I nod. Of course I will. I mean, fuck. I don’t knowwhat I’m doing. I’m not planning on doing anything but dropping off baby shit and backing away. Making sure she gets some sleep. Some food. “She eat?” I ask, suddenly thinking about the sharp collarbones visible through her tank top.
Poppy shakes her head. “No. She had some water, though. Maybe once the baby eats, she will.”
“Thank you. Again,” I tell her, my words feeling as awkward as I’m sure they sound.
I grab the bags and head down the hallway toward her room, leaving Poppy and Phantom alone. I stand outside Claire’s room and listen, but I don’t hear a thing. No crying. No talking. No TV. Nothing. I hesitate to knock, but I’ve got diapers and food the baby probably needs.
“Claire. It’s Savage. I’ve got stuff for the baby.” I rap on the door softly with the heel of my hand.
I don’t hear anything until the dead bolt flips open. The door opens a crack, and I see Claire’s eye—the green one that isn’t swollen and marred by bruising.
“I can leave this out here. It’s a lot.” I set everything down and point to one bag. “This one has the best bottled water. I didn’t know there were different kinds of water, but it’s heavy. I can bring it in if you want.”
She opens the door a crack more. “Okay. You…you can come in.”
I shake my head. “It’s all right. I don’t need to come in, I’ll just…”
“Please?” she asks softly. “I have a killer headache,and it would help me a lot if you’d just bring that in here.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Of course she does. She hasn’t eaten. She has a shitty black eye. I grab the bags and step inside.
I drop the bags right inside the door, which is wide open behind me. Claire is wearing a rock band T-shirt several sizes too big for her over some yoga pants that look like they might belong to one of the girls here. They are loose on her too, emphasizing how thin she is. Her wet hair is wrapped up in a towel, and she’s holding Aurora, who is also wrapped in a towel, in her arms.
She looks shyly at the bags. “Did you happen to bring any diapers? I have her in her birthday suit under this towel, and a diaper would be a big help.”
I fumble through the bags and grab a purple plastic package with a baby who looks about Aurora’s age on it. I hold them out to her. “I can get more tomorrow.”
Claire looks at me for a second, studying my face. Then she cracks a tiny smile. “She’ll be fine with these for a few days at least. Maybe even a week.”
“I don’t know how much kids piss and shit,” I mutter apologetically. I don’t know if I’m ready to find out.
Claire looks at me, her green eyes intently searching my face, and she giggles.
“What?” I ask. “What’d I say?”
She looks away as she gently lays Aurora on the bedand bends down to carefully reposition the towel so it’s under the baby’s behind.
“You make babies sound like puppies,” she says. “Pissing and shitting…”
I shrug, lifting both my hands in the air. “I don’t know,” I say. “Isn’t that what they do?”
She makes a soft sound as she tears open the diapers. I busy myself taking a bunch of things out of the bags and stacking them neatly on the coffee table. I focus on unwrapping a cheap burner phone I got her, just so she has something to call her family or friends. That feels like a bigger conversation, though, so I take the phone out of the packaging and program in my number.
As I work, I can make out Claire cooing quietly to her daughter, and I hear little noises as she puts the diaper on. Aurora must grab for the towel on her mom’s head because I hear a quick intake of breath like Claire is in pain, but then she whispers, “My sweet angel. You’re playing with your mama?”
I thought babies screamed and made all kinds of noises, but these two are so, so quiet. Even Aurora’s wriggling and sounds while she gets her diaper changed seem too small, too still. A knife twists deep in my chest, and I wonder… Was I like that? Was I trained to stay quiet from my earliest days? Have they spent their entire lifetime like I did, trying to fade away?
Something breaks open in me at the thought, and I have to shatter the silence. I’m not that kid anymore.And I get to make noise. “You need to eat,” I bark, maybe a little too loudly. “I know a great diner.”
“I’m done changing her,” she says. “You can turn around now.”
When I do, I see that Claire’s hair is wet and falling over her shoulders. Aurora is holding the towel that was once on her mama’s hair in her hands. She’s drooling and looking at me with wide, bright, beautiful eyes. Innocent eyes. I swallow the lump in my throat.
“What do you want?” I blurt out.
Claire blinks and bounces lightly on her toes, holding her daughter close. Claire looks so thin and vulnerable, fragile and delicate. The black eye looks even more violent somehow.
“Anything is okay,” she says.
