Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories (18 page)

It was the sound he made when he recognized something.

Does this make sense to you?
she wondered.
Do the stars really sing?

She wore the Snugli in front so Baby rode with his head on her collarbones. He squinted down in the bag as she loaded the dryer, poking his head into her shirt.

“I’ve got news for you, kid—that’s not where dinner comes from.” She slid a hand down to move him, then realized he’d gone still against her breast.

He was listening to her heartbeat.

Oh God, letting him go would be hard. He was stronger now, a bit heavier, an inch taller. Rolling on the floor was an adventure. He pulled himself up against the furniture like any child. She loved the way he cooed in his sleep, like the song of small birds. His eyes were so blue she thought moons glowed in them, and knew he preferred shadows because sunshine bothered them.

But moonlight didn’t. He trailed his long fingers through it like a sparrow soaking up heat, and her heart ached even as it rejoiced that her favourite time of day was also his.

She’d have a couple of blurred photos she’d taken in the garden, and when he was gone, she’d have his Mason jar. Not much. She still wondered how he’d got in there. She’d wondered once if Mama might be dead, if she’d put Baby in the jar to hide him from danger. That notion had lasted until the six o’clock news. Claire sat Baby on her lap as she watched the update.

There were more reports of strange lights over Hastings, Kentucky. “Well, sweetheart, looks like Mama’s hot on the trail.”

Their first trip to the garden: fear. No one could see over the fence. There were no wandering cats to scratch him. But what if the soil was toxic to him, or the scent of the flowers poison? What if the insects found him tasty? She had no way of anticipating. Any bump could be a disaster.

In the end, he decided. She found him leaning on the door, trying to push it open, and thought of his exit from the Mason jar.

Baby wanted out.

She gathered him up and opened the door. He sang as they went out, a single note echoed by the wren on the roof. He looked up and seemed to smile. He always looked like that.

Claire knelt and lowered him toward the grass. He patted it curiously. No sign of pain, no blistering from a chlorophyll allergy. She plunked him on the grass beside her and started to weed the daisies.

“Here, do you want one?” He ran a tiny fingertip over the soft petals. “That one is I love you, and this is I love you not—it’s okay, it’s just a game—and this is I love you.”

She pulled a blade of grass from his mouth, and he chimed as she tickled his chin with a buttercup. No yellow, no surprise. He tracked a blue jay as it sailed overhead, and Claire realized suddenly how frightening this could have been. Was the sky a strange colour? Did he remember home?

Did he know this one was temporary?

Om.
Claire knew that one: he wanted to be held. She obliged. He liked the tour of the garden. She’d cleared away the weeds and overgrowth, but hadn’t planted much; the last tenants had left flowers of a dozen hues. She wondered what they’d felt, turning something they loved so much over to a stranger’s care. She shivered in the June warmth and, without realizing she did so, Claire
omed
. Baby wrapped his arms around her neck.

He didn’t fit in the Snugli now. He’d graduated to grape juice. She’d caught him standing by himself, and grabbed him before he toppled.

She wanted to see his first steps.

He trilled in protest as she turned for the house, but the sun was hot and her skin itched. She jerked back as sparks jumped from the door handle.

It wouldn’t be long. The air was heavy, as though a charge crackled through it. There were more frequent reports of lights seen in Hastings. They were closer, moving in a rough line. The weather bureau couldn’t explain them. The power companies claimed ignorance.

Claire waited until dark and went out on the step.

“Can you smell the rain coming? We can wait—I know you like to splash. I wish you could see a rainbow before you go.”

And new snow and a circus parade. It wasn’t going to happen. Claire hiked the baby up to eye level.

“You have to go soon. It’s best for you.” Her voice broke. She tried again. “I can’t take you anywhere else and you can’t stay with me forever. It’s not as safe as it used to be.”

He looked up at her seriously.
Clink.

“Because this morning the delivery boy asked if I had a home office. Someone’s noticed I never go out, and it’s not normal for people to stay home all the time. We were okay until the questions started.”

Claire smiled as Baby ran little fingers through her hair. “I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ll miss you, but I’ll be okay.”

Baby trilled softly.

“All right. I’ll be okay
eventually
. I never intended to stay here; I still have my real estate license. That’s how I met Jason—I sold him his house. I can go back to the real world. It’s an interesting place. Yes, almost as interesting as those.”

He was playing with her thumbs again. He didn’t have any.

The clouds were blowing in fast. She looked down at the baby, squashed and bent at odd angles. She heard a crack of thunder and thought,
There goes my heart
.

“Once,” she said, “in the middle of a fight, Jason asked me what I wanted. It was the only time he’d ever asked. I couldn’t tell him I wanted someone to love and he wasn’t it. I thought it would never happen. But we know better, don’t we?”

He looked up and chimed briefly.

She said, “Will you try to remember me?”

Ching clink.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

They sat for a while. He would leave with the memory of birdsong. There wasn’t a lot left to say. Finally she took him out to dance in the rain.

