The baby had thin eyelids clasped over its eyes and a squinched-up face with no chin, just a dimple beneath its pouting juicy lips. It had soft white down covering its skull. I peeked through the darkness at its chubby thighs. It was a girl baby. I set the baby into the hole.
"Should we say something?" I asked.
"It's not our baby," he said, and began filling the hole. I pressed down chunky dirt with my fingers. Then we washed our hands and went to sleep.
"Is it crying?" I asked in the middle of the night.
Shush, shush, went my husband's breath. He was still sleeping. My breasts were cold. I cupped each hand around my aching cold breasts, my swollen nipples. Milk oozed out.
"Please, please, this has never happened before." I shook his shoulder. "We should have told someone. Someone is missing their baby."
"No one is missing their baby," he said. "Go back to sleep."
The next night I was sure I heard the baby, the girl baby, the exact sound a girl baby makes when she needs to be changed.
"Is it crying?" I asked, but my husband's face was waxen with sleep, and his breath said, Hush.
I slid out of bed. My naked shadow stretched and leapt before me, touching the nursery door. The cradle stood a gaping womb in the center of the room, so I filled it with teddy bears.
In the morning I called my mother and she did not remember my name. So I called my daughter. She had a test tomorrow, gotta go mom, bye. I had no one else to talk to, so I walked in the orchard. The apple trees told me I would soon be carrying heavy baskets in front of me, all filled with rosy Braeburns. Crows cried, leaping among the branches and glittering mobiles.
I shut the kitchen door and wept as I scrubbed the floor. My husband came in.
"The floor seems clean," he said.
It wasn't.
"We can't tell anyone anymore than we could have kept it," he said to me. "We're too old to have more children."
"It wasn't ever going to be my baby," I told him.
"No, it wasn't," he agreed.
When we ate dinner, I could hear a baby crying in the kitchen. I ran in and searched. I opened up the bottom cupboards, and found a baby crying on a muffin tin, but it wasn't my baby. I found a baby beneath the sink on a pillow of plastic bags next to the Drain-O, but that wasn't my baby. I found a baby in the cupboards beside the bread and one on top of the refrigerator next to the coffee, and there, in the sink, taking a bath, and I couldn't hold them, I couldn't carry them, because not one of them was my baby. But they had the sharp complaining cry of babies that want to be held, a cry that cut through me, and so I was holding myself, cradling myself, shaking my head.
My husband put his arms around me, and he was like a robin over a blue speckled egg, and he rocked me, and he whispered, "We couldn't have kept it, even if you'd been able to bring it to term. It was just as well you miscarried. You'll forget it soon enough, and we'll get through this."
That night I shook my husband and shook him.
"I know she's out there," I said. "I can hear her sleeping beneath the dirt."
"It's four a.m.," my husband said.
"She'll smother if we leave her out there!"
My husband rose into the night. Together we drifted down the stairwell, two raindrops streaking down a window, dropping into the garden.
The blueberry bushes above the raw earth of the baby's grave were pregnant with fruit, and I curled beneath the kneeling branches.
"What do we do?" my husband asked me.
"What we always do," I said.
Our hands plunged into the warm earth, and we found the baby inside, white as a potato, frozen hard. We washed her in the kitchen sink with warm water and no-cry soap, and I wrapped her in a white terrycloth dishtowel. Then we walked out to the meadow with the sweet grasses.
I pulled myself up into a pine tree. My husband handed the baby up to me, his face moon-like in the darkness. Cradling the baby in one arm, I climbed one-handed, the pine bending beneath me.
I held up the baby until the sun rose and the crows took her away from me.
What's in a Name
By Mark Souza
Boner is a tough nickname to live down, especially in a small town.
My life turned for the worse the first month of my freshman year in high school, during the warm last days of summer before autumn takes hold. It was a year of change, and nothing highlighted that more than the changes in Lisa Canter. Tall and gawky the year before, the only clues she wasn't a boy were the dress and long, blonde hair. Then something magical happened over the summer. She arrived at high school a fully formed woman, and oh what a form.
She was in my first period biology class. Mr. Larsen had us giving team reports that accounted for twenty percent of that quarter's grade. He called it getting a running start. We all hated him for it, preferring instead to ease into the academic year like timid swimmers.
Lisa had worn a green halter top that day, which was strictly verboten by school dress code, and wore it with pride. Her new figure had given her power and prestige she had never known. It was only natural that she would want to take it out for a test drive.
