What mattered was that Muffin needed to go to the bathroom.
Bad.
Cinda was clapping and opening the door. “Oh, here’s my baby! Here is my baby! Oh, he’s so beautiful, he’s so perfect!” She leaned over Muffin without even seeing her. She undid Sam’s straps and lifted him across Muffin’s lap and out of the car and up onto her shoulder, still laughing, and now kissing as well.
Muffin had forgotten to get her camera ready, but Kit had not. That was another nice thing about being older; you didn’t forget stuff. You paid attention. Muffin reminded herself to pay attention.
Kit focused the gaudy yellow box on Cinda’s face and caught a perfect picture of a mommy’s coo when she first saw her son. Muffin was happy. There was nothing Muffin liked better than sitting on Gramma’s lap and looking at Muffin’s own baby books.
Cinda jounced Sam the Baby — a little too hard for Muffin’s taste. On the other hand, Muffin really had to go to the bathroom and all bouncing was a threat.
“Look!” Cinda cried to the men. “Look! My baby.”
Kit had gotten out of the car and was aiming across the car roof, taking photographs of the entire family.
Muffin clambered out, thinking of bathrooms and how many seconds she had left before she had an accident.
One man was scary, his face all pocked up and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Mom, who was into healthy, would be crazed that this new baby was going into a smoking family. The man probably only smokes outside, Muffin comforted herself.
The other man was thin and small. Muffin hoped she wouldn’t grow up to look as not grown-up as this guy. He was having trouble with his watchband or something, and did not glance at Sam or Cinda.
Muffin’s camera was still in the little two-handed front pocket of her sweatshirt, but she didn’t need it, with Kit taking all those pictures. She needed a bathroom. Muffin scooted around the cluster of grown-ups and baby.
The garage swung sideways off the house and there was a door between the garage and the house. That was probably the mudroom, and led to the kitchen, and probably the closest bathroom was through that door. On the other hand, the front door was right here, and wide open.
Muffin darted in the front door, going for the bathroom with the homing instinct of a migrating bird.
How Cinda would treasure these photographs in the years to come!
Kit got out of her Volvo and circled it, and as she turned she counted three cars parked in the space between the house and the garage. One was Ed’s scary, long low Caddy. The other two were Jeep Grand Cherokees, high and square, one red, one navy blue. They were facing out, ready to leave, like Kit, and they were filled. Packed. Jammed with boxes and bags and stuff.
Don’t be silly, she said to herself. The cars aren’t facing out. Cinda and Burt are moving in, at this very moment.
Kit took a shot of the row of cars, to immortalize moving day, and a shot of the house, to immortalize the flowers in bloom on the day the baby came. The flower photo might not come out, because there was so little light, but the cars would be clear. They didn’t have Jersey plates. In fact, she noticed, each Jeep had the plate of a different state. Perhaps Cinda and Burt had just gotten married! Perhaps they were merging households for the very first time, and — no, that didn’t make sense. People struggling to adopt had always been married for ages.
Cinda held the baby to her breast and tucked her head against his. “He smells so sweet.”
Kit smiled to herself. That would soon be incorrect. She moved the camera to vertical position for the next picture.
Ed Bing caught her shoulder. “Hey! No photographs! I’ll take the camera!” He actually had the nerve to put his fat hand on top of hers, trying to get the camera away from her! She wanted to kick him in the shins. Kit wrenched away from him, glaring.
“Photographs!” said Burt. The man Kit assumed was Burt.
“Of course you want photographs,” said Kit. “This is such an important day! The first day you ever had your son. Now you’ll have pictures to cherish forever.”
The laughter left Cinda’s face. The cigarette was lowered from Ed’s mouth. The watch no longer interested Burt. They stared at Kit. She stared back.
“I’m so sorry we’re so jumpy, Kit,” said Cinda. “It’s just been a very difficult day for us all.”
“For me, too,” said Kit. She thought, They’re too nervous to introduce themselves. They haven’t even said the baby’s name. They must have chosen a name. They’ve known about him for days. “Are you Burt Chance?” she said to the second man.
