Thirty

SOME THIRTY MILES away, in an antique­ studded bedroom at the Tender Shepherd Home, Edwina Templeton lay propped against six down pillows, sipping a predawn cup of Earl Grey tea. A laptop computer lay across her thighs, and her fingernails clacked on the keys as she fabricated a completely new biography for her newest client. Though she’d always had a flair for drama and a small talent with words, turning Logan’s little misbegotten offspring into a half­ Iranian princess had taken some real creativity. First she’d had difficulty finding an Iranian web­ site written in English, then, when she’d finally navigated to a collection of baby names, she’d had trouble picking one out. “Meshia” was a pretty name that would fit so pretty a child, but it meant “butter made of sheep’s milk.” “Fojan,” which meant “loud voice,” suited Logan’s baby in a different way, but it sounded like something you’d name a German shepherd. Finally, after hours of searching, she found the perfect name. It was both pleasing to the ear and represented all her hopes for this child. Logan’s baby, who had arrived nameless, would hereafter be called “Behbaha,” which meant “best price.”

With the rest of the family history, Edwina was less obsessive. She named the fictional mother “Mahvash Ankasa,” simply because the names were Iranian and she liked the way the syllables flowed together. She made Mahvash a twenty-five-year-old naturalized citizen from Tehran, a bright, progressive young woman who had eschewed the black chador in favor of a white nurse’s cap.

The father, she decided, should be from Tennessee, mostly because she had a friend up in Nashville who could cover for her if the adopting couple looked at this too closely. John, she wrote on the line below Mahvash. John Winston McIntosh. She put him down as being born in the county of her own birth, Sullivan, and made him twenty-four years old, the same age as her own father when she was born. She stopped typing for a moment as an odd little thrill of power swept through her. She could give this baby any kind of parents she wanted. Ones like her own—an overworked doormat for a mother, and a father who too often fell over drunk on the supper table. Or ones like the parents of the little girls who’d grown up to command the Christmas Tour of Homes—mothers who led Girl Scout troops, fathers who wore silk neckties and drove their children to school in shiny cars.

“I could go either way here,” she said, staring at the computer screen, energized as if she were beginning a novel. For a moment she was tempted, just to spite Duncan, to give his daughter a sordid background of drunkenness and shame. Then she remembered that paying parents preferred children with untroubled histories, babies of nice girls who’d made a single, egregious, nine-month-long error in judgment. And smart. Very smart. Above all else, the biological parents had to be smart. Nobody wanted a dull child.

“Let’s see, Behbaha,” she muttered, beginning a new paragraph. “Your mother was a nurse, a pretty little thing who drowned, two months af­ter you were born. A Labor Day picnic turned tragic. She got in a canoe with friends to paddle across a lake. The canoe capsized halfway across. She could not swim. Your father tried desper­ately to save her, but the poor thing sank like a stone. He tried to keep things together, but with little money, two more years of medical school, and a tour in the Navy ahead of him, he decided that the best thing would be to find someone who could give you a better home.”

She filled up a whole page, adding the little details that brought poor, bereaved Dr. McIntosh and the doomed Mahvash to life. When she finished, she studied the screen and smiled, pleased and not unmoved by her work. It would surely bring a tear to the driest of eyes, move the coldest of hearts.

“Okay, Behbaha Jane McIntosh,” she said, saving her file. “You’ve had a tough beginning, but things are beginning to look up. In no time at all, you’re going to get new parents, I’m going to get a big fat check, and we’re both going to sleep better than we’ve ever slept before—you in a comfy new crib, me on my new forty-eight thousand-dollar bed.”

Downstairs, in far less opulent quarters, Paz lay on his own bed, listening to the darkness outside the window. Last night, when he stepped back into this room he thought he’d never see again, he felt as if some priest had granted him sanctuary. For the first time in days, he was not speeding down a highway, trying to mollify Ruperta, Gordo, or a screaming infant. When he finally lay down here upon his cool, clean sheets, he’d longed to take Ruperta in his arms and explain why he’d acted like such a maniático. She, however, would have none of it. She’d put Gordo’s baby in a little crib in the corner of their room and turned her back to him in bed, without so much as bidding him goodnight. Now, though his eyes burned with exhaustion, he knew Scorpions waited. Soon they would come. Per­haps even now they stood, hiding in the shadows, tossing their little brown bottles up like coins, in wait for his wife.

“Ruperta!” Paz whispered, blowing softly on the back of her neck. He must explain all this to her before Señora awoke. Perhaps together they could work out same kind of plan. All by himself, he was coming up dry. “Ruperta, wake up!” She mumbled two words in Spanish and yanked the sheet up to her ear.

“Ruperta!” he whispered urgently. “I have to tell you something!” He reached over and squeezed her breast, rubbing her nipple until he felt it grow hard. He felt a corresponding ripple of desire deep in the pit of his stomach, but he ignored it. As much as he wanted to thrust him­ self deep inside her, he had to tell her about the Scorpions. “Ruperta!”

