Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories (17 page)

Claire chalked another one up for Monday. She made a mental note to check
Starway’s
returns policy, and maybe call them tomorrow. The embryo was from one of those novelty companies that sold “pickled” noses, fingers and eyeballs. Their appeal was beyond her. She turned away and promptly forgot about it.

She stacked the food in the cupboards and carried the crumpled mail down the hall. Application for cable TV; didn’t want it. Flyer for Tracy’s Hair Salon; didn’t need it. She opened the phone bill, noting the minimal cost of an unlisted number. There were no calls. The only person who knew her address was the clerk who mailed her alimony. She slid that one in the nightstand drawer.

Having the cheques forwarded guaranteed her privacy, though she couldn’t imagine her ex showing up—in meditating on her marriage,
Jason wasn’t there
had become her mantra. The night the burglar smashed the bedroom window, Jason wasn’t there. The day the dog got hit by a car, Jason wasn’t there.

And the morning of her miscarriage, she knew he wasn’t going to be.

Claire shucked her clothes on the way to the shower and grabbed the shampoo. The stubble on her head was long enough to be called hair now.

Jason said the baby’s loss had unbalanced her, and she allowed there might be some truth in that. She’d cried at odd moments, making it hard to go out with his law partners. She’d stopped playing tennis with their wives—she was sick of their scrutiny. She didn’t remember cutting her hair off. She did remember Jason asking her to leave. She took his alimony because it was be alone with money or be alone without, and she didn’t lay blame. Divorce was too much like their marriage for that: she had comfort and means, and Jason wasn’t there.

Claire thought of that as her time in the darkness, and felt herself traveling back to the light. She did the Saturday crossword. She slept late. She hung a bird feeder. She had hundreds of paperbacks she’d never had time to read. She read them now.

She carried one out to the kitchen, plugged in the kettle, and unlocked the glass door to the backyard. The sun was nearly down. The wind dried her hair in seconds, silver-blonde going silver-gray. The garden here was still half-wild. She was taming it slowly.

Claire liked the wooden fence no one could see over. She liked the neighbourhood where no one knew her nor cared to. She liked being among the missing.

The kettle whistled. She set tea to steep, and as she picked up
Stardance
, the embryo jar caught her eye again. It was ugly. Very. Claire shook her head in wonder at the mix-up. The doll was squashed and bent, folded at odd angles. Its eyes were large and set far back in its head. Their lids were almost transparent.

She nudged the jar, setting the fetus rocking gently in the murky liquid, and leaned close, watching it drift.

The baby opened its eyes.

“OH GOD!”

The baby stirred. Its tiny hands floated away from its body, pressing the side of the jar, halting its spin in the fluid. It hung there, facing her.

Claire backed away.

Maybe the doll was designed to do that.

She moved. The baby pushed on the glass with one hand and turned to watch her. She moved again. The baby tracked her. They looked at each other for a long time. Claire told herself not to jump to conclusions. An hour later she jumped anyway.

It was alive.

She lifted the jar carefully. It was warm. Had it been when she unpacked it? She didn’t think so. She carried it to the table, wrapping her hands around it, warming it further. Her breath misted the glass. “You want me to take you to my leader?” The baby blinked. “You’re right. It’s a dumb idea.”

But evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life was sitting on her table in a damned Mason jar. She should call
someone
. The cops, the FBI—NASA?

Claire blanked. If they didn’t believe her—and she was having trouble grasping it—nothing would change. She’d still be sitting in the kitchen with an alien in her lap. But if they did—

She would no longer be among the missing.

The baby would be among the dissected.

This was Monday with a vengeance.

Claire rested her head on her arms and watched the baby bob. Maybe she’d read too many tabloid headlines, but suddenly it seemed dangerous to ask questions. No phone calls. She smiled tiredly. Not even to
Starway Collectibles
.

Now there was a thought. Her smile faded. Babies didn’t grow in Mason jars. This one had to have been put there. Or maybe just fallen in: the jewel of all stupid accidents. Because it was a
baby
; its mother wasn’t going to let someone just
mail
it.

And there was another thought. This was somebody’s child and they were going to want it back. Claire remembered crying as the life-that-wasn’t-quite fell out of her, and shivered.

She stroked her fingers down the jar. “Baby, if your mama handles loss the way I do, I’m in big trouble.”

But she knew a way to guarantee her safety. Garbage pick-up was tomorrow, and newborns went missing every day. Plunk it in a can and run like hell. Let Mama find her then.

And let someone else find the baby and take a scalpel to it. Let the rats drag it home for brunch. Let Baby go screaming through a trash compactor.

Claire hoped Mama was a tolerant sort.

She fell asleep at the table, arms around the jar, and woke at dawn to find the baby’s face near hers. It was watching her again. Its fluid had changed, becoming lighter, less dense. Maybe it was draining the nutrients out of it?

Claire thought that was a fine idea. She sat up and considered breakfast.

Baby tumbled as she rose, stopping her mid-motion. “What?” It stretched its arms over its head, then lowered them and rolled its eyes to meet hers. She whispered, “What?” It reached up again. Claire squinted into the jar. Her breath froze. It was pushing at the lid.

Baby wanted out.

Well yeah, bright girl, did you think it was going to stay in there forever?

The baby kicked weakly. Claire’s hands fluttered helplessly for a moment, then grabbed the jar. Pre-natal classes hadn’t covered alien birth, but she knew the signs of distress. It needed out. Perhaps, like a human baby, it could only exist in the waters so long. She rummaged a jar opener from the knife drawer. On the second try it gripped and the lid came free.