He snapped, a severe head-to-toe muscle spasm, as if he’d had an electric jolt. “How does she know our name?” Burt said roughly to Cinda.
“I told her on the phone, when I was asking her to bring the baby,” said Cinda, in an oddly pleading voice.
Burt seemed furious and badly upset, almost weepy, and now for the second time he touched Sam the Baby’s cheek, and ran a finger gently across the downy hair on Sam’s head.
Ed moved forward in a strange, herding sort of way, like a dog moving sheep to slaughter. His mouth was open too much and he was breathing heavily and his eyes were too wide, rotating from Cinda to Kit to Burt to Cinda — but never to the baby. His cousin’s little boy.
The day ended. Dusk thickened into night. Kit could not hear them breathing. She could barely see their faces. She could not see Muffin at all.
Kit pressed the button for the flash, in order to take the precious picture of the three of them: mother, father, and son for the first moment in their lives. She looked down to check the signal light. When it came on, she lifted the camera and saw that the three grown-ups were paying no attention to the baby. Their focus was on Kit. The baby had slid off Cinda’s shoulder and was halfway down her arm, and Cinda had not noticed.
Kit’s arms chilled beneath her sleeves. Her hair prickled. She remembered the day when Mom had sat her down to announce that there would be a separation and then a divorce, because Mom had found “somebody else.” Mom’s expressions had been fake and out of place. Her smiles had come at the wrong times. Her excitement had been a complete mismatch for the occasion.
And this — this moment — these people — they were a complete mismatch for the occasion.
Why hadn’t Cinda rushed inside to get the cute little clothing she must have bought for this long-awaited moment? How could she let her new son go on wearing nothing but his blanket and his Huggies?
Why was Ed standing there, panting like a hound?
Why was Burt so upset? Why was he looking at his watch instead of his son?
I should have called Dad, thought Kit. So what if he doesn’t like being bothered? So what if Dusty is a pain? This is a baby. I’ve treated Sam like part of Dusty’s doll collection.
Collection.
It was a collection of people, but one of them was missing.
Where is Muffin? she thought.
“How sweet of you, Kit.” Cinda’s voice was getting higher with each sentence. It was trembling now, too. “How thoughtful to be thinking of our baby book. I have a grand idea! Ed, let’s get Kit in a photograph. After all, she brought us our baby. Kit, give Ed the camera. We need you in the picture.” Cinda handed Sam the Baby to Kit.
The baby was warm and limp in her arms. Spineless. There was something eerie about his bonelessness, as if Kit had all the bones and he had none. She tucked Sam into her own body, but it was not successful; she could not wrap around him; she could not hide him. First Dusty left Sam as easily as she would have left a package. Now Cinda had handed him off as if he didn’t matter.
“Why didn’t you pick up the baby at the hospital?” asked Kit.
The house had no furniture in it.
There was not a chair. Not a couch. Not a TV. Not a table.
Muffin walked through a hall with stairs going up, but she didn’t go up them, and instead went into what had to be the living room — and nobody lived there.
Boxes and papers litter
ed the floor. Crumpled computer printouts carpeted the room. Brown paper grocery bags overflowed with more crumpled paper.
Muffin found the powder room off the kitchen and there was one towel in there and a roll of toilet paper sitting on the floor. There was no soap. Still, it was a bathroom, and Muffin was very glad to sit on the toilet for a minute. Then she went into the kitchen to find soap. Her mother believed in frequent hand washing.
If you used nothing else in your whole house, you had to use your kitchen. Everybody loved food, even health people like Mom, who outlawed so many types of food.
There were stacks of empty greasy pizza boxes, from many different places, as if these grown-ups had decided to try every pizza place in New Jersey, and never the same one twice.
Muffin opened the drawer next to the sink. It did not hold silver and it did not hold knives. It was empty. She opened two cabinets. They were empty.
The kitchen was dirty.