Mr. Larsen's eyes latched onto her the moment she walked into his room. By all rights he should have said something, sent her home, but he didn't. A sly smile spread across his face and his eyes lingered longer than they should. It was obvious he too was a fan of the changes in Lisa Canter.
Lisa's group was up first. Their report was on photosynthesis. As she spoke and gestured from the front of the class, her halter bobbed to a frequency uniquely Lisa, the thin clingy fabric leaving very little for my fertile imagination to fill in. I daydreamed scenarios that would never happen anywhere but in my head, where that halter went from a featured player to a rag forgotten on the grass. I learned nothing about photosynthesis. Her voice faded into a melodic hum as my mind drifted in to an area code of its own.
All too soon she smiled and her group returned to their seats to a smattering of applause. I jolted back to reality and clapped too. Then my group was called forward.
I had a problem and remained frozen to my seat. "Mr. Adams, aren't you going to join your team," Mr. Larsen said. "Hurry now, we haven't got all day." When I wouldn't move he pressed harder. "You do realize this is twenty percent of your grade. You don't want that sycophant Becky Stanton to wind up freshman valedictorian uncontested, do you?" He stood over me looking stern, arms crossed over his chest, tapping his foot impatiently. "Mr. Adams, this is no time to be shy. You are ten seconds from an 'F'. Ten, nine, eight ? "
I stood. An ache in my loins pressed out stiff against my pants. I walked to the front of the room trying to be nonchalant, trying not to draw attention, and kept my back to the class as long as I could. Jimmy MacClure stood at the front with the rest of my group, the Mitosis Clan. He started laughing with that hyena laugh of his, and couldn't stop. His face turned a bright shade of pink only attainable by redheads. In mere seconds, others in class caught on and joined in. A few pointed in case anyone might have missed the spectacle. Blood rose to my cheeks in a hot flush and I prayed for an aneurism. Mr. Larsen attempted to quell the riot by explaining the mechanics of an erection and how common they were for males my age. It only added fuel. Thanks Mr. Larsen. The class laughed so hard I thought they might die of oxygen deprivation. No such luck.
My group didn't give a presentation on mitosis. The bell rang before Mr. Larsen could regain control. Lisa Canter was sent home by her second period teacher after a trip to the principal's office to discuss proper school attire. News spread though the hallways faster than a foul smell on a brisk wind. By lunch I was Boner Adams, and I've been Boner Adams ever since.
At first, no one could say it without snickering. They'd either been there or heard the story. For a while afterward, Lisa would smile when she passed me in the hall, the expression on her face a mix of embarrassment and pride. Eventually, she pretended not to notice me at all, or I'd turn and go the other way to save her the trouble.
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By the end of the year, nearly every kid in town claimed to have been in Mr. Larsen's room that day, and Boner was what everyone but my parents called me. My given name of William had turned to counterfeit currency everywhere but home. Most jokes lose power with repetition, but not my nickname.
I moved out of state to attend college. I had to. How far can a man go burdened with a moniker like Boner? Boner Adams is the perfect man to handle your sexual harassment suit. Perhaps we should let Boner look at your portfolio. Meet our new staff gynecologist, Boner Adams. It just wasn't going to work. There are some names you can grow into, some you can grow out of, and others as restrictive as a straightjacket. I needed a fresh start.
Photosynthesis: the word still makes me smile whenever I think of it. To this day, when the sun backlights maple trees so their leaves glow like emeralds, my mind wanders back to the magic of Lisa Canter's green halter top. With the benefit of time and distance, I can laugh about it now-now that my name is once again Bill.
When Don Cristobal Eduardo Stabbed his Wife and her Lover
By Christopher Sutcliffe
When Don Cristobal Eduardo stabbed his wife and her lover in broad daylight in Dona Maria's coffee and cake shop nobody batted an eyelid. The padre almost spilt some sweet milky coffee into his saucer, but he caught it just in time. Dona Maria called one of the girls to mop up the blood and when it was done she called the Gardia. Two men, barely boys, rolled up in dirty green uniforms smoking thin stinking cigarettes and stared at the bodies like they'd fallen from the sky.
"Dona Maria," said one of the Guards. "What happened in your caf??"
"I didn't see a thing," said Dona Maria. The rest of the cafe agreed.
The Guards scratched their heads and cast inexperienced eyes over busy tables.
