Swan Place (37 page)

“Molly, would you please turn down the sound on the TV a little?” I whispered, and Molly did as I asked, except that she turned the dial the wrong way the first time, and all that blaring cartoon-music filled the room. In my arms, the baby jumped, flung out her arms, and started crying!

“Sowwy,” Molly muttered.

“That’s okay, honey,” I assured her. She’d done the best she knew how to do. But now I had my hands full, sure enough. The baby wailed and wailed, turning so red, I thought for sure she’d explode right there in my arms! I held out my little finger and moved it to the baby’s mouth. She whimpered and breathed funny and then she fairly
latched
onto my finger. Why, she was so strong, it surprised me, and I had to kind of pull my finger back to keep it from going right on down her throat!

Molly and Little Ellis stared at me with wide eyes. The baby sucked and sucked on my finger, and even when there wasn’t anything for her to eat coming from it, she seemed to be comforted. I sat real still and held my finger right where it was, and it was the strangest feeling I’ve ever had, my finger in that warm, strong, sucking mouth! We stayed that way a long time, and finally, she fell back to sleep again. I sat real still, just listening and listening for Buzzard’s car. At long last, I heard it!

“I’m back,” came Buzzard’s call from the kitchen, and I could hear her putting down a paper bag of groceries onto the table. “You okay?”

Well, I wasn’t about to yell back and wake up the baby again, so I whispered to Molly, “Go tell Buzzard we’re okay.” And she did.

“I’ll have this bottle sterilized and some warmed-up milk in it in just a minute,” Buzzard called. I sat still and held my breath. In a few minutes, Buzzard came into the little room carrying a baby bottle. The baby was still sleeping and sucking on my finger every once in a while.

“You just pull your finger out, and I’ll poke this rubber nipple in, and let’s hope for the best!” It was hard to get my finger out of the baby’s mouth, she had such a grip on it! And the minute it was gone, her face turned all red and crinkled up, and she started struggling. But Buzzard poked that rubber nipple into her mouth and she got serious, sure enough!

“Keep it tilted up so she doesn’t swallow a lot of air,” Buzzard instructed. So I did, and I watched her sucking and swallowing, sucking and swallowing. Then she’d stop for a little moment and breathe so deep and steady-like. And wake up a little and go right back at it. By the time the bottle was about half empty, she had gone all soft and heavy in my arms, breathing slow and steady and waking up every once in a while to suck some more. Buzzard stayed right by my side the whole time, and when at last the baby turned loose of the nipple, we looked at each other and smiled. Sleeping in my arms, she got another one of her crooked, one-side-only smiles, and I could see milk puddles around her gums. I don’t know why, but it was something so sweet to see, I almost got tears in my eyes. Maybe that she had been so unhappy and hungry, and now, Buzzard and I had made her full and contented.

“She was certainly one hungry little baby!” Buzzard crooned, running her finger over the baby’s head.

“Not we gotta burp her,” she said, and she lifted the baby out of my arms, tossed her up onto that big shoulder, and started gently patting her back. “Dove, you tiptoe upstairs and bring that little bassinette down here,” Buzzard said. “And don’t you wake Crystal. She needs her rest.” I went up the stairs as quietly as possible and pushed open the bedroom door. The room was in shadow, because of the heavy curtains still being closed. I glanced over at Crystal’s bed. She was lying there with her eyes wide open!

“You okay?” I asked, and I noticed the face that she turned toward me was something like I’ve never seen before. Swollen and pasty-looking. Why, right away, I got a remembrance of Crystal’s pretty face topped by the cowboy hat with her lips all shiny and red. It was hard for me to believe it was the same person.

“You okay?” I repeated.

“I guess so,” came the muttered reply. “What are you doing?”

“Buzzard said for me to come up here and get the bassinette so we can use it downstairs for the baby. We gave her a bottle,” I added and then thought maybe I’d said the wrong thing.

“Okay,” Crystal replied.

“Crystal, what’s the baby’s name? What name you gonna give her?” I asked.

“Dunno,” came the flat reply. “Can’t think.”

“You okay, Crystal?” I asked once more, wanting her to sit up and smile and be who she used to be. Ask for her beautiful little baby, take that little girl into her arms. But that didn’t happen. She didn’t even answer me.

“When you gonna give her a name, Crystal?” I tried again.

“You name her,” came the astonishing reply!

“Me? Me give her a name?”

“Yes. Name her whatever you like, but go on now and let me rest.”

I got the bassinette and carried it back downstairs in something like a dream. Me! Getting to name that little baby! I went right into the kitchen, where Buzzard had a whole lot of baby bottles lined up and ready to go into the boiling water and the baby cradled, sleeping, in the crook of her arm.

“Crystal says for me to name the baby!” I said. Buzzard stared at me for a long moment.

“She said
you’re
to name her?” she asked.

“That’s what she said.”

“Well then, I guess that’s what you’ll do.” Buzzard put the baby into the bassinette, covered her up with a soft blanket, and went back to working with the baby bottles. I thought for a long time, watching Buzzard and watching the baby, because getting her the perfectly right name was so important. Then I got an idea!

“What’s Miz Swan’s full name again?”

“What?” Buzzard asked.

“What’s Miz Swan’s name—other than Miz Swan, I mean.”

Buzzard hesitated before she said, “Mary Elizabeth
 . . .
that’s her name.” And I was thinking of the beautiful
MES
initials on that fine stationery.

