The Shape of Desire

  I’m concentrating on concocting the scheme, so I’m staring out the window, but I feel Ellen give me another quick glance. “You sure have a fertile mind for lying,” she says.

  I give a hollow laugh. “Years and years and years of practice.”

  “So what about the baby?” Ellen asks. “Can her brothers realistically raise her, or will you need to turn her over to the state?”

  “I’m keeping her,” I say.

  I expect her to exclaim with disbelief or dissent. Oh, no, girlfriend, do not even think you are keeping that baby. But this is Ellen; she’s usually a few steps ahead of me in anticipating emotional developments. “That’s the trauma talking,” she says quietly. “That’s the body revving up to do whatever it takes to survive an emergency. You haven’t thought it through.”

  I turn toward her as much as my seat belt will allow. “But I have thought it through,” I say. “I told Dante just a couple of months ago that I wanted a baby, and if he didn’t want to contribute to the process, I’d find another way to get one. He wasn’t keen on the idea, but he didn’t shoot me down. And Lizzie—I’ve only spent a couple days with her but I just adore her. I can do this, Ellen, I know I can. I want to.” I take a deep breath. “I’m just not sure, legally, how to make it all work. I mean, what happens to an orphaned child?”

  She risks a quick look at me then returns her attention to the road. “Orphaned,” she repeats. “Who’s her daddy?”

  “Some old high school friend of Christina’s who lives in Alaska now and only comes home once every five years, or something like that,” I say. “She didn’t even tell him about the baby. I don’t think he’s a factor, but that still leaves a lot of questions. How can I get custody of an abandoned baby? Does the state have to get involved? Will Dante or William automatically become her guardian? I don’t know any of this.”

  “I can help you through it,” she says. “I have friends who are social workers and lawyers. People who know the system. But I’ll have to be convinced it’s the right thing for her and for you.”

  I manage a soft laugh. “Well, it’s the right thing for her, no question,” I say. “She’s a shape-shifter’s child, Ellen. Chances are good that one day pretty soon she’s going to turn into something else. A kitten. A rabbit. How do you think a foster parent would handle that little wrinkle?”

  Ellen groans. “You’re right, but—hell. Well, that’s a little ways down the road. First we have to find her. Then we can think about keeping her.”

  A momentary silence falls between us, filled by the ongoing sound of the radio. The special news report has ended; now we’re listening to the comments by listeners calling in to offer their opinions on everything from the police department’s latest scandal to the newest baseball trade. Some, of course, still want to talk about the bizarre “wolf-woman” caught and killed on live television this afternoon. I don’t want to listen, but I can’t bring myself to change the station.

  One caller instantly catches my attention. “I can’t believe how gullible all you people are!” he exclaims. “That was the fakest newscast I ever saw. That stupid reporter is just trying to land himself a job in a big city like New York. Or maybe Channel 5 is just trying to boost its ratings, ’cause we all know it’s the suckiest station in the city. I mean, were there other news helicopters out there taking pictures? Noooooo. Well, isn’t that convenient for Channel 5!”

  I straighten in my seat and stare at the radio dial, which Ellen reaches out to tap with her right index finger. “There it is,” she says. “That’s what’s gonna save us. Redneck conspiracy theorists, who believe everyone is trying to trick them in one way or another.”

  “But I think there were a lot of cops and park rangers and other people who were on the scene and actually saw her change,” I say.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Ellen replies. “But some of them were too far away to get a good look at Christina’s face until she was dead, and others will say they thought they saw her throw something to the ground as she was running—a mask, maybe?—and all of them will feel like idiots swearing that they actually saw an animal turn into a human. I think the sheer suspicious nature of the average American will work to your advantage. People can’t believe this story is true, therefore someone’s lying to them. And no one investigates. And Lizzie and Dante and William are safe.”

  “I hope so,” I say. “Let’s hear it for fear and ignorance.”

