As Bright as Heaven(46)

CHAPTER 28



Maggie


I don’t want Evie’s help with the baby during the night, but when he starts crying a little after two and I’m struggling to hold him and get a bottle ready, I’m glad when she comes downstairs to help me. So is Uncle Fred. He comes out to the kitchen ahead of Evie, looking like Ebenezer Scrooge in his long underwear, and asks me if I’ve dropped the baby in hot oil, for the love of God.

“That’s just how babies cry when they’re hungry!” I tell him, feeling a little exasperated by his question with the baby in one arm while I fiddle with getting a saucepan onto the stove. I have no idea how I am going to light the burner, because Uncle Fred is already turning to go back to his bedroom. But then Evie appears in the kitchen, passing Uncle Fred as he shuffles out. She doesn’t say a word; she just takes the baby so I can light the stove and pour the milk in the pan.

“Thank you,” I say.

“I wasn’t asleep anyway.” She pats the baby’s back and shushes him, swaying back and forth like she’s a hammock in a breeze.

“Suppose Mama is awake, too?” When I came down the stairs with the crying baby, I couldn’t hear anything else but the baby’s wails.

“I don’t think so. It’s been quiet in Willa’s room, so a little while ago, I opened the door a tiny bit and peeked inside.”

“You did?” That surprises me. Evie always follows the rules. Mama had clearly told us to stay out of Willa’s room.

“I just wanted to see if . . . if she needed anything,” Evie says.

I stir the milk and wait.

“Mama is asleep, half in a chair, half on Willa’s bed,” she continues.

“And Willa?”

“She’s asleep, too.”

“You’re sure?” I can’t look at her. I just keep my eyes on the milk.

“She’s sleeping.”

Evie hums softly to the baby as I fill the bottle and then test the temperature on my wrist. I reach for the baby and she hands him to me without a word. I stick the nipple into his mouth and he starts to suck greedily. As I walk into the sitting room to sit in Uncle Fred’s big, cozy chair, I hear Evie wash up the milk pan and then head back upstairs.

I don’t mean to fall asleep in that big chair with the baby in my arms, but that’s what happens. When I wake, it is just before dawn. I can hear Willa coughing above me.

When I take the baby into the kitchen to start warming his milk before he starts crying for it, there is Mama, standing at the stove waiting for the teakettle to whistle. I come to a stop at the doorway. She snaps her head in my direction.

“Stay right there, Maggie,” she says, softly but urgently. “I don’t want you or him near me. I’ll be done here in just a minute or two.”

“How is Willa?” I ask.

“Her fever doesn’t seem quite as high this morning. So. There’s that.” She purses her lips together like she doesn’t want to say anything that might change that fact somehow. The kettle begins to sing and she takes it off the flame and pours the hot water into a teacup where she has a little brass steeper waiting. The steeper is in the shape of a pudgy cat. I’ve always liked it. She sets the kettle down on the stove and twirls the steeper. I smell Earl Grey. Then she looks at me. “You’re going back out with Mrs. Arnold today?”

“She said she’d be back for me first thing this morning.”

“I know yesterday was a difficult day for you, but it’s very important that you try to remember which house it was. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mama,” I say, very glad that she didn’t ask me to promise that I will do my best to remember. She asked me if I understood. I understand perfectly. “He may not have anyone else, though,” I add.

“I know that. But we must make sure. Because we know what it’s like to lose a child, don’t we?”

I nod. I understand that perfectly, too. “No one has called the police department about him.”

“Yes. Uncle Fred told me that.”

The baby makes a little waking sound. Soon he’ll be fussing for a bottle. Mama withdraws the steeping ball even though it hasn’t been in the cup long enough.

“Mrs. Arnold told me the city has too many orphans and not enough foster families to care for them,” I say. “The orphanages are all full.”

“Maggie—”

“They are! He’s going to need a home, Mama!”

She lets out a long breath as she sets the pudgy brass cat on a saucer. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re the ones who should be giving him one.”

“Why? Why shouldn’t it be us? We have the room. We even have the clothes and the diapers!”

I hadn’t meant for that to hurt her, but I think it did a little. She flinches, same as when you touch something that is hotter than you think it will be. I want to say I’m sorry, but she speaks again before I can.

“Let’s just consider all this one day at a time. If Mrs. Arnold thinks the authorities would appreciate us taking this child, then—”

“She already told me they would.”

Mama goes on as if I hadn’t rudely interrupted her. “Then we can talk to Uncle Fred and we can write to Papa and we can see if it’s the right thing to do for the child. It has to be about what’s best for him, Margaret, not about what’s best for us.” She picks up her cup. “You need to step aside now so I can get back upstairs.”