Baby (2 page)

“My umbrella, don’t forget, Larkin,” called
Mrs. Bloom. Mrs. Bloom came every summer, bringing her beach umbrella, her chair, and her little hairy dog whose full name was Craig Walter. I took the yellow umbrella from Mrs. Bloom. In her arms Craig bared his teeth at me.

The Willoughbys clutched handfuls of wild-flowers, almost gone by. Their children lugged suitcases of rocks, dead horseshoe crabs, and sea urchins that would crumble before they got home.

Lalo and I sat on the back of the truck for the short ride along the beach road to the dock. We passed people on bicycles, their baskets filled. We passed parents walking with children, babies in backpacks, dogs loping nose to the ground behind them.

At the dock cars were already lined up waiting to leave. Griffey and his musical group were there, playing “Roll Out the Barrel,” the only song they knew. Griffey played accordion and Rollie the fiddle. Arthur played his saxophone, and old man Brick played only three notes on his bagpipe: major, minor, and “something diminished,” as Mama put it.

Papa was there saying good-bye to summer people. I could see the stubble on his face, the
beginnings of his yearly winter beard that he shaved off every June before the tourists returned. Byrd and Mama were there, too, Byrd’s legs sparkling, her hair blown like tossed snow. Mama handed a wrapped package to a woman, then smiled at Lalo and me across the dock because she had sold a painting. A child in overalls ran toward the dock’s edge, arms up, until his laughing father caught him up in his arms, swinging him over his head. A young woman holding a baby stood near, watching us. A dogfight began, then ended as owners pulled on their leashes.

The cars, all stuffed with suitcases and sleeping bags and coolers, beach chairs tied on top, began to move onto the ferry. Then the bicycles were wheeled on.

“Good-bye!” called Mrs. Bloom, waving one of Craig’s small paws at us.

“Good-bye!” we shouted back.

And the gates were closed with a metal clang, the huge lines tossed on board.

Surprisingly, Griffey, Rollie, Arthur, and old man Brick began a new song.

“Whatever?” exclaimed Mama behind me.

“They’ve learned something new,” cried Lalo.

“What is it?” I asked.

“ ‘Amazing Grace,’ ” said Papa, grinning.

The
Island Queen
moved off, and my mother began to laugh. Byrd sang in her old voice:

As the boat reached the breakwater we all put our hands to our ears as the whistle blew. Above, the sky was ice-blue, low clouds skimming across, and without the noise like one of Mama’s paintings. And then it was quiet, a handful of us left: Griffey and the boys packing up their instruments, Lalo’s father hosing down his truck at the dock’s edge, islanders walking away. A couple I didn’t know held hands. Maybe they would fly out tonight on the small plane. The woman holding the baby still watched us. A cloud slipped in front of the sun.

Summer’s end.

“Your mom cried,” said Lalo as we walked up from the water through the fields.

“She always cries at the end of summer,” I said. “At the end of anything. At weddings.” I looked at Lalo. “And parades.”

Lalo burst out laughing. The Fourth of July parade was led by Griffey’s goat and the sewer-pump truck, and still my mama cried.

Lalo and I sat on the rock by the pond. Water bugs skimmed along the surface; a fish jumped, sending out circle after circle. Way off in the distance the ferry was a small dot, getting smaller, a thread of smoke rising from its stack.

“So,” said Lalo. Lalo began most sentences with
so
. Ms. Minifred, the school librarian, was trying to break him of the habit.

“Get to it, Lalo,” Ms. Minifred said. “You will miss your own marriage when the minister asks you if you take this woman and you begin with
so
. You will miss the end of your life, too, when you try to leave behind some wondrous words.”

Ms. Minifred liked wondrous words. She loved the beginnings of books, and the ends. She loved clauses and adverbial phrases and the descriptions
of sunsets and death. Lalo called her “It Was the Worst of Times Minifred.”

“You are a full-time job, Lalo,” Ms. Minifred told Lalo once after he had asked her twelve questions in a row.

“Thank you, Ms. Minifred,” said Lalo, missing the point.

I wondered what she would do when Lalo went off-island to high school. Maybe she would wither away among all the books with all the words in them until no one could ever find her again unless they opened a book. Or, she might ferment in the library like Mama’s back-porch cider that finally exploded.

“So,” repeated Lalo, “tomorrow you will buy a plaid dress and the year will begin.”

I smiled.

My mother believed in plaid. Plaid meant beginnings. Each year I began school with a plaid dress, then slowly that beginning became the past as I wore jeans and shirts, then shorts when it was hot. In my closet hung five plaid dresses, one for each year, like memorials.

“So,” I imitated Lalo, getting up from the rock and grabbing a clump of chickory, “tomorrow,
yes, I will buy a plaid dress and your mother will buy you a new lunch box.”

“And it will be another year like all the other years,” said Lalo happily.

His smile made me smile, but I knew he was wrong. All the years were changed because of what I was missing and no one would talk about. And all the years would be changed even more than Lalo and I knew, for when we walked through the meadow of chickory and meadowsweet, when we climbed up and over the rise to my house, the basket was already in the driveway, a baby sitting in it, crying. My mother stood with her hands up to her face, shocked. My father’s face was dark and still and bewildered. Only Byrd looked happily satisfied, as if something wonderful, something wished for, had happened.

And it had.

Her excitement was here.

Sometimes she dreamed of white hair, like silk, touching her face, and tiny white stones that tumbled. Beach stones, maybe. And crying. She could almost taste the salt of tears when she thought of it; the taste of memory. Why, then, wasn’t she frightened when she remembered this?

