Hush Little Baby (6 page)

It did not look as if anybody was home. The place had that vacant expression common to Seven Hills, every house just plunked down, not attached to the ground yet; they needed fences and shrubs and old swing sets to look permanent. But while the windows of other houses exhibited neatly tied drapes or hanging bits of lace, Mr. Innes’s house looked sealed, every drape drawn tight, nothing showing but the plain vanilla linings.

Kit, like Rowen, dressed well. That made them exceptions in school. Kit had her share of torn jeans, sagging pants, old T-shirts, and ripped sweats, and she did wear them, but more often, she wore exactly what Rowen wore: catalog clothing. Beautifully put-together clothes crying out for photographers and a spot on page three.

It came to him that he and Kit even had the same haircut; but Row’s hair clung to his head, thin and silky, while Kit’s puffed around her head, thick and generous. She wore tiny earrings, no shape or meaning to them, just a dot of sparkle.

They were both in marching band, and he had been there while she tried on band uniforms. Everybody looked splendid in band uniforms — white creased pants, scarlet jacket, gold buttons, and shoulder fringe. Kit played flute, along with about thirty other girls. Flute was a girl instrument. He himself was a drummer and, in Row’s opinion, the other instruments were just there for looks: Across a football field, you could hear the percussion, and a whiff of brass, but you never heard the flutes except maybe a piccolo.

Shea played piccolo. Hers was the shrill scream of notes that rose above everything. People who played piccolo had no fears.

He loved marching band. The swoop and maneuver of the band on the field was so beautiful. Wind might whisk away the sound of the trumpets and the trombones from half the field, but it could not take away the gleaming beauty of the horns.

He thought maybe he and Kit could start with a band conversation, talk about the new pattern they were learning, the new conductor they weren’t so sure of, the upcoming schedule, the bus they’d take. He was surprised by how worried he was over talking with Kit. It had suddenly assumed huge proportions, as if on this speech hung his future and his hopes.

The door opened. Kit was not holding a flute, but a squalling, screaming, quivering red-faced baby.

All speech was driven from his mind and mouth.

“I wish I had a hand free to photograph you, Row,” Kit told him, “because your expression is priceless.”

“Where’s the camera?” said Muffin. “I’ll take his picture.”

“Too late,” said Row. “I’m no longer surprised.” But he was. What was Kit doing here with a little teeny baby? Wasn’t Kit his cousin’s best friend? Wouldn’t Shea have mentioned it if there was a new baby at Kit’s house? Whose new baby? Wasn’t her father on the West Coast? Anyway, weren’t they pretty old for having babies?

He finally looked at Kit again, and she said, “Oh, Row! I am so glad to see you, I have had the strangest afternoon.” She gave him a sweet smile and he fell into it. It was that smile that had drawn Row, because she seemed like a person who meant to smile a lot more than she did. She was too serious.

Kit let them in and they automatically moved to the back of the house. The front rooms were so formal, so much the property of the decorator, that nobody could imagine actually bothering with those rooms. They flung themselves down on a vast green leather sofa. Rowen had never seen such large furniture. There was so much to look at. Kit. The inexplicable baby. The house, which seemed so un-homey for a girl like Kit.

Kit couldn’t remember the little sister’s name. It was a silly nickname, she thought, something that would be embarrassing once the kid was older. But she couldn’t bring it to mind.

“Can I hold the baby?” said the little sister eagerly. She was a cute little thing, stick thin, as if her wrists would not be equal to the weight of the baby.

“No, Muffin,” said Rowen sharply, “you can’t. You don’t know how to hold babies.”

Muffin. I knew it was something pathetic, thought Kit. “I haven’t had any practice at holding babies, either,” she told Muffin. “Today is my first day ever. Come on, between us we’ll figure out how you can hold the baby.”

Muffin sat down on the immense couch and eased herself back and back some more until her legs stuck straight out in front of her. She had plenty of lap now. Kit gently maneuvered the baby into Muffin’s arms, and Muffin sagged joyfully back on the couch and smiled down at him. Her smile transformed her. She was suddenly, beautifully, a mommy in training, like a Halloween costume.

Kit beamed at Muffin.

She had to have a photograph of this. She would make extra copies, because Row and Muffin’s mother would certainly want one. She found the camera she’d used to photograph Sam the Baby and Ed the Creepy Cousin and took two angles of Muffin and Sam. Then she took a photo of Row looking puzzled, and a final shot of Row looking irritated.

