Page 44 of The Pakhan's Secret Baby

14

RASHID

The boy hasn't stopped crying since the car, and I'm starting to think he's never going to.

I carry him through the front door and Marta freezes in the kitchen doorway, staring at the screaming child in my arms.

Clearly she was not informed that I'd be having company in the form of a baby, and she doesn’t look quite prepared.

"Get my mother," I tell her, and she disappears down the hallway without a word.

This is a nightmare. I figured there'd be crying, but forty minutes through the doctor's exam and then a thirty minute drive is a bit excessive.

He is so attached to his mother I'm going to have to alter my plans.

I can't deal with a spoiled child.

I hold Lex against my chest and try what I saw Emory do when she affectionately coddled him on the school courtyard, pressing his head into the crook of my neck and rocking him.

It doesn't work for me.

His face is soaked and red and his fists are balled up against my shirt, pushing away from me with everything he has.

He doesn't want me.

He doesn't know me, and right now I'm just another stranger who ripped him away from the people he trusts.

This is her fault.

Had I known him as an infant, he'd feel comfortable around me, and I'd have had time to learn the important rules of rearing a child.

Right now this feels contrary to everything I know.

I murder people who blink wrong.

I'm not cut out for comforting an infant.

Mother comes up the hallway in her house slippers with her hair still pressed flat on one side from her nap.

She's scowling before she even reaches me and I can tell she's about to say something sharp, but then she sees the boy and her mouth shuts.

She stands there for a second studying him with her hand hovering over her mouth.

And her whole countenance changes on a dime.

The hard angry shell of a woman crumbles as she shuffles over to me with outstretched arms, replaced by someone I haven't ever met.

"Give him to me," she says, gesturing with her hands rapidly.

I hand Lex over and she takes him with a grace I didn't expect from a woman who complains about her frail body every chance she gets.

She tucks him against her shoulder, puts one hand flat on his back, and starts moving in a slow circle, humming a low tune I don't recognize.

Within thirty seconds his screaming drops to whimpering and frantic stuttering breathing.

Within a minute he's just hiccupping against her neck with his fingers curled around the collar of her dress.

He lays his head on her shoulder and his eyes shut, and I am utterly speechless.