The baby looked from one face to the other, then suddenly stopped crying. It was quiet then, no one moving, as if we were actors who had forgotten our lines. Lalo moved in front of me, and I looked over his shoulder at Byrd smiling, my father’s dark look, my mother tense and pale. Then, we all turned to watch the baby slowly get up to climb out of the basket. Mama’s hands went out protectively, fluttering like birds; Byrd took a step, but the baby, legs twisted in a blanket, fell hard on the driveway and began to wail, a sad sound like a lost cat. In one movement Byrd leaned down and
swooped the baby up in her arms, and Mama leaned down and picked up a sheet of paper. The paper fluttered in the breeze. Or was it Mama’s hand shaking? Lalo reached back and took my hand, pulling me with him as he moved closer. I knew he was protecting me, but from what? The rest was a scene in slow motion, Papa taking the paper out of my mother’s hands, reading it to us, my mother beginning to cry. There was no sound to her crying; only tears streaming down her face. I stared at Mama.
I had never seen Mama cry this way. Terrible, somehow, without the sound
.

My father’s voice wavered as he read.

“This is Sophie. She is almost a year old and she is good.”

Sophie
. At the sound of her name the baby looked up at him and stopped crying. Papa stared at her for a moment. He swallowed, then continued. Lalo pulled me behind him, and as we came closer Sophie turned to look at us. One of her hands went up to rub her ear.

“I cannot take care of her now, but I know she will be safe with you,” Papa read. “I have watched you. You will be a good family. I will lose her
forever if you don’t do this, so please keep her. I will send money for her when I can. I will come back for her one day. I love her.”

Lalo still held my hand. Papa looked at Mama.

“She spelled
please
wrong,” he said, his voice soft.

Lalo held out his hand to Sophie in Byrd’s arms. Sophie stared, then reached out her hand to touch his. Lalo smiled. A small satisfied sound came from Sophie, and she began to move his hand up and down, staring at him as if waiting for something familiar. Lalo took Sophie’s other hand and moved it up and down and suddenly, for the first time, Sophie smiled.

Papa turned to Mama, as if Sophie’s smile had given him energy.

“Call the police,” he said.

Byrd took a breath, almost a gasp.

“We have to report this,” said Papa quickly. “This child has been left. This is a criminal act.”

Sophie sucked in her breath, imitating Byrd.

Mama didn’t answer. She held out her arms to Sophie, and Sophie looked at her steadily, thoughtfully.

“Sophie?” said Mama softly.

She crooned the name, like a lullaby.

Sophie watched Mama. She put two fingers in her mouth; then, after a moment, she took them out.

“Sophie,” she repeated, her voice clear and high like a bell.

She lunged toward Mama then, nearly falling out of Byrd’s arms. Mama’s arms went around her.

“Lily.” Papa’s voice was loud. “We need to talk inside. Alone, without the baby.”

“Without
Sophie
, John,” Mama corrected him.

“Without Sophie,” said Papa slowly.

“Sophie,” repeated Sophie in her small voice.

Mama smiled and so did Byrd, and they looked at each other as if there were a secret between them, something we didn’t know.

“Here,” said Mama, handing over Sophie to Byrd. “I’m going inside to speak about criminal acts.”

“Oh, boy,” whispered Lalo beside me. “Oh, boy.”

It was quiet outside, warm and peaceful. No clouds cluttered up the sky. Lalo and I sat in the grass with Sophie, playing patty-cake.

“She knows how,” said Lalo with an amazed smile.

“All babies know how,” said Byrd. She looked at me. “Someone who loves them always teaches them.”

She sat on the steps in her dress and fancy stockings watching Sophie and trying to pretend that there were no sounds of loud voices coming from inside. We could hear Papa’s voice, strong and sometimes fierce, then Mama’s, that sweet soft way of talking she had when she was serious and angry, like a steady hum.

All of a sudden the voices stopped and the silence made us look up. The door opened. Mama came out first, then Papa. Papa looked tired, the way he looked when he had finished his nightly tap dancing.

Byrd stood up and stared at Mama. Sophie turned and put out one arm toward Mama.

“She will stay with us for a while,” said Mama softly.

“Until we can come to some civilized agreement about what to do,” said Papa firmly.

Byrd smiled. Papa sat down on the porch steps wearily.

“Oh, boy,” said Lalo for the third time.

Byrd lifted Sophie and whirled her around until Sophie laughed. A small island plane flew over our heads and away. And Byrd’s pearls broke, showering Sophie and falling over the meadow grasses like tears.

It was night, Sophie’s first night with us. Moonlight was sliding slowly across my quilt like the tide when I heard her first whimper. There was the scurry of feet, a door opening, then closing, my mother’s soft, soothing voice. I turned over and lay looking out the window. Stars were tossed across the sky, a moon nearly full with a small slice off one side. Sophie cried harder, and then a door opened and closed again. I raised my head off the pillow and listened. A new sound came up the stairs. The crying stopped, but I knew the new sound well. I got up and went to the door, opening it. A night-light lighted the hallway. I walked
down the cool wood floor, down the stairs, and stopped, my hand on the newel post. One lamp glowed in the living room. Mama sat on the floor holding Sophie. Sophie’s face was tear streaked, a sleep line across one cheek. But she stared at my father, her mouth open. His hair was rumpled and his eyes dark circled. He was dressed in pajamas and tap shoes, and he danced on the tiled table. Mama sang along with him.