Aunt Karen’s house was not clean and it was not neat. But it had a comfortable feel to it. This kitchen had an awful filth grime to it.
Muffin was afraid.
New babies — didn’t they get sick easily? Shouldn’t their mommies be very concerned with health?
One of these people smoked, they didn’t have soap in the bathroom, they didn’t even own dishes?
Muffin agonized over being nine. If she were sixteen, like Rowen, or thirty-eight, like Dad, she would know things.
She knew only that she did not want Sam the Baby here.
She did not want to drive away and know that her clean sweet baby was in the hands of people who did not even keep a chair to sit on.
She remembered when the people across the street had their first baby. They shopped for nine months. They had clothes and toys and a bassinet and a carriage and music boxes and books for parental guidance and new wallpaper.
Sam the Baby had used his last Huggie and his last baby wipe and he had only one of the little disposable bottles left.
Now what?
Who were these people who lived way out here without soap and weren’t ready for their own baby to arrive?
Chapter 7
MUFFIN CAME OUT OF the house.
Lights were on inside, so Muffin was framed in the doorway. Backlit, she looked exceptionally small: a kindergarten drawing; a stick figure. Kit knew that little sisters were pretty tough, but Muffin didn’t look tough. She looked as if she could be snapped along any bone.
“Hey!” said Burt roughly, spotting Muffin. “Hey! What were you doing inside our house?” He whirled, slamming his feet down, heading for the door. He was not a big man, he was not as tall as Kit, but suddenly his entire body was a threat: was muscle: was force.
If I need to protect Muffin, I can’t do it, thought Kit. My arms are full of baby.
She remembered a game that had been popular at slumber parties in California. You drew a card with some dreadful moral question. “If the house is on fire, and there are three children in the house, ages one and four and seven, and you can save only one — which one do you save?”
It’s a real question, thought Kit, and fear creased her mind like a fold on a final exam: I can save only one.
Cinda caught Burt’s sleeve, whispering, “I was the one who called them, Burt! Don’t be mad at the little girl. I had to call! It was our last chance to get Dusty’s baby!”
How frantic the whisper was! How pierced with anxiety!
Burt shook her off, but he did stop moving.
Muffin came down the first step. Cinda, Ed, and Burt did not take their eyes off her, as if she were a carrier of a disease and they must watch where she went. What is going on here? thought Kit. How can they be afraid of Muffin?
Kit knew Muffin and Rowen’s mother slightly. Mrs. Mason never said, “You are to be back here at precisely nine o’clock, and not a minute later,” which was the kind of order Kit received. Muffin’s mother said things like, “Trust your instincts. What does your body tell you? What is the aura?”
The aura rots, thought Kit.
“I had to use your bathroom,” said Muffin with dignity. “You don’t have any soap. Don’t you wash your hands afterwards? Now that you have Sam, you need to remember to wash your hands frequently.”
Her voice was frail in the dark and the silence of this remote place. It was a strange stranded copy of her own mother’s voice.
Sam isn’t the baby’s name, thought Kit. I made it up. How come Cinda and Burt aren’t correcting her? How come they’re not saying, “Oh, no, this is Conor! Spencer! Dennis! Shane!” or whatever name they have ready?
“Are you moving out or are you moving in?” said Muffin.
“We’re not settled yet, are we?” agreed Cinda. She was holding her husband’s arm, as if they were about to go down an aisle together. “We’re such a mess. You must forgive us. Now, what is your name, honey? Tell us your name.”
“My name is Muffin. I’m Sam’s babysitter. I looked at every one of your boxes. You don’t have any Huggies. You’re going to need lots of them,” she said, a teacher now, shaking her voice like a finger at people who just won’t learn.
“Listen, kid …” said Ed, in a voice so harsh it scraped every nerve in Kit’s body.
She had to draw their attention away from Muffin. In her calmest voice, as if she were a school secretary who had seen everything, seen through every lie, been bored by every problem, she said, “I’d like to see the paperwork for this adoption. What did Dusty sign?”