  The bleak November sunset is layering icy white, tundra blue, and refrigerated pink on the western horizon as we exit the highway and begin winding through the countryside near Rolla. I had been sitting slack in my seat for the final twenty minutes of the drive, but now I’m upright and tense again, filled with an edgy energy. Prepared for anything at Christina’s house. I hope.

  Following my directions, Ellen pulls into Christina’s driveway and cuts the motor. I’ve already got my door open when she grabs my left wrist. In the gathering dark, I can barely see her face.

  “You realize this might be very bad,” she says quietly. “If Christina was so lost to herself that she was killing total strangers—”

  I wrench free. “She didn’t hurt Lizzie,” I say and jump out of the car without another word. But my heart is pounding; my brain is providing me with horrific images of nightmare slaughter. Thank God Ellen kept this speculation to herself until the moment of arrival. I don’t think I could have endured the ride with those pictures in my head.

  The house key is exactly where Christina had said she kept it, under the stone rabbit in the raised garden, surrounded by stripped winter bushes. Ellen has already climbed the stairs to the wide, gracious porch and is pressing her face against one of the windows, trying to peer into the living room.

  “I think I hear something inside,” she says.

  I turn the lock and open the door. I hear it, too. A baby’s voice, lifted in a long despairing cry, ragged and thready as if it has been sobbing for days but has not quite lost its hope of succor.

  “Lizzie,” I breathe. I run through the house for the baby’s room, hitting wall switches as I go; it is as if an illuminating fire springs to life in the wake of my passage. The overhead fixture blooms into light as I rush into the baby’s room, and I take it all in with one quick glance.

  Everything is tidy—a blanket folded neatly over the back of the rocking chair, diapers and onesies laid out on top of the changing table, photo frames and cute little carved animals set out lovingly on the dresser—except for the crib itself. There, all is a tangle of wadded up bedsheets and regurgitated formula and streaks of liquid brown that I have to assume has seeped from a Huggies diaper. Lizzie lies in the middle of the mess, hands balled up, feet kicking at the air, her face red from shrieking. One bootie has come off, it looks like she has scratched her face, and the odor of poop and urine is powerful, but she does not look injured or abused. Angry, afraid, hungry, miserable, yes, but whole. Healthy. Alive.

  “Thank God,” I whisper, and burst into tears.

  The tears don’t impede me as I hurry to the bedside and lift Lizzie out of her crib, leaky diaper and all. “Shh, shh, it will be all right,” I whisper as I cradle her against my chest. “I’m here, Aunt Maria is here. Everything will be okay.”

  Ellen is only a step behind me; she assesses the situation with one comprehensive look. “Good,” is her pronouncement. “You want to bathe and change her or do you want to prepare a bottle? She’s probably starving as well as filthy.”

  “I’ll bathe her,” I say. The truth is, I don’t want to let her go, even to move the short distance to the kitchen. Lizzie is still crying softly, but she calmed down almost instantly once I took her in my arms, and she is nestling her little head against my chest. Her thin dark hair is sweaty from the effort of screaming; her face is red and strained with remembered fury, but it seems to me she is no longer afraid. It seems to me she trusts me. She knows she is safe.

  “Sometimes when they’re this dirty it’s just easier to get in the shower with th
em,” Ellen advises. “And you’re going to need a clean shirt.”

  “Maybe you can find something for me in Christina’s closet,” I say. It won’t bother me to wear a dead woman’s clothes. After all, I’ll be caring for a dead woman’s child.

  Ellen has no qualms about it, either. “Sure thing. Let me mix up a bottle and then I’ll go look.”

  I follow her down the hallway toward the bathroom, still snuggling Lizzie tightly against my body. Her hands have fisted in my shirt; she hiccups against my chest. All the tension is leaving her small, clenched body—I think she might actually fall asleep before I get her clean. I leave the bathroom door open as I step inside and kick off my shoes. It is quite a trick to undress yourself when you’re holding a baby in your arms, but I manage to struggle out of my clothes without ever putting her down.