“Enough with the immortality, Kit. We came to collect you for movies,” said Rowen. “But I don’t think they’re newborn-rated.”

They all laughed.

“He seems really little,” Rowen said. Is he okay? Is he meant to be that small?” Rowen took the disposable camera from Kit, knelt next to his sister, and took a shot of Muffin’s cheek resting against Sam’s.

Kit loved how they were with each other. How sweet when a big brother was that fond of a little sister. Her throat choked up a little. Was she, at this very moment, a big sister?

“I don’t know, Rowen,” she said. “I was on my way home to wait for my mother to get back from shopping when you and Muffin came to the door. I figured I’d hand the baby to Mom, and she would know things like whether the baby is too small.”

Rowen stared at Kit. Really stared. “Who’s the mother of this baby, then?” Even his voice stared at her. “Whose baby is this? What’s going on?” He pulled back from Kit in every way, as if he did not know her after all.

Kit had been soothed by their company and the silly posing for photographs, but now she realized that Row was reacting the way he ought to — and she, Kit, had not reacted the way she should have. She’d let herself drift around, like Dusty, whose porch light was definitely not on.

A baby abandoned on the doorstep was not puzzling.

It was shocking.

Muffin was awestruck.

How incredible that this little soft folded-up thing with its little elbows and knees curled like bananas was a person! It seemed as if it might be something else entirely.

It had perfect, incredibly tiny fingers, with perfect tiny fingernails and perfect tiny knuckles. Its little sweet eyes tried to find hers but couldn’t, so Muffin shifted herself until she was in front of the eyes, and the baby smiled at her.

She feasted her eyes on the beautiful infant. Row and Kit were talking, but Muffin paid no attention; how could she think of anything except this baby? “What’s his name?” she interrupted them.

“I don’t know his name,” said Kit. “I made one up. I’m calling him Sam the Baby.”

Sam the Baby.

It sounded like one of Muffin’s favorite picture books from when she was very small, where they combined silly stories and counting and ridiculous made-up animals. Red fish, two fish, Sam wish, ham wich. “Hello, Sam the Baby,” she said very softly, and she put her lips on his cheek and it was the softest, most perfect thing she had ever touched and then she yelled, “Peeeee — you!”

“He does need his diaper changed,” agreed Kit. She was laughing. “I did just the same thing, Muff. I was thinking how sweet and adorable he was, and then I smelled him.”

“He doesn’t even notice,” said Muffin. “How can he live inside himself when he stinks like that?”

She helped Kit change the baby and this, too, was amazing, because the baby did not know that he was bare, and being held, and being washed, whereas if Muffin were being treated this way she would die of humiliation and hide under blankets.

He doesn’t know anything yet, thought Muffin, and this filled her with awe, and with kinship; as if Sam were her brother. There was so much Muffin didn’t know yet, either, and it tired her out, staring at the years of school in which she must learn, learn, learn; catch up, catch up, catch up; remember, remember, remember. And Sam didn’t even know that yet. He was just here, and now he didn’t smell anymore, and she loved him for knowing nothing.

Row said, in a heavy, almost angry voice that made Muffin watch him hard, “Kit. What is going on? Of course you know the baby’s real name. You’re his baby-sitter.”

“Or possibly his sister,” said Kit.

“You’re supposed to be sure of things like that.”

“It hasn’t been that kind of day,” said Kit, and she told them what had happened since three o’clock.

“It sounds like a typical Dusty screwup,” said Rowen at last. “I remember when your dad married her. No offense, but my parents said he was totally nuts and the marriage wouldn’t last half an hour. Dusty really and truly has a room temperature IQ. What do you bet that she went and had this baby, and then the day she came home from the hospital, she got kicked out of her apartment for some Dusty-type reason, like having friends over to line-dance at three in the morning when tired old ladies who need their sleep are living on the floor beneath her? So she drove over here to live.”

Kit thought about Rowen’s explanation. It was entirely possible that Dusty had come here to camp out.

“Why didn’t you just ask Dusty?” said Muffin. “I don’t think you handled this well, Kit. I think my mother would say that you —”

“Muff!” said Rowen.