Claire peered into the liquid. What if it couldn’t eat what if it couldn’t breathe oh God what if it drowned in the air—

A small hand splashed out of the jar. Its long fingers wrapped around one of hers. The baby’s head floated up out of the fluid. It looked up at her and—she couldn’t help it—Claire smiled. Its eyes were midnight-blue, the colour of her own.

Its skin took on a dull silver sheen as it emerged from the jar. Its mouth opened and she waited for the usual indignant wail.

A sound like little bells came out.

The water was tepid now, with a faint smell of yeast. Claire dipped her fingers into the jar and very gently lifted him. He barely filled her cupped hands; he weighed almost nothing. Water dripped off him and puddled on the sideboard. She patted him dry with a fold of her housecoat, then eased him into the scoop neck of her nightgown.

Baby dropped his misshapen head in the hollow of her throat.

There was a flight of sweet notes as he yawned, exhaling vanilla breath. Claire brushed her chin across the top of his head.

“Be careful what you wish for,” she said.

Because you might get it, she thought. She’d wanted a baby. She remembered a hectic day years earlier, when she’d wished for some time alone, and had been granted ten years.

All right, she hadn’t actually been alone during her marriage, but she’d felt that way.

In the future, Claire thought, wishes would be more specific.

She made Baby’s breakfast as she ate her own. “I’m working in the dark here,” she explained around the toast. “I don’t know if they have milk where you come from, but human babies like this stuff.”

She stirred sugar into the warm milk, and washed the eyedropper. The baby gurgled most of it down. She waited to see if it came back up. When it didn’t she punched the dropper full again, then tipped the pan over her coffee cup.

Clink ka-ching
. A sound like zills.

“No, you’re too little for coffee.”

Baby squinted in the crook of her arm. She grabbed a tissue to wipe his mouth, but only discordant chimes came out.

“Oh God oh God okay you’re chiming so you can’t be choking oh God I’ve poisoned you—”

Human babies came with a built-in defence—whatever didn’t agree with them, they disposed of. Who knew about this one? Claire drew breath and did the toughest thing possible: nothing. She couldn’t call 9-1-1. Baby would have to shift for himself. She moved her fingers down his smooth body and encountered another question: how did Baby excrete?

She had an answer seconds later as she realized her hands were sticky and slick. Baby disposed of his waste through his skin.

Claire wrung out a facecloth at the sink. The faucet was still dripping as she landed on the floor. The baby jolted in her arms, chirping in protest.

“I’m sorry. My knees gave out.” She reached up and groped the facecloth off the sideboard. Baby stuck a wet finger in his mouth. “Oh, you like that? Good—I’ll get you a rubber duck.”

She sniffed the facecloth: Baby didn’t like the milk. She watched him suck his finger. Apparently he didn’t mind the water.

Baby
clinked
again. Claire winced, but he seemed calm enough as he blinked up at her.

Ah.
He’d just wasted his breakfast. He was still hungry.

Claire got on her feet with difficulty, and mixed a pan of sugar water. Baby drank and dozed off without incident.
Wise child
, she thought. She was stiff from napping at the table.

Sunlight slanted through the blinds in her room, making bars on the bed. Claire slid under the covers and eased onto her side, curling around the baby. She wondered how long he would sleep. After coming to term in a Mason jar, could he sleep safely in a horizontal position?

Baby snuggled close, his hands against her cheek, and hummed contentedly. Claire relaxed. If it was good enough for him . . .

She woke in two hours and fed him again, then wrote a list as he slept. Leaving the house was out of the question. She couldn’t take him with her, couldn’t leave him alone, couldn’t bring anyone in. She’d have the groceries delivered. Baby food might be okay if she thinned it.

No, it wouldn’t work. She’d ordered groceries before, but never baby food. All it would take was one stray comment—

She smiled down into those enormous blue eyes, “Hey, sweetheart, guess who’s getting paranoid? I used to just worry someone would find
me
here.” She scribbled a few more notes. “We’ll try fresh fruit. I can purée that myself. Don’t worry, we’ll find something you like.”

Don’t worry
. Claire snorted faintly. She was in way over her head. But she caught herself rocking him, swaying as she wrote, and let it go. He wasn’t interrupting anything.

She retrieved him from the bedroom after the delivery boy left.

“These are green beans. What do you think?” Baby wrinkled his flat nose as she held them up. “I used to feel the same way. They are an acquired taste. What about this?” She sliced the apple and held it under his nose. He fluted a couple of notes and rubbed his mouth across it. “Oh, is that good?” She crushed the slice into a thin sauce and fed it to him slowly.

That afternoon she learned he liked pear juice, barley water and strawberry tea, which he sniffed happily when she drank it herself. He was indifferent to bananas, which she’d never liked.

She carried him to the window at sunset. “This is my favourite time of day. I love watching the stars. If you have to love something that doesn’t love you back, the stars are it. Aren’t they beautiful?”

She glanced down and caught him staring at white moths beating their wings on the screen.

“Yeah, Baby,” she laughed, “those are pretty too.”

She wrapped him in her sweater, and cradled him close. Sometimes the journey to the light was hard. It might be nice to have company for a while.

The shower gifts had never been returned. That would’ve been her job, and before she felt up to it, Jason had packed them away. Even before moving day, when she’d found the box in the U-Haul, she’d known dealing with the miscarriage would always be her job.

Claire dragged the rocker into her bedroom. She found the Snugli under a musical crib mobile and took both into the kitchen. Baby was in the laundry pile. Her pantyhose were on his head.

“Don’t even think about robbing a bank—you’re too short to see over the counter. That’d be a heck of a disguise, though.”

She fastened the mobile to a chair back and wound the music box. He liked the lullaby, and bounced as the plastic stars spun, She cried softly as he warbled, a liquid sound she knew by now. He warbled when he heard her voice.