"Dona Maria, whilst we consider the crime scene, perhaps you could bring us something to drink."
"Of course. Anything for the Guards. Black coffee? Green tea?"
"Perhaps something stronger. White rum?"
"Fine," said Dona Maria, and sent a girl to fetch two large rums.
The younger Guard looked at the elder Guard and shrugged.
"It's a mystery," he said.
The elder nodded slowly. "I agree. But perhaps it will become clearer in time."
The two sat down by the padre and the elder rested his arm heavily across the churchman's shoulders. "Padre," he said. "Perhaps you saw something?"
The caf? turned as one in a chorus of scraping chairs to watch the padre, who again was close to spilling his drink. The padre was a drunkard and his coffee was mostly rum. His eyes took their time to find his interrogator, and it was towards the ceiling he answered finally.
"I didn't see a thing."
The younger looked at the elder and they exchanged shrugs.
"A mystery indeed."
The Guards received their drinks and sat down to enjoy them, and the caf? resumed a noisy lunch.
"And the bodies?" asked Dona Maria.
The older took a hefty swallow and sighed because it tasted so good. "Perhaps Don Cristobal Eduardo would be so good as to help us remove them," he said. "Send a boy to fetch him. Until then ? hmm?" He indicated his empty glass. A boy was sent to fetch the Don and a girl to fetch the bottle of rum.
"This time," said the Guards, "You'd best make it the good stuff."
After killing the cheating couple Don Cristobal apologised to Dona Maria for disturbing her caf?, and left for the home of his mistress. Don Cristobal was a stout man with a taste for the mulatto girls who danced on Calle Simone. His mistress was Luisa, a Colombiana who performed in the Nightingale Garden. She never awoke before eleven and when he walked through her front door with blood on his hands she was enjoying a long, hot morning shower.
"Luisa," he said, "I am a bachelor and a murderer. I am both free and wanted at the same time."
"Don Cristobal," she said, rubbing soap into her breasts. "Will you help get my back?"
"Luisa, you don't understand. I have slain my wife and the man she was screwing behind my back."
"That's fine, Don Cristobal, but please get my back."
Don Cristobal rubbed soap into Luisa's spine and told her everything. Luisa listened carefully whilst she washed and dried herself and when he was done she told him to never admit to anybody what he had done, not even to her, or they would tie his arms and legs to fast horses and set them off running in opposite directions.
"But Luisa," said the Don, "fifty people must have seen me."
Luisa wrapped her hair into a towel with a few sharp, deft flicks of her wrists, and threw another towel around her waist, leaving her chest exposed. She examined herself in the mirror, and enjoyed what she saw.
"Now how could they have seen you, Don Cristobal," she said, in the voice one would use to talk to a slow child, "when you were right here with me the whole time?"
The boy arrived to fetch Don Cristobal Eduardo, who kept him waiting in the kitchen with a glass of milk whilst he and Luisa screwed in the bedroom. Don Cristobal arrived at the caf? shortly after two, almost three hours after the murders. The bodies had begun stinking and flies were lapping the spilt blood. The midday crowd had left. The Gardia were drunk, and were trying to throw cashews down the low cut top of the dead wife. Only the padre remained, and because he was hungry he was picking up and eating the cashews that scattered the floor.
The Gardia were young. The eldest was nineteen and his partner sixteen. They compensated for youth with violence and laziness. Don Cristobal was as familiar with their sort as anybody, and stiffened when he saw them drunk. The soldiers stood when he arrived and came close. The Don was a short man and their rum-stained breath warmed his balding pate. The butt of the younger's gun poked hard into his rounded stomach and the elder lifted him by the chin until Don Cristobal's eyes met his own.
"Don Cristobal," he said, drunk with alcohol and authority. "Did you stab your wife and this man?"
The Don found it hard to breathe under the stench of rum. He was afraid. The elder soldier slowly pulled his sword from its holster and raised the pointy end between the two of them to rest on the Don's Adam's Apple.
"Don Cristobal. Did you stab your wife and this man?
The Don stood as tall and with as much dignity as he could under the circumstances, took a deep breath that he slowly released, leaving blood on his neck from the sword.
"I did," he said.
For the longest time, everybody froze.
"HaHa!" shouted the Guard. "Good man!" He lowered his blade and clapped his hands. "A drink for the Don!"
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ashwords. This is the July 2009 edition.
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