And they were still dancing. Claire circled the kitchen to a country waltz on the radio. The rain stopped, and she considered the night sky in passing. Baby belonged in that icy Shambalah. She wondered which system was home.

He rubbed his head against her throat. It was a small movement, a sign of agitation. Claire’s own skin felt tender, as though stroked with sandpaper. She could
feel
the people around them becoming edgy.

“Hang on, sweetheart—Mama’s coming.”

She wondered if she’d survive it. First contact with a Mason jar was one thing; Mama was likely to be another.

But first things first.

She trailed her fingers across his scalp. Her skin imprinted his warmth, his slight weight, his soft breath.

I will buy windchimes to echo your voice. I will hear the world differently. I will never again be too busy to look at the stars.

I’ll remember you so clearly that a hundred years from now I’ll still feel you in my arms.

Baby yawned an arpeggio. She waltzed him down the hall and settled in the rocker. Its motion lulled them to sleep.

The light woke them.

A freshet of alto notes blew out of the brightness. Baby poked his head through the crook of her arm and warbled. Claire found her feet and brushed her mouth over Baby’s. She whispered, “Bye-bye,” and wept as she held him out. Smooth arms brushed hers as they took him.

She forced a breath. She could be steady. She would be brave.

Her scream was horrible. Her grief was loud. But no—the scream wasn’t hers; her throat would never make that sound without bursting. It was broken ice sliding off the roof.

It dawned on her, “Baby?”

He wobbled out and grabbed her leg. Claire tugged him free and offered him to the light again. He shrieked and clamped his hand around her thumb.

“I’m sorry please oh God I’m sorry Baby she’s your
mother.
”

A pale hand extended from the brightness. It slipped over Baby’s arm and closed around Claire’s wrist.
Clink chime.
Not Baby.

Surprising herself, Claire smiled. She would continue to love the Baby. If allowed the time, she’d ask how he’d got himself mailed. She’d planned to go back to the real world; she’d never said whose. Specifics were everything.

Be careful what you wish for.

Claire stepped into the light.

Originally published in On Spec
Spring 2001 Vol 13 No 1 #44

Nova Scotian author
Catherine MacLeod
spends too much time watching black-and-white episodes of “Gunsmoke” on youtube. Her publications include short fiction in
Black Static
,
TalesBones
, and
Solaris
, and several anthologies, including
Fearful Symmetries
,
The Living Dead 2
, and
On Spec: The First Five Years
.

E.L. Chen

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child!

— King Lear, Act I, Scene 4

The wino on the corner says he’s my father. Ha. My father is some serial jerk who didn’t stick around long enough to pick out baby names with my mom.

“Cordelia,” the wino says in a bad English accent as I approach the crosswalk. Cordelia’s not my name.

I eye the traffic lights. Still red. Great. I shift my schoolbag to my other shoulder and fake interest in the chipped black polish on my thumbnail.

“Cordelia,” he says. “Do you not recognize your sire?”

As if I could forget a loser like him. Greasy tufts of white hair and a face sewn from faded red leather. Sprawled against a rusted three-wheeled shopping cart piled with empties, mateless shoes, blankets, and whatever else homeless alkies keep in shopping carts. His voice rising and trembling and dissolving into the dull buzz of afternoon traffic. “Cruel Cordelia,” he says, “dost thou repudiate thy father, thy lord, thy king? O, unkind wench, as a serpent’s tooth pierces an egg thou rend my heart.”

“My name’s not Cordelia,” I tell him.

“What is thy name?”

I say nothing. I wish he’d ask me for spare change instead, even though what little cash I have has to tide me over until I get birthday money next week.

“If thou dost not know thy name, thou must be a Fool. Come, come, I have need for a Fool.” His sunburned face stretches and splits, revealing front teeth stained a malt liquor brown. I wince. He smells like the time I went to Diane Rybcynski’s party—back when we were still friends—and at least one person’s fake ID had been accepted at the LCBO.

“I don’t think so,” I say, edging closer to the curb.

At the first glimpse of green, a desperate grip holds me back from the crosswalk as my fellow pedestrians surge ahead without me.

“Watch it!” I yank my arm away and turn to confront the old lech. “What do you think you’re—”

The intersection bleeds and blurs before my eyes like a stain spreading on fabric. Only the old wino remains in focus—although he appears to be a different man, straight-backed and proud, his hair tamed by a circle of gold that must be heavier than it looks. I blink. “What—”

FOOL: —saith my Lord?
(Bows.)

KING: Sweet Fool, make me forget that I hath like a trefoil leaf not one daughter but three. Would that I hadst pluck’d the green from the stem ere the rot touch’d me!

FOOL: I shall make thee merry, Nuncle, and thou shalt forget.
(Pauses.)
Hey! What the hell—

“—is going on?”

I discover that I’m buried in a ragged sweater that appears to be made up of pieces of other ragged sweaters. I tear it over my head; it smells surprisingly clean, like fabric softener.