If she needed to get out of here, she had faith in her body. She could outrun these people, maneuver more quickly, leap and parry and get away, on foot or in her car. But she had two children with her. She felt like a mother fox carrying kits in her mouth, trying desperately to move them one by one to safety — but she had to abandon the rest each time she saved the one.
Her ploy worked. They swerved in a chorus line to face her.
“Now, Kit,” said Ed Bing, “this is in the family.” He had managed to remove some of the harshness in his voice, but it lay beneath, like a bear trap under old leaves. His hands were out, his ten puffy yellow fingers stretching, but she could not tell exactly what he was reaching for. She held the baby tighter.
“We don’t have any social workers or anything like that involved,” he said. “Dusty lived with Cinda and Burt for a while, and even worked for them, and the four of us are very close.” While he was talking, Ed passed Kit’s camera to Burt, who clicked his key ring, and one of the Jeeps made an answering beep, and its interior lights came on. The car was full in a messy, tipping, tilting, desperate sort of way. Boxes and stuff had been thrown in.
Kit had moved. When you moved, you had to pack the car with extraordinary care: every box neatly on top of the other, filling every inch, so that nothing shifted or fell or was at risk. Because the moving van had most of your stuff: In your car, you put only the really necessary and really precious things.
Burt crossed the grass — black, and not green, in the darkening night — to his Jeep, and when he opened the back door, he had to catch stuff tumbling out. He set the camera — Kit’s camera; her property! — on top of the piles of junk in his car.
“We have to leave now,” said Burt from his side of the yard. He was talking to Cinda. “We have to leave now.”
So the Grand Cherokees were facing out. They were ready for — for what? The word that came to Kit’s mind was flight.
And Ed’s long low scary hulk of a car — was it parked to block them?
“Burt, I can’t bear to leave our baby behind! I love him already,” whispered Cinda, turning back to Sam. But she did not attempt to take him from Kit. She stared at him, as if he were completely and always somebody else’s child; as if she had no rights.
Leave the baby behind?
“No!” shouted Ed. His voice slammed like a door. “No! Cinda, that baby is yours! We are staying with the plan.” He was bellowing. There was no need; it was very quiet in this remote clearing; he could have stage-whi
spered and they would all have heard just fine.
They were spread over the dark yard: Muffin near the house, Kit and Sam by the car, Cinda hovering, Ed panting like a hound at her back, Burt on the far side of the gravel drive, next to his car, rattling his keys.
“I didn’t think things would work out like this,” said Burt. He was whiny, like a toddler who needed a nap. Then, as abruptly as that toddler, his voice switched to anger. “You should never have called them!” he yelled at Cinda. “I can’t believe you called them!”
He’s going to have a temper tantrum, thought Kit.
Muffin came up behind Kit. She not only pressed up against Kit’s thigh, but actually latched her fingers through the belt loops of Kit’s pants. Kit was hugely relieved to have her tiny family — her one-hour-old family — pressed up against her. Sam in her arms, Muffin at her side.
Ed came closer to Kit, and now the puffed ugly fingers, all ten of them, seemed to reach for Sam.
In her little flute voice Muffin said, “They don’t even have chairs, Kit. And there isn’t any furniture in those cars. They’ve been here, but they haven’t eaten anything in weeks but pizza. Plus they didn’t throw away their pizza boxes. They’re going to get bugs.”
“May I hold Sam?” said Cinda. Cinda was crying.
Kit was not letting go of Sam. She backed up against her unlocked car. Shifting Sam against her chest, gripping him crosswise with one arm and hand, she managed to reach behind herself and get the back door open. She schooled her voice: It must remain calm. The only way to do this was with her Dullness Training. Calm was the one thing that actually startled people. They did not know what to do about confidence, except stand there and watch you be confident. “Get in the car, Muffin,” she said easily.
Muffin scrambled in.
Cinda and Burt were still yelling across the grass. Ed seemed ready to fly at Cinda, seemed ready to strangle her!