  She is mine now, and I am never letting her go.

  Within a half hour, Lizzie and I are both clean and wearing fresh clothes, and I am sitting in the rocking chair feeding her a bottle. She wants to close her eyes but I have no idea when she ate last. I feel that food is more important than sleep, at least for the moment, so I keep cajoling and insisting until she has almost finished the last ounce.

  Ellen comes in and drops to the floor in front of me, seating herself on a hooked rug featuring an illustration of “Hey Diddle Diddle.” It’s clear she’s been busy. “I cleaned the potentially smelly stuff out of the fridge and took out the trash,” she says. “Put the laptop by the door so you can take it back to your house and start going through e-mail. But two things I can’t find—a purse, and a set of car keys.”

  That catches my attention. “She probably drove to Babler,” I realize. “Her car is still there. That means—shit, at some point the cops will find it, and investigate it, and trace it back here.”

  “So we need to go get it,” she says. “You know how to break into a car? And hotwire it?”

  I shake my head and then lean back against the sturdy wood of the rocker. Suddenly I am so weary I can hardly think. I’m not sure I have the energy for one more adventure today. “No, do you?”

  “No. But Henry does.”

  “Oh, let’s not drag anyone else into this if we don’t have to.”

  “Well, we might have to. But we might have a couple days. I don’t know when the police start getting nosy about cars that have been left at the park too long.”

  “Then let’s not worry about it right now. Let’s just go home. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

  “Fine with me, Scarlett,” she says, coming to her feet. “Let’s gather the baby’s stuff and get out of here.”

  It’s while we’re packing grocery bags with diapers, clothing, bottles, and formula that I hear my cell phone ring. I leave Lizzie sleeping on the rug in her room and race through the house to grab my phone. “Dante?” I say. I don’t recognize the number on Caller ID, but I’m sure it’s him.

  “Hey, baby,” he says. He sounds tired but not particularly stressed. I think his day must have been better than mine. So far. “Guess what I’m calling you on? That cell phone we buried here in the park a few months ago. My own’s completely dead.”

  “I knew it would come in handy,” I say, while I’m thinking, Let’s ease into this. “Did you get my message?”

  “No, but I think I only have about fifteen minutes, so let me tell you my news first. I found him. I found William.”

  “Yes? And he said?”

  “It’s not him, Maria. He’s been gone so much lately because of a girl. I believed him anyway when he said it, but then—it was so crazy—we were here at the park, and all these dogs and cops started running past us. It was obvious they were hunting something, and we wondered if it might be the killer. William shifted to human shape and found some hikers to talk to, and they said there’d been another attack. The cops tracked the animal down and destroyed it. Do you know if it’s true?”

  “It’s true. We saw the whole thing on live TV.”

  The breath whooshes out of his body in one long unvoiced expression of relief. “And it wasn’t William,” he says again. “I can’t tell you, Maria—I hated asking him more than I’ve hated anything in my life. And you know what he said to me? He said, ‘I was afraid it might be you.’ And I told him, ‘Yeah, Maria thought the same thing.’ And he said, ‘That’s why she was looking for you! Now I get it!’ Smart guy, put it together right away.”

  “I thought William didn’t even follow the news,” I reply. “How’d he hear about the murders?”

  “Christina told him a couple weeks ago. She’s always pretty up on current events.”

  “Dante,” I say, “I have something terrible to tell you.”

  I can’t see him and he makes no sound, but I can feel him go into high alert, a predator poised to pounce, a prey animal tensed to flee. “What is it?”

  “The creature they tracked in Babler Park. The one they killed. It was Christina.”

  There is a silence so long that I would think the connection has failed except that I can still hear him breathing. I am not surprised he has no words. If someone told me my cousin Beth had become a brutal murderer, I would not be able to make sense of the accusation. “I think it was Christina all along. She killed all those people,” I say gently. “I’m guessing that she got a blood transfusion when she had the baby, and she just didn’t bother to tell you guys because she didn’t want you to worry. And then something—something went wrong in her body or in her head. I’m so, so, so sorry to have to tell you this.”