“What is it?” She turned all of a sudden, wide awake, her voice angry.

“I need to talk to you—” The words stuck in his throat.

“About what, Paz? It’s the middle of the night.”

“We have to make a plan, Ruperta,” he said sternly, trying to sound as if he always pondered life-altering decisions long into the night. “And we have to make it now.’’

“A plan for what? More little babies to steal from their mothers? More candy-eating monsters to tour America with?”

He sat up and ran the back of his hand along her face. The soft hair on her cheek felt like down. “I have but one monster, Ruperta,” he whispered. “It does not want candy, but it will eat your eyes.”

“Eat my eyes? What are you talking about?”

He drew a shaky breath, wondering if he dared repeat the Scorpions’ threat. As obscene as it felt to give voice to such a thing, not to let Ruperta know would be far worse.

“The Scorpions came last week, Ruperta. They still think I have their money.”

For a moment she said nothing, then she sat up and pulled her knees up under her chin. “How many came?”

“I saw only one. More, of course, were hiding.”

“Did you explain that you never had their money? That Jorge lied?”

“I did. The Scorpion did not believe me.”

“What did he say?”

Paz swallowed. “He said if I did not give them their money in three days, they would put acid in your eyes.’’

She looked at him in stunned silence, then, to his horror, she began to cry, hastily covering her mouth lest her sobs wake the baby. Her tears broke his heart. “It’s Tuesday morning,” she sobbed. “How could you have kept this from me for so long?”

“I had not wanted to tell you at all,” he said. “I thought Gordo could be our escape! We could slip away from him and go someplace the Scorpions could not find, then all this baby business began.”

“Oh, Pacito!”

She collapsed against him, weeping. He held her, miserable, as her body trembled against his. What a wretched husband he was! Unable to protect his wife from such monsters! He wished they were here now, every one, in this room. He would kill them, one by one, with his bare hands.

“Sshhhh!” He held her tight, burying his face in her hair. Soft and freshly washed, it smelled like flowers in early spring. “Don’t cry! I won’t let them do it!”

“But how can you stop them? We thought we escaped them in Nogales, then in Atlanta. Al­ ways, they show up.”

“I will stop them, Ruperta,” he vowed, cover­ing her wet face with kisses. “I swear before God I will.” He slipped his hand down the front of her gown, then gently laid her back on the bed and pushed her nightgown up.

He lay on top of her. “You are my wife,” he whispered, his lips against hers. “As long as I live, no Scorpion will harm you.”

“Oh, Paz,” she wept, threading her fingers through his hair, pulling him closer. He kissed her until she squirmed with pleasure, then thrust himself inside. You will have this many more times to pleasure your wife, he seemed to hear a voice whisper inside his head. This many and no more. As he felt himself dissolve into her he tried to disregard the voice, wishing that he could stay in this little room forever, looking into the dark liquid stars of Ruperta’s eyes.

They lay like that for a long time, her breath­ing comforting him like the soft, low swuush of the waves at Vera Cruz. Finally she stirred beneath him.

“Paz?”

“Sí?”

“What are we going to do?”

He rolled off of her, his stomach once again a hard knot of fear. “I don’t know.”

She nestled against his chest. “You know what we did is wrong, don’t you?”

“Running from the Scorpions?”

“No. What we did with Gordo.”

“You mean taking the baby.”

She nodded. “Do you know what Señora is going to do with her?”

Paz glanced at the little crib in the corner. It and its contents loomed like yet another hurdle to clear before they could escape the Scorpions. “Give her to rich people with no children of their own.”

“She’s going to sell her, Paz. Señora does not give anything away. Señora sells. Señora is a comerciante.”

“That is not our problem, Ruperta. It’s between Gordo and Señora.”

For a while Ruperta lightly stroked the scar on his stomach. Then she raised up on one el­ bow. “Paz, we cannot let that happen.”

“What?”

“The baby being sold like a goat or a parrot. She has a mother who loves her. We must return her.”

“Ruperta, are you crazy? We have no car, no money, no way of even finding again the place we took the baby from. Even if we could take her back, the American cops would arrest us for being secuestradors! And for what? To return a child to a woman who ran off and left her in the care of a puta?”

“Paz, we’ve committed a great sin. We must make it right.”

“It’s a sin to interfere with things that are not your business! You will bring down even worse trouble than the Scorpions! I am your husband! You must do as I say!”

Suddenly they heard a noise. Paz leapt to his feet, at first thinking the Scorpions were at the door, but then he realized it was only the hoarse clack Señora’s great clock made just before it struck the hour. Still, Ruperta got up in a swirl of sheets and nightgowns and hurried over to the crib. She scooped the baby up before the first whimper left her lips and held her close.

“Put her down, Ruperta,” Paz commanded. “You need to be concerned for us, now. Gordo’s baby will have a happy life with rich parents who will buy her everything.”

But Ruperta stood there in her nightgown, her beautiful eyes bright and defiant. “What this child needs is her own life back, Paz. With her own mother. Even a dog deserves that!”