Hush Little Baby (8 page)

He did stink. His smell slowly filled the Volvo.

Muffin was right about the diner. Lenore’s Breakfast and Lunch, it said. Kit was sorry Lenore didn’t serve dinner. She needed human beings. She would have gone in and ordered anything, just to be among people. Gratefully, Kit pulled into the parking lot. When she turned off the motor, she realized the diner was boarded up.

Plywood nailed over windows had split with age. Long peels of wooden layers hung at angles. A padlock on the front door hung open. An abandoned Dumpster overflowed with trash. Weeds grew up through the gravel, and vines were lifting the shingles from the roof of the diner.

Muffin climbed into the front seat. “He’s icky,” she said. “I’m not touching anybody icky.”

“Some baby-sitter you are,” said Kit.

The silence of the car and the silence outside the car was too much. Kit turned the ignition, got the radio again, and clicked the all-door lock. Then she got herself out of her seat belt, hauled herself to her knees, and leaned way over the seat back to examine the damage Sam the Baby had wrought. “Oh, for a pair of gloves,” she said. He had diarrhea all the way up his little back and halfway down his little legs. He smelled like a family of skunks.

Holding her breath, vowing that she herself would have babies who were neat and careful about this kind of thing, she had to use about ten of the baby wipes Dusty had tucked into the carrier. Now, what was she supposed to do with his disgusting clothes, his very used diaper, and all these revolting baby wipes?

She wrapped all of it up in one of his two blankets and looked out into the darkness. The entire property was one big garbage can. Kit, who recycled all things at all times, hurled her disgusting bundle into the chaos of old televisions, beer cans, and car parts. Then she rolled the window back up and turned on the heater to dry the baby’s clean bare body. Kit could not help bending forward and kissing his round tummy. She had not known that the nakedness of babies, the perfection of their little bodies, was so beautiful.

“Stay asleep, Sam,” she whispered. His breathing continued uninterrupted. He didn’t know she was talking to him. He knew nothing but the inside of his sleepy little world. He felt safe enough to sleep. He trusted her with his little self.

He trusts me, thought Kit.

He had put his little life into her arms. All his world was her choice. Either she would take good care of him — or she would not.

Oh, Sam the Baby! thought Kit. Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve made me your mother, or sitter, or sister. If I could choose, which would I be? I don’t want to be anybody’s mother yet. I’ve never liked baby-sitting. That leaves sister.
What if
y
ou are my brother?
I’ll be giving up my own brother to a pack of strangers.

I should have called Dad. I should have gone home and waited for Mom to get back from shopping, like Row said. Or maybe even called Malcolm. I can’t even tell if I’m taking good care of you, Sam. You look fine, but was that kind of diarrhea fine? And this is the last diaper in the package.

She wrapped him, bare except for his diaper, inside the remaining blanket, tucking the end in until he was a papoose: no arms, no legs, just his shining face.

She ordered Muffin to get in back with him.

“What if he gets stinky again?” said Muffin.

“Impossible. There’s nothing left inside him.” She scrubbed her hands with the last baby wipe and set off. Over and over, she muttered the directions. “Right on Swamp Maple.”

This whole day was a swamp. Where were these people? Where on earth did Cinda and Burt live? And why? There was no other traffic. In this very heavily populated state, hers was the only car on the road.

Swamp Maple wound among hills and through woods and next to silent still ponds.

At one-point-six miles, Cinda had said, on the left, you’ll see a broken white picket fence. Turn left and go down the drive in the center of the fence.

There was the fence, white, and very broken.

The fence pickets were sharply pointed like toothpicks, whole sections smashed as if some angry person had driven right through. Her headlights caught trees strangled by wild grapevines, and in one place the vines had hoisted a piece of broken fence into the air.

“This,” said Muffin, “is the spookiest place I’ve ever been in my life.”

Kit stopped in the middle of the road, staring at the driveway to Burt and Cinda’s. There weren’t many places in the state of New Jersey where you could stop in the middle of the road and not worry about horns blaring in your ears and cars ripping past you because you were delaying them five seconds.

“The woods are going to eat us,” said Muffin.

