The Cat Sitter’s Cradle (2 page)

Joyce said, “We need to get her inside, but…”

At first I didn’t realize she was talking to me. But then my eyes followed her gaze
from the tiny newborn down the umbilical cord to the dark mass of blood and matted
leaves lying on the ground.

“That’s gotta be cut.”

I raised my hands up and cupped them over my ears like a “hear no evil” monkey. In
the police academy, I’d learned how to deliver a baby and how to cut the cord, but
I’d never actually done it.

With just a touch of desperation I said, “Maybe we could leave it? People do that,
don’t they? It eventually just falls off, right?”

Joyce shook her head. “Sometimes, but in this case it will be impossible to move them
safely. We have to.”

She was right, and I knew it. We sat there for a moment as if frozen in time. Three
women brought together by some perverse twist of fate, huddled over a tiny wriggling
bloody baby, with no one to witness but the squirrels, the birds, and a couple of
dogs tied to a maple sapling. Rufus and Henry the VIII lay side by side, watching
our every move with rapt attention, like spectators at a tennis match.

Joyce said, “My shoes have Velcro. Give me your shoelaces.”

I snapped to and pulled the laces from my Keds and handed them to her. She was studying
the still-pulsating umbilical cord closely.

“Don’t want to do this too soon,” she said. “Do you have a knife? Or scissors? Or
I can run to the house.”

“Pet sitters always have scissors,” I said and dove into my backpack. “I use them
for clipping kitten toenails or cutting any number of things stuck in matted dog fur.
And here’s a box of baby wipes. I use them for cleaning my hands when I’m traveling,
and a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs.”

I realized I was rambling on nervously, but I couldn’t stop myself. I laid everything
out in a row on Joyce’s sweatshirt.

Joyce looked at the scissors and sighed. “They’re not very big, are they?”

“They’re razor sharp, though. And we can anesthetize them with the rubbing alcohol.”

Joyce raised one eyebrow. “You mean sanitize?”

“Yeah, that.”

The young woman was watching us with mounting fear. When she saw the scissors, she
whimpered and began scooting backward, trying to get away from us.

Joyce laid a hand on the girl’s ankle. “It’s okay. Trust me, honey, it’s okay.”

But the girl didn’t trust either of us, all she knew was that we were bringing out
sharp instruments we might be intending to use on her.

I tried my rudimentary high school Spanish. “
Es necessario que
 … um, to cut”—I made scissoring motions to illustrate—“
la
umbilical.” For the first time, I glanced at the baby’s sex. “
La niña
will not have
dolor.
No pain,
te prometo.
”

The girl looked at the umbilical cord and then at me. She didn’t look as if she believed
my promise, but something in her eyes told me she understood.

The cord had stopped pulsating. I moved closer to the baby and tied one of my shoelaces
around the cord a couple of inches from the baby’s body. The girl watched me intently.

Joyce said,
“Por favor.”

With greater trust, the girl laid the baby down so I could more easily tie the other
lace closer to the baby’s body. I dabbed alcohol on the cord between the shoelaces,
then dipped the scissors’ blades into the bottle of alcohol and swirled it around.

Joyce looked sternly at the young mother. “Hold her steady.”

She seemed to understand. Her hands pushed against the baby’s sides gently to keep
the baby from wriggling too much. I slid the blades over the cord.

As if she were giving a demonstration to a medical school class, Joyce said, “The
cord is very tough. It’s hard to cut.”

I was glad she said that because it felt to me as if I was putting enough force on
the scissors’ handles to cut through a Goodyear tire.

I said, “Get ready to blot up the blood. There won’t be much.”

It took a moment for Joyce to realize I was talking to her. She let out a nervous
giggle and jumped to hold tissues under the scissors just as the blades broke through
the cord. Some blood spilled out, but most of the blood in the cord had traveled back
into the bodies it had linked. Joyce blotted at the nib attached to the baby before
she let the end connected to the placenta fall.

I looked at Joyce, and we both let out a sigh of relief. Then we smiled at the young
woman.

I said, “It’s okay. Your baby is fine.”

