I'll Be You(86)

“It’s an opportunity,” Iona said quietly. “Don’t question it.” She leaned across me and opened the car door. “This is your chance for a real Confrontation. Go. Quick. Get a proper look.”

I hesitated. “But what if the grandmother finds me there?”

“Judging by the way that woman was moving, you’ve got a few minutes,” Iona said. “And if she comes back out, you were passing by and saw the child all alone in the yard and were concerned. She won’t question that. You’re an affluent white woman, just like her. You get an automatic pass.”

She prodded me and I got out of the car, walked across the road, took a tentative step onto the lawn. I’ll just get a quick look up close, I told myself as I moved toward the sleeping child. One glance, and then I can let this go.

The grass was plush green underfoot, a rebuke to the harsh desert climate and a testament to the wealth of the family that could afford so much extravagant water. I took three steps, then ten, then twenty, and then I was on my knees on the grass, right next to the little girl, watching her as she slept.

Her chest rose and fell, her breathing so shallow that I worried that something was wrong, that she was overheating or hyperventilating or having a terrible nightmare. Or was that normal? I’d never examined a sleeping child that closely.

I leaned in closer. The noontime sun, directly overhead now, cast my shadow over the child’s sleeping form. I wondered if it would wake her up, but she didn’t stir. Now that I could study her up close, I could see that she didn’t obviously resemble me: her hair was curly and brown, for one, her skin tinged with olive where mine was pale, and she didn’t have visible dimples. If each of the three children we’d visited so far was half me and half stranger, in this particular case the stranger’s genes had clearly dominated.

But there was also something about the shape of her face—her wide-set eyes, the tight point of her chin, the upturned bud of her lip—that I recognized as Sam’s and mine. You had to look close for it, but it was there.

An unidentifiable yearning gripped my insides, twisted them until I gasped.

How much time had passed? A minute, maybe less. I glanced at the house behind me. A wall of weather-coated windows reflected the desert landscape back at me; if the grandmother was in there, looking out, I wouldn’t be able to see her. But there was no sound of life coming from inside, no shrieks of alarm. The grass was sharp and itchy underneath my knees. The desert air was so dry that it hurt my lungs to breathe. I wanted to run a finger along the curve of the girl’s cheeks, press my palms around the soft pudge of her naked arm, but I was too scared. Instead, I tentatively placed my hand on the little girl’s chest, right above the pocket of her tee. Just to see if she was OK, because that rapid breath was so alarming. I told myself that I was just being a conscientious observer, because the child was alone out here, and what if she wasn’t OK? I could feel the frantic quiver of her heartbeat through the thin cotton, and it felt too fast, far too fast.

And then suddenly her eyes were open and looking right at me. Her gaze was deep and still, not surprised at all but calm, as if she’d recognized me and was relieved to find me there.

I felt it then, that instinctual connection. My DNA, in this child. My child.

She blinked a few times, and then—blinded by the midday sun pressing down directly overhead—winched her eyes back shut again. “Mama?” she asked, in a tiny sleepy voice. I realized that, with the sun in her eyes, she’d probably seen a halo of blond hair, nothing more; just enough to give her the impression of mother. And yet that single word—an echo of the question I kept hearing in my dreams—sent a sharp needle into my heart.

She lifted her arms to me, letting them hang limply in the air, asking to be held.

Naked instinct kicked in. Before I could second-guess myself, I’d picked her up, pressed her against my chest, and was rubbing my palm along her back. She was so warm, almost hot to the touch. Was she feverish? But she slackened in my grip, put a thumb in her mouth, and let her head loll against my shoulder. Almost immediately, I felt her jaw working against her thumb, soothing herself back to sleep. The heat of her body against mine, the faint strawberry scent of her hair: It was all so visceral—my hallucination come to life—that I felt dizzy.

I heard a voice calling softly behind me, “Let’s go.”

I turned and Iona was standing there, halfway across the yard, just out of eyeshot of the windows that faced the backyard. She gesticulated wildly, waving me toward her, and, in my dazed stupor, I moved without thinking.

The child in my arms didn’t even stir.

When I walked within reach, Iona grabbed my elbow and rapidly steered me toward the car. I let her direct me across the road, afraid to ask what she had in mind, afraid to open my mouth at all, because what if I spoke and the child woke up and started to cry? What if her grandmother heard it and came out and saw me crossing the road with her baby in my arms? What if she called the police? Somehow this was a more terrifying prospect than silently following Iona’s lead as she ushered me and the baby across the road. I noticed that the door to the back seat was wide open, a mouth waiting to swallow us. The engine idling, the car gently vibrating, ready to move.

I didn’t resist as Iona pressed me into the back seat, her hand firm on my back. I didn’t say a word when she climbed in the front seat and put the car in drive. I didn’t question the logic of what was happening, I didn’t ask myself whether I should be doing what Iona clearly wanted me to do.