“Don’t be silly,” said Kit. “Probably when we get to their house, it’ll be this beautiful mansion with horses in a green field. This is Burt and Cinda’s weekend home, where they come for peace and quiet.”

Kit turned into the lane. She’d never driven on gravel and it seemed to talk under her tires, arguing with her. Little stones spit out the sides. The woods were dark, viney, and wet. She would have turned around, except the road was so narrow, there was no way to turn around. She hardly knew how to back up. She only went places where she could go forward.

“Or maybe,” said Muffin, “they’re witches and this is their coven.”

And now the gravel and the woods ended and became meadow, and it turned out that the sun had not finished setting, but just vanished behind the thickness of forest. A great swath of purple and rose sky welcomed them.

Silhouetted against the sky was a sweet little cottage with shutters at the windows, flowers in beds, and cars parked in the driveway. The drive made a little oval, so Kit was automatically facing home again and did not have to panic over how she was going to turn around.

Already people were bursting out of the house. Three people — two men and a woman — the woman way ahead of the men.

The woman had to be Cinda.

Cinda was thin in a lean strong way, as if she spent her life running toward something. She was maybe thirty. She wore a plain gray T-shirt, hanging down over khaki pants. She had chosen large black-rimmed glasses, as if her dream were to be mistaken for a computer geek. Cinda was pumped. It made Kit smile to see her. Kit adored Sam the Baby, and now here was his mommy, come to snuggle and hug for the very first time.

And yet… and yet…

Ed was chugging behind Cinda, and in the settling dusk he looked more civilized; his pockmarks didn’t show, nor his yellow gnarly hands. Had Kit misjudged him?

Behind them, walking slowly, almost dragging, came another man, who must be Burt. He wore blue jeans so new and starchy-looking they’d probably stand up on their own, but his pullover sweater was misshapen and the neckline was unraveling. He did not smile but glanced twice at his watch, and when he drew up to the car, it was not the baby he looked at, nor his wife, nor Kit, but Ed Bing.

Cinda was tugging at the back door to get her hands on Sam, but all four doors were locked.

Cinda and Ed, but not Burt, stooped to look inside the Volvo, peering and squinting, and again Ed cupped his hands to see better, and his eyes surrounded by his fat fists were red and glaring. Kit clicked the locks undone, and Cinda opened the back door.

Row tuned the radio to an all-news-all-the-time station. There had been every kind of crime, from the new ATM scam to the old drunk driving tragedy. But no kidnapping.

He was ill with worry.

This had never happened to him before. Even the night before his SATs, even the hour before his first varsity game, he had not felt this sick roiling in his gut.

At first he thought he might actually be sick, and Mom would expect him to go home, take an aspirin, and go to bed early. But if there was one thing Row hated more than being sick, it was giving in to being sick. All his life, he’d hated going to bed.

What were his choices, here, now that he’d let Kit and Muffin drive away without him? He could go to Shea’s and twiddle around, waiting to see if they got back safely. But this would involve explanations to Aunt Karen and Uncle Anthony, and although his aunt and uncle seemed flaky to strangers, it was a facade. Messy, noisy, chaotic, and wacky — but they were very very careful of their children. Shea, who was the youngest — her two brothers were in college — did not do anything without supervision.

He, Rowen Mason, age sixteen, with an IQ many points above Dusty’s had been just as much of a jerk.

He had let Kit drive off into the unknown—
truly
unknown! He himself had said that these people are seriously hiding from their fellow humans — and he’d let his nine-year-old sister go along! All they knew of Cinda, Burt, and Ed was that Kit was afraid of Ed, and Ed expressed himself by driving over flower beds.

Rowen comforted himself with the fact that Ed Bing really was Dusty’s cousin. Therefore the whole thing had a certain in-the-family safety net. But why had Dusty disappeared? Why hadn’t the adopting parents gotten the baby at the hospital? Had Dusty changed her mind about giving up Sam the Baby? She had certainly made up her mind fast enough when she had a chance to give the baby to Kit.

Rowen had not even wanted to touch the baby. It was too little. It didn’t look like babies in ads for tires or insurance. It looked all red and sunken. Even its little sob was scrawny. Had
he
ever been that little?