But the words were a lovely lie, because the baby wasn’t fine at all. She had been
born on the ground, in the dirt, to a mother who was alone and far from home and nearly
a baby herself. There was no promise of security or safety, only a dismal future,
riddled with uncertainty. Joyce wrapped the baby in her sweatshirt, and the girl lifted
it to her chest and crooned while the baby nuzzled at her thin shoulder blades. The
baby looked as worn-out as her mother, and Joyce didn’t look much better.

I couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t even 7:00
A.M.
yet, and the day felt like it had already lasted several years.

2

We were all sitting in the brush beside the trail. Me, Joyce, and the young girl holding
her newborn baby. I think we were all just trying to get our bearings. Rufus and Henry
the VIII were still watching from their post a few yards away.

I said, “What the hell are we going to do with her?”

Joyce looked away. We both knew what we should do. We should call the sheriff’s office
and report an illegal alien in our midst. We should report that she had given birth
and now there were two people who needed our care, our food, our medical treatment.
In time, if the young mother wasn’t deported, her child would need education, and
all that would have to be paid for by our tax dollars. We should have been outraged
at the young woman for stealing our money.

Joyce said, “Florida has a safe haven law, you know. A mother can leave her baby anonymously
at a hospital or fire station within seven days of its birth without prosecution.”

We looked at the girl, who seemed to understand what Joyce had said. She pulled the
baby tighter and looked as if she was about to scramble to her feet and run away.

I said, “Would you leave your baby with strangers?”

I thought of how precious my daughter, Christy, had been to me from the moment she
was born. I would have fought like a rabid badger if anybody had tried to take her
away from me. I had a feeling this young mother felt the same way about her daughter.

Joyce sighed. “I can’t keep her indefinitely, but I have a spare room where she can
stay for a while.”

I said, “I’ll bring some clothes and some diapers and things. And some food.”

Joyce knelt down and picked up a leather handbag that was on the ground. “Is this
yours?”

The girl nodded.

“You can come to my house. To my
casa.
”

The girl nodded, and her eyes welled with tears. Joyce shouldered the bag and tipped
her chin at a large cardboard box under a tree. The box was dented and broken, and
rain had disintegrated it in places.

She said, “I suppose that’s where she’s been living.”

I got up and walked over to the box, my Keds flopping without their laces. Kneeling
at the opening, I pawed through the jumble of clothes and trash, looking for anything
else the girl might want to keep, but there was nothing.

Joyce said, “I hate to make her walk, but I don’t know how else to get her home.”

I said, “Fireman’s carry, but first I’ll get the dogs.”

While Joyce helped the girl to her feet, I ran over to Rufus and Henry the VIII and
untied them. I gave them both a good scratch behind the ears to let them know that
everything was going to be okay, even though I wasn’t sure of it myself.

The young mother was swaying slightly with the newborn tight against her chest. I
slipped the leashes around my wrist, and Joyce and I stood behind her and crossed
our arms in the classic fireman’s carry, but the leashes got in the way. Rufus had
circled around Joyce’s legs, and Henry the VIII looked like he was about to bolt,
his tail wagging so vigorously that his little rump was jiggling back and forth. I
was holding one leash in my mouth while I tried to untangle the other from Joyce’s
legs when the young girl giggled.

“Aquí,”
she said.

She gently shifted the baby to her other shoulder and held out her open hand.

I passed her the leashes, and she sat down gingerly on our crossed arms. With the
dogs leading the way, we shuffled down the street in the pale morning light like a
slow-moving parade. Rufus let out a few commanding
wufs!
as if he wanted to clear the road.
Move it, people! Newborn coming through!

The girl wasn’t heavy, but carrying her was awkward and unpleasant. I could feel her
warm blood wet on my arms, and it brought a combined feeling of disgust and awe. Disgust
at having another human’s blood on my arms, but awe at the miracle of life asserting
itself in all its direct, honest reality.

I started humming an old hymn, “Bringing in the Sheaves,” but I sang it the way I
thought it went when I was a little girl: “Bringing in the sheets, bringing in the
sheets, we shall go to Joyce’s, bringing in the sheets.” Seemed appropriate at the
time.

