In my dream Mama sat rocking back and forth in Meemaw’s old chair, a bundled-up baby in a red blanket held tight in her arms. She hummed to it and patted its back the way mamas did when soothing little babies. Shushing and singing and whispering sweet words.
As for the baby, it cried out, screaming for all it was worth. Its little hands had broken free of the red blanket, reaching for Mama’s face. She pulled back from it, avoiding its touch.
My shoes click-clacked as I walked nearer to Mama. It wasn’t the noise my normal shoes made, so I looked down. I had on Mama’s shoes, the ones with heels and a fine ribbon that laced up through holes all the way up the top. Somehow they fit even though my feet were much smaller than Mama’s.
Click-clack, clack-click I went across the floor of yellow brick until I got close enough to touch Mama’s hand. She started like she hadn’t known I was there, like my touch burned.
“Can I hold the baby?” I asked. “I’ll be real careful.”
“It’s not mine,” she said. “This isn’t my baby.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said again. “I won’t drop it.”
“This baby isn’t mine.” She shook her head. “I’m not keeping her.” Taking another step forward, I looked down into the baby’s face. “What’s her name?”
“She doesn’t have one.”
“Where’re her folks?”
“She doesn’t have any.”
Sighing, she took one last look at the baby’s face before working her way to her feet. She moved so slow, like she worried she’d drop her or that the crying might get louder. The way she held the baby was as if it were made of glass.
I followed behind her as she walked out the front door. The yard wasn’t green and there were no flowers growing pretty in the beds. Everything had been buried in dust. Mounds and piles of it.
Mama stepped off the porch, up to her ankles in the soft dirt, getting deeper and deeper into it as she went.
In a way that only happens in dreams, we walked for a long time that didn’t last very long. We ended up at the hiding cabin in the woods, the one that was covered in vines and moss and rotting wood. It stood out, the emerald of it standing out against the tan and gray all around.
Without taking a second look at the baby, Mama stooped down, putting her, red blanket and all, on the dull gray porch. She walked away and I watched her until she turned into a mist that evaporated in the blazing hot day.
The baby kept on crying, wailing and bawling for her mama.