“I like it,” I said. And to be completely truthful, I was thinking about more than the way I had imagined the beautiful, young Miz Swan. I was also thinking that maybe, if we named the baby after her, she wouldn’t make us all leave, once she came home from France. If she ever came home from France.

I took a dinner tray up to Crystal at noontime, and Buzzard took one up for supper. But both those trays came back to the kitchen untouched. Buzzard didn’t say anything, but I could tell she was worried. So we spent our day taking care of Mary Elizabeth, who took to that bottled milk just fine. Molly and Little Ellis were good about staying indoors and taking their naps in Buzzard’s bed—because we didn’t want them to disturb Crystal. I read them five whole stories, because they had been so good.

That night, I put Molly and Little Ellis to sleep again on the floor of the little room, and Buzzard and I slept together in her big bed, with Mary Elizabeth’s bassinette right beside us, so we could hear her if she gave out with so much as a hiccup. We fed Mary Elizabeth two times during the night, and changed her diaper three times, and when I woke up the next morning, I suddenly remembered that it was Monday! I was supposed to go to school! But everything was so quiet, with Buzzard breathing deeply beside me, and Mary Elizabeth not making a single sound—like Molly and Little Ellis, who were obviously still asleep on the floor of the little room, snuggled down all safe and sound under their blankets. Why, I didn’t know what to do—how could I miss school? But how could I go to school? I stayed put and tried to think, and then I sort of settled back onto my pillow, listening to all that sweet quiet around me, and finally, I pulled the down-comforter up over my head and fell back asleep.

“You missed school!” Buzzard’s loud whisper and her hand shaking my shoulder. All around us, everything and everybody still quiet. “You missed school!” Buzzard repeated.

“I can miss one day,” I assured her, pulling the comforter off of my head, feeling the chilled air, and not even wanting to think about getting out from under that toasty-warm comforter.

“Well,” she finally growled. “I guess you can miss one day. I can write you a note. But tomorrow, you go back!”

“Yes’m,” I pulled the comforter over my head again and smiled where Buzzard couldn’t see me. Because I’d seen her write something before, and she always pulled her brows together and frowned heavily and stuck her pink tongue from between her lips. And to think that she would be writing to my
teacher
, I could imagine that she would have little clear-colored pearls of perspiration on her forehead as well!

Later—but I don’t know how much later, I heard talking coming down the hallway from the kitchen. I sat up and looked into the bassinette. It was empty. I threw back the comforter, went through the little room—being careful to step around Molly and Little Ellis, who were still asleep—and down the long hallway to the kitchen.

To my surprise, Crystal was sitting at the kitchen table, dressed for work and with a cup of hot tea in front of her. But her face was pasty white and her hair wasn’t done right. And when she tried to drink her tea, her hand was shaking so hard that the tea spilled over into the saucer. Buzzard was at the stove, putting a pan full of biscuits into the oven, and once again, with a sleeping Mary Elizabeth tucked securely into the crook of her arm.

“No ma’am!” Buzzard was fuming in whispers—probably so as not to wake up the baby. “You are
not
going to work today! Have you completely lost your mind?” Buzzard’s fury filled the whole kitchen with a different kind of warmth, and I backed away from the door and listened.

“You just had yourself a
baby
, for Heaven’s sake!” Buzzard went on. “You’re going to have you some good breakfast and then you’re going right back to bed!”

Crystal’s voice was thin and whiny-sounding: “But I got children depending on me! I gotta go to work!”

“You don’t gotta do nothing of the kind!” Buzzard whispered back viciously. “First thing you gotta do
 . . .
at the very least
 . . .
is take this little baby of yours into your arms!” I peeked through the doorway. Buzzard had bumped right up against Crystal and simply but gently rolled Mary Elizabeth right into Crystal’s arms. Mary Elizabeth frowned a little and made some unhappy-sounding grunts, but then she went right back to sleep. Crystal looked down at the sleeping face, like she couldn’t imagine what this was all about.

“Don’t you even want to know her name?” Buzzard fumed. And when Crystal didn’t answer, Buzzard whispered hoarsely, “It’s Mary Elizabeth. She’s Mary Elizabeth and she’s your very own child!” With that, Buzzard turned back to the stove. I watched Crystal sitting there holding the baby, looking at her—but Crystal’s face was like a blank blackboard in my classroom. A thing that was waiting for somebody to fill it up with words that had some meaning. Then a terrible silence in that kitchen. More terrible, even, than the one when I’d heard Crystal telling Buzzard there was a baby coming. Finally, Buzzard sat down at the table with Crystal, who was still staring at the baby as if she didn’t know how on earth a baby had come into this world.

“Crystal, listen to me and listen good,” Buzzard started out. “I came into some money
 . . .
quite a lot of money. Now don’t ask me anything about it because I’m not gonna tell you. But it’s a gracious plenty for us all. And there’s more coming.”

“She
is
kind of pretty, isn’t she?” Crystal asked.

“She sure is,” Buzzard agreed. “I’m glad you’re taking a little bit of interest in her. You’ve had me worried.”

“She’s got my mama’s ears,” Crystal said.

“And looks like she’s got your hair,” Buzzard added. “Now did you hear me about the money? Did you hear me?”

“Let’s put her in the bassinette, Buzzard,” Crystal said. “I think you’re right about me going back to bed.”

“Eat you some good breakfast first,” Buzzard insisted, lifting Mary Elizabeth out of Crystal’s arms. “You can’t get your strength back unless you eat something.”