I held Honey by the stove while the pap I’d made for her cooled. In a few minutes I dipped a cloth into the breadcrumb broth and dribbled the mixture into her tiny open mouth. Pa stood nearby, allowing a stretch of silence to smother our quarrel.
“Daughter, it ain’t right,” he finally said.
“Pa, I mean to keep her.” I set down the feeding rag and rocked the babe. “She’s mine—”
“Silence. What would folks say? An unwed mother with a babe? Think. This ain’t a critter you can just up and take a fancy to.”
“A Blue. I’ll take a week off, then let folks think she’s from Charlie Frazier.”
Nobody’d be the wiser. Just Jackson. Doc might from examining me, but he never saw Angeline and was too busy with his medical journals and patients. I didn’t think either man would tell, and ghosts couldn’t.
I added, “The timing would be right, and a lot of womenfolk hide their budding bellies behind the thick skirts. Pa, look. Look at her, she must be our kin. She’s a Blue!”
“Nonsense, she’s sickly. You’re the last Blue.”
“She’s strong sure enough, and it’s not true. Doc says all Blues are related somehow. Kin to ourselves. Mr. Moffit had the Blue in him. I seen it with my eyes. Same as Honey here. And her mama must’ve had it in her genes too.” I held up the sleeping baby. “They were Blues, Pa. Just like us.”
Pa looked closer and muttered a low curse. “It was rumored my uncle Eldon had a bastard out there. Could it be he’d found another Blue that weren’t known?” Pa rubbed his whiskers.
“It happened to Great-Grandpa. It has to be. We can’t leave our kin orphaned.”
“They said Eldon’s woman ran away to Ohio, never to be heard of again.” Pa studied Honey and scratched some more at the thought.
“Pa, Eldon’s woman gave her baby away. Gave Willie away. Please. I have to take Honey as mine. Give her a home, a mama. Ain’t no one—not a single soul on this black-and-white earth—gonna do it if we don’t. Please, I promised the mama.”
He touched the baby’s blue fingernail and traced her cheek. Something softened in Pa.
“My patron, Henry, passed,” I whispered. “The boy died of the pellagra, Pa. The Kentucky sickness took him, and it’ll surely take her too. Without us, it’ll happen to her. Our last kin.”
The baby’s eyes fluttered open, and she squinted up at Pa. A tiny smile pulled at the corners of her lips as she twisted to suckle his finger. Pa ran a pinkie over her mouth, turning it all in his mind. Honey rooted, latched hold of his little finger, sucking.
Pa’s eyes grew round as he watched her a second. “What kinda ma are you?” he grumbled, snatching back his hand. “Make her a pallet over by the stove, then get that ornery critter of yours to town and fetch this hungry babe real milk!”
I stared at him, dumbfounded and grateful.
“Go on now ’fore she gets to fussing and disturbs me,” he said and turned away.
“Yessir.” I stepped out the door, grinning as I raced to Junia.