  “You’re sure?” he says, his voice shredded.

  “I saw the broadcast. I saw the animal change to a person. I saw her face.”

  His next words are so faint it is like they have been drawn on a sidewalk with chalk and all but washed away by the rain. “What about Lizzie?”

  “I’ve got her,” I say. “I’m in Rolla right now at the house. She looks like she’s been left alone all day, but she hasn’t been hurt. And I’ve fed her and changed her and I’ll bring her home with me tonight.”

  Another moment of bleak, empty silence, and then the phone transmits a sound I have never heard before—Dante softly weeping. If only he was not so far away. If only I was close enough to cradle him to my heart, as I cradled Lizzie, close enough for me to whisper the same lie into his ear, Shh, shh, it will be all right.

  But he is not, and all I can do is offer the eternal promise, the eternal invitation. “I love you. I will always love you. Come home to me as soon as you can.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The following week unfolds in such an unfamiliar fashion that I might almost be living someone else’s life. The first thing I learn is that an infant in the house changes everything—what you eat, when you sleep, what every minute of your life holds. Ellen has told me she will not expect me at work for any of the three days leading to the Thanksgiving holiday.

  “I’m out of vacation time,” I say.

  She waves a hand. “I know. Maybe we can get you FMLA days. We’ll work it out.”

  I have to find a day care or a nanny, and soon, but Lizzie and I need this first week to get to know each other. She is still a beautiful child, alert and easily engaged, but I think I can sense a tension in her that was not present before. She cries more easily, she wakes more fretfully in the middle of the night, and more often. I have to wonder how Christina’s accelerating madness played out in their house—how often she left the baby alone for hours, failed to feed her, or simply allowed her to cry. I have to wonder how long it will take before Lizzie knows I will never fail her.

  I have to admit, I am thrilled—and sometimes, moved to tears—when she responds to me, when my touch or my voice is enough to comfort her in the night. When I bend over her, first thing in the morning, she smiles and lifts her arms to me, and every time I am struck in the heart. She is so precious, so pure; if she loves me, I have been approved by angels.

  But Lizzie does not represent the only change that has come to my life. She is
not the only new addition who looks to be a permanent fixture in my house.

  Sunday night, shortly after I have put Lizzie to bed in a makeshift crib constructed of a hastily emptied dresser drawer, I hear a scuffle on the front porch and the sound of a throaty bark. It is close to ten o’clock and I am exhausted beyond description, and yet a prickle of anticipation shoots a burst of energy into my veins. Flipping on the porch light, I open the door to find two large dogs standing just outside, their ears perked up, and their tails straight behind them. One is a German shepherd, mostly black with a little white; the other is some kind of setter, a fluid golden brown. I have never seen either one before, and yet I know, I know, that these are Dante and William.

  Wordlessly, I open the door and let them in. The shepherd pauses to nuzzle my hand and—when I stoop down—to lick my face, but the setter trots directly to the guest room where Lizzie lies sleeping. Careful not to wake her, he sniffs her face and touches her balled fist with his nose. Then, with a long doggy sigh, he shakes himself and settles on the floor beside her, resting his muzzle on his forepaws. The shepherd also investigates Lizzie, then sinks to his haunches and watches me in the dim light thrown in from the hallway.

  Dante has never allowed me to see him in his animal state, and so I am not sure he will permit me to make any contact now. But he doesn’t pull away when I reach out my hand, and I can’t resist ruffling his fur and scratching the top of his head. He responds by licking the inside of my wrist.

  “I don’t know exactly what to do now,” I tell him. “I don’t know if you can understand me. I’ve got a bag of dog food in the basement—long story—so I’ll put out a couple bowls of that and some water. Lay down some blankets. I guess you want to sleep in here with the baby? And then maybe in the morning, if you’re human, we can talk.” I glance at William. “All of us can talk. Figure out what to do next.”