, “just in case” our two vehicles got separated.
“Thanks,” I said when he set the canister on the folded bench seat. “Could you mix one up for me?”
“I’ll do my best.” Eli took the formula and headed back to the other vehicle for water and the bottle.
“I guess I’ll try to find a bag for this.” Ana held up the soiled shirt, wadded into a tight ball. “Until we can wash it.” When she followed Eli toward the other car, I cradled little Adam in my arms and paced a few steps between the vehicles.
“Okay, little man, this is it,” I whispered as I walked, and he closed his tiny eyes against the glare from the setting sun. “I love you. I know you can’t understand what I’m saying, but I hope you’ll always know that. And your mother—she would have moved heaven and earth with her own two hands to be here with you if she could have.”
I lifted the little bundle, and his eyes fluttered, then fell shut again. I laid a kiss on his impossibly soft cheek, and my tears left dark spots on the makeshift blanket.
“Nina, he might be okay,” Anabelle said, and I jumped, startled by her quiet approach. “You never know.”
“I do know.” I wiped my cheeks with my spare hand and tried to smile at her. “Hewillbe okay. I need you to take him now.” I held the baby out to her, and she smiled and started to take him—then looked closer at my face.