At Joyce’s house, we carried the girl directly to the shower and undressed her. Her
ribs were like piano keys on her thin body. She was too weak to stand, so she slid
to the floor and sat under a warm shower with her face tilted back to receive its
blessing. Joyce scurried to fetch a clean nightshirt and cotton underpants that she
lined with a makeshift pad.

While Joyce took care of the girl, I cleaned the baby at the bathroom sink where the
mother could see me. She was a beautiful baby. A little underweight, but healthy otherwise.
She had a mop of jet black hair on her head and the biggest blue eyes I’ve ever seen
on a baby. Joyce brought me a roll of paper towels and some masking tape.

“See if you can make diapers out of this.”

“I’ll get some pads when I get diapers and the other stuff.”

“Better get several boxes. She’s bleeding a lot.”

“The 911 operator asked me if she was hemorrhaging.”

Joyce shook her head. “No. Just heavy bleeding. She’ll be okay as soon as she has
some nourishment and rest.”

We led the girl over to the edge of the bed and sat her down. I laid the baby next
to her, and Joyce made a barrier out of pillows and blankets along the edge of the
bed. I brought a towel from the bathroom and started to pat the girl’s hair dry.

I said, “Your name …
como se llama?
”

She smiled weakly. “I am Corina.”

I patted the side of her face. “I am Dixie, and this is Joyce.”

Tears made her dark eyes shine. “Thank you, Dixie and Joyce,” she said.
“Ustedes son hijas de Dios.”

We helped her lie down, and within seconds she had fallen asleep, the baby nestled
in her arms. We pulled the sheets up over her and laid a blanket over her legs.

I whispered to Joyce, “I’ve got pets to check on, but I can come by after with supplies.”

“Okay,” Joyce said. “I’ll stay here with her while she sleeps, and if anything changes
I’ll call you.”

I hoisted my bag over over my shoulder and tiptoed across the room. At the door, I
turned and looked back. Joyce had lain down on the bed next to Corina with one hand
resting lightly on the baby’s tiny outstretched arm. It looked like she had fallen
asleep, too.

“Joyce!” I whispered.

She raised her head. “What?”

“What the hell is a sheave?”

She smiled and laid her head back down. “Dixie, I have no friggin idea.”

The sun was coming up now, and there were a few early birds on the path. A couple
of retirees rolled by on a matching pair of bright yellow bicycles. A man in red sweatpants
and a Mets baseball cap walked by, briskly pumping his arms up and down to the beat
of the music playing through his headphones.

Rufus and I made our way back to his house, both of us feeling a bit shell-shocked.
I left him with a peanut-butter-filled chew toy, and, with a kiss on the nose, assured
him that our afternoon walk would be a little less dramatic.

3

I thought about the morning’s proceedings as I made my way over to the Suttons’ house
at the opposite end of the Key. Most of the time my work is pretty predictable. I
check the food and water, I let the dogs out to do their business, I clean the litter
boxes, I brush the fur, I give some hugs and kisses, I wave around a peacock feather
or a piece of cheese, and then it’s on to the next pet. I have it down to a very smooth
routine, and that’s the way I like it.

Taking on the responsibility of a young if not underage illegal alien with a newborn
baby is not routine. It’s crazy. The best that could happen was Joyce and I would
give the girl a little comfort for a short time. The worst was that when we sent her
on her way she’d have tasted a better life and would hate her old one even more. When
I tried to imagine how bad it must have been in her home, so bad that she felt compelled
to risk her life and the life of her unborn child to go to a foreign country and live
in a box … my mind skittered away in guilt and shame and helplessness. I was born
in a country that allows me enormous advantages, and I was no more deserving than
that poor girl was. I was just luckier.

I pulled into the Suttons’ driveway and flipped through my keys, which I keep on a
big ring like a French chatelaine. Their Sophie is a tuxedo cat, mostly black with
white boots, a white bib, and just a dip of white at the end of her tail. She met
me at the door with some serious tail choreography and an excited
thrrrip!
to let me know I was late. While I prepared her breakfast, she purred and circled
around my feet.