As Bright as Heaven(39)

And then she picks up the basket and races up the stairs with it.

Evie watches her go and then she turns to me. “Who is that?” she says, looking at the baby.

“He’s an orphan. We don’t know his name. I found him. He hasn’t been fed or changed in who knows how long.”

Evie stares at me for a second. “How do you know all that? How do you know he’s an orphan?”

I hesitate and she notices.

“His mother was dead in the next room,” I finally say.

Evie looks both horrified and doubtful. “Are you sure?”

A warm ribbon of shame wraps itself about me, but I shake it off. “After all that’s happened, you really think I don’t know what a dead person looks like?” I drop my coat on the floor and bring the naked baby close to my body, making my arms his blanket. He tries to squall, but he can barely make a sound now, he’s so weak. I move past Evie to go into the kitchen to warm up the milk.

“And you just took him?” she says, following me.

“What else could we have done?” I open the icebox and pull out a bottle of milk.

Evie’s brow is creased with consternation, but she says nothing.

I look down at the baby in my arms, whimpering and rooting at my chest for nourishment and comfort. “Does Willa have it?” I ask. “Does she have the flu?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Her words settle around us both as she takes the milk bottle from me and pours some in a pan. Then she lights the stove and puts it over the tiny flame.

“What was it like down there?” Evie says as we both stand there, looking at the baby.

“It was awful.”

“He needs a diaper.”

I think of the clothes and diapers that were Henry’s and that are now folded and tucked away upstairs in Mama’s cedar chest. Evie is thinking of those things, too. I know she is because when I say, “Mama won’t mind, will she?” she just says she’ll go get a diaper, a blanket, and something for the baby to wear.

“We’ll need to put some cornstarch on that rash,” Evie says as she turns to go upstairs.

When she comes back a few minutes later, her arms full of everything that had been Henry’s, my throat swells a little, and I must look away. The milk is warm now, and I blink back my tears as I take the pan off the stove and turn off the gas.

“Let’s put the milk in a bowl and dip a cloth in. Maybe he can suck the milk off that,” Evie says. “You can feed him while I clean him up. Maybe he won’t mind so much then.”

So that’s what we do. We spread out one of Henry’s soft blankets on the kitchen floor and put the baby on top. He screws up his little face in protest, but he doesn’t have the strength to fight much. I dip a cloth into the warm milk and put it to his mouth and it doesn’t take long for him to figure out if he sucks the cloth, he can get the milk. While I feed him, Evie washes his red and blistered private parts with cool water and cotton wool. Then she sprinkles cornstarch all over the redness and puts one of Henry’s diapers on him. Once he’s diapered and has a little milk in his tummy, he lets us wash the rest of him. As he is drifting off to a contented sleep, Uncle Fred comes in from the funeral parlor, probably to get some lunch. He sees us there on the floor with the baby now lying silent and unmoving on the blanket. He no doubt thinks someone has used the front stoop to drop off an infant dead from the flu.

“What’s all this?” he shouts, yanking down his mask.

I tell my story all over again, and this time when I get to the part where I say the baby was alone except for his dead mother, the ribbon of shame doesn’t feel as hot. As I repeat the same things that I told Mama and Evie, I become even more convinced that he is without a doubt a child without parents and a brother to a dying sister.

But having heard the story a second time now, Evie has another round of questions.

“Was there no neighbor you could have asked?” she asks. “Other tenants in the building? Nobody on his street knew if he only had a mother and no one else?”

“His house wasn’t on a street. It was in an alley, and I couldn’t recall which one it was when Mama and I went back. There are a lot of alleys and the houses all look alike.” The lie is easier to say. It is getting easier all the time.

“How could you not remember which house?” Evie says. “You had just left it.”

“I told you they all look alike!” I shoot back. “And in case you’ve forgotten, I had also just seen his dead mother covered in coughed-up blood.”

“All right, all right. Stop arguing,” Uncle Fred says. “What are we supposed to do with him? Where’s your mother?”

“Mama wants you to tell the police what happened so they don’t think we kidnapped him,” Evie replies.

Uncle Fred frowns like she’d just told him he is going to have to change the baby’s dirty diapers for all eternity. “Why didn’t your mother do it?”

“She’s upstairs,” I say. “Willa’s sick.”

Uncle Fred narrows his eyes. I see the worry there. “Sick with what?”

“She’s got a fever.” Evie wraps the sleeping child in the blanket as she stands up with him. She turns to me. “Go on to the church like Mama said and tell Mrs. Arnold what happened.”