And when he was, had Mom and Dad tossed him here and there, driving away, forgetting to tell people his name?

Mom and Dad were out.

But Aunt Karen and Uncle Anthony were home.

He wanted to ask them what they thought, but he knew what they would think. They would be furious and appalled. They would not even waste time yelling at him. They might actually call the police. He might have to admit to the police that yes, his nine-year-old sister, an unknown baby, and a teenage friend of his had driven off into the back of beyond because of one phone call from a strange voice. And he, Row, had said huffily, you’re being dumb — and then let them do it. He should have insisted on an adult’s advice before Kit took off, and if Kit wouldn’t change her mind, he should have gone, too.

He had had them all in his own car, and he could have done the driving, or simply driven to a better destination — Aunt Karen and Uncle Anthony’s.

He changed radio stations, hoping to be distracted by some decent music. But it was news hour everywhere. The ATM scam was big stuff; events were unfolding at this very moment. Police were expecting to make arrests shortly. Things, said the spokeswoman importantly, were happening fast.

If something happens, thought Row, and I’m not there …

But what could happen?

What was he afraid of?

He drove aimlessly.

Usually Rowen found this totally satisfying, exploring every road, testing every intersection. Now he circled near Kit’s father’s house, trying to remember the directions Cinda had given over the phone. Route 80 West — and then what?

Route 80 went all the way to California.

Muffin was pleased with the new family.

The house was the kind that would be full of happy dogs and sleeping cats and stuffed teddy bears and baskets of rose petals. There would be a refrigerator jammed with nibbly things; and the new mommy would want them to sit down and have something yummy to eat and get to know the baby together and talk about everything, but none of this mattered.

What mattered was that Muffin needed to go to the bathroom.

Bad.

Cinda was clapping and opening the door. “Oh, here’s my baby! Here is my baby! Oh, he’s so beautiful, he’s so perfect!” She leaned over Muffin without even seeing her. She undid Sam’s straps and lifted him across Muffin’s lap and out of the car and up onto her shoulder, still laughing, and now kissing as well.

Muffin had forgotten to get her camera ready, but Kit had not. That was another nice thing about being older; you didn’t forget stuff. You paid attention. Muffin reminded herself to pay attention.

Kit focused the gaudy yellow box on Cinda’s face and caught a perfect picture of a mommy’s coo when she first saw her son. Muffin was happy. There was nothing Muffin liked better than sitting on Gramma’s lap and looking at Muffin’s own baby books.

Cinda jounced Sam the Baby — a little too hard for Muffin’s taste. On the other hand, Muffin really had to go to the bathroom and all bouncing was a threat.

“Look!” Cinda cried to the men. “Look! My baby.”

Kit had gotten out of the car and was aiming across the car roof, taking photographs of the entire family.

Muffin clambered out, thinking of bathrooms and how many seconds she had left before she had an accident.

One man was scary, his face all pocked up and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Mom, who was into healthy, would be crazed that this new baby was going into a smoking family. The man probably only smokes outside, Muffin comforted herself.

The other man was thin and small. Muffin hoped she wouldn’t grow up to look as not grown-up as this guy. He was having trouble with his watchband or something, and did not glance at Sam or Cinda.

Muffin’s camera was still in the little two-handed front pocket of her sweatshirt, but she didn’t need it, with Kit taking all those pictures. She needed a bathroom. Muffin scooted around the cluster of grown-ups and baby.

The garage swung sideways off the house and there was a door between the garage and the house. That was probably the mudroom, and led to the kitchen, and probably the closest bathroom was through that door. On the other hand, the front door was right here, and wide open.

Muffin darted in the front door, going for the bathroom with the homing instinct of a migrating bird.

How Cinda would treasure these photographs in the years to come!

Kit got out of her Volvo and circled it, and as she turned she counted three cars parked in the space between the house and the garage. One was Ed’s scary, long low Caddy. The other two were Jeep Grand Cherokees, high and square, one red, one navy blue. They were facing out, ready to leave, like Kit, and they were filled. Packed. Jammed with boxes and bags and stuff.