“Dusty didn’t give me time,” said Kit, “but you’re right about what your mother would say. Probably the same thing my mother would say. But Dusty is the mother this time! It’s so like Dusty to be stupid, and drive around, and hurl her most precious possession into somebody else’s care while she races off with what nobody else would call a strategy.”

“He’s falling asleep,” whispered Muffin. “Stop talking.”

“I don’t think he’ll notice if we keep talking,” said Kit.

“Did you see his eyes close?” said Rowen. “They just clamped shut.”

They admired the baby for a while. Sleeping babies, Kit realized, were perfect, whereas waking babies had drawbacks.

“Maybe Dusty’s blackmailing your father,” said Rowen, because it is your father’s baby and she’s going to make him pay.”

Kit shook her head. “Blackmail is out. Dad’s a wonderful father and if he’s the father of this baby, he’d be a good one. But I’m sure he’s not. Dusty wanted to stay with him. If they were having a baby, she’d have told him in order to get him back, and it would have worked. So it isn’t blackmail and Sam isn’t his.”

She hadn’t stopped to think that of course Dusty would tell Dad; it was interesting how talking out loud was a way to hear yourself. She felt a pang of sorrow, though, because then Sam wasn’t hers, either. She imagined Sam growing up somewhere unknown to her, becoming a kid and a teenager and a man, and she would never know. She had only this afternoon. Suddenly, weirdly, she was grateful to Dusty for giving her this strange afternoon. Her only day with Sam the Baby.

“Kidnapping, then,” said Rowen.

“It wasn’t on
NJN.
”

“Dusty ordered them to keep it quiet or she wouldn’t give the baby back after they paid her the ransom.”

“Be real, Rowen. Dusty can’t plan a run to the grocery.”

“Stupid people commit the most crimes,” said Rowen. “They don’t notice the pitfalls that smarter people would notice.”

“Row heard that on TV,” said Muffin. “He’s quoting a cop show.”

In Muffin’s arms, the baby had slumped into what looked like a very uncomfortable posture, but perhaps babies didn’t know about comfort yet. He had fallen into a sort of stupor, staring wide-eyed at nothing.

“So you have no idea what to do next?” asked Muffin. “I know, though. I always know what to do next. Listen to me. We’ll take him home with us. My mother loves babies.”

“Muff,” said Rowen — in the kind of voice that meant Shut up or I’ll squash you — and the phone rang again.

“This time,” said Kit, “it has to be Dusty. I’m counting on it to be Dusty.” She picked up the phone.

“But be more sensible,” said Rowen. “Don’t give anything away.”

So Kit said carefully, “Hello?”

“Hi, is this Kit Innes?” said a woman’s voice. It was a pleasant and friendly voice, but not familiar to Kit. Not Dad’s assistant, not his secretary, not his travel agent.

“Yes,” she said uncertainly.

Row stood up and came close to listen in on the phone. She held it a little away from her ear so he could follow the conversation.

But he was very close to her, and it distracted Kit. She thought of his shirt, and of Row under it; and she thought of how worried she had been about how to talk to him, but they had had the topic of the year, as it happened, and subjects were not going to be a problem. Her eyes met his and she felt a flutter intense enough that she had to turn her whole face away in order to hear the woman on the line.

“This is Cinda Chance,” said the woman. “I’m another cousin of Ed and Dusty’s. I am so relieved to have reached you, Kit. We are so desperately worried about both Dusty and the baby. I know you were shaken by Ed coming over, and I apologize for that. We’re at our wits’ end, you see. My husband, Burt, and I are adopting Dusty’s baby, you know, and we’re so excited, we’ve been waiting for years for this to happen, and now Dusty is worried about her decision, and we’re trying to be understanding, but Dusty just flew off in her car without anyplace to go. And that’s like Dusty, you know, that didn’t surprise us, but we’re so worried about the baby. Is the baby all right? That’s all that really matters right now.”

What a relief! What a sensible easy explanation. And how like Dusty. “Oh, Cinda, I am so glad you called. You almost missed me. I was just going home to ask my mother what to do.”

“No, don’t bring your parents into this,” said Cinda. “Really, we have it all under control. Is the baby all right?” Her voice was high and urgent.

“Oh, he’s fine,” Kit promised, “he’s just fine. I’ve fed him, and changed him, and we’re cuddling him on the couch, and he’s just fine. You’re going to love him. Have you met him yet?”