Junie’s here. They’ll be coming back to see you, dearie. Anything I can get you before they do?
—What? Keep telling my story? Now? Well, all right. If that’s what you want.
After the baby was born, I stayed on with my cousin Mildred. Though I had an infant waking to feed three times a night, I still had to do the wash, keep the house, and cook three meals a day, complete with dessert, always with dessert, even if it were just some kind of crisp made from whatever fruit was in season. How I came to loathe cooking for that woman! I was so worn out that I fell asleep sitting up while doing the mending at night. But where else was an unwed mother going to go? Edward had not come for us, yet.
One afternoon, when the baby was six months old, she was napping in her basket while I was browning some chicken backs for dinner, when a knock sounded on the front door.
My heart did a flip. Edward?
Mildred wasn’t home from work yet, so I took the pan off the stove, wiped my hands on my apron, checked the baby, and answered.
Papa was standing on the doorstep.
With a crush of fallen leaves, he came in and took off his bowler hat. He still had a full head of black hair, his best feature. I don’t know why I expected him to look different. It had not quite been a year, although my own hair had gotten shot through with gray. I wanted to tell him that I missed him, and Mother, and that I had worked hard and been good. Could he forgive me? But before I could find the words, he wiped his feet as if he were still on the doormat, then cleared his throat.
“Can I see the baby?”
Not a letter had come from Mother or him since they had sent me away. I thought they had washed their hands of me. But he wanted to see the baby! Did this mean that they forgave me? Did this mean that I could go home?
I ran to get the baby.
When I brought her in, one of her cheeks flushed from sleeping, he touched her head. “She looks just like you.”
I kissed her to hide my delight. Bragging about your child was like bragging about yourself, so I said the worst things about her that I could.
“She’s a little spoiled. She won’t let me put her down once I pick her up. And she has to eat the minute she gets hungry. You’re a little crybaby, aren’t you?” I kissed her again.
He withdrew his hand and tucked it under his arm. “Dorothy, the Lambs want her.”
I could not quite understand what my father had asked. His words seemed like a foreign language. “What?”
“The Lambs want her.”
“My baby? They want my baby?”
“I’m supposed to get her.” He glared past my shoulder. “And take her back.”
My heart stumbled. I must have stumbled with it.
He grimaced. “It won’t be so bad.”
Then it dawned on me. Wait a minute! Edward wanted us! Oh, Edward, I knew it!
“When should we go?”
My thoughts raced ahead—what should I wear? What would the baby wear? Oh, Edward, wait until you see our beautiful child!
The baby, seeing my excitement, chuckled.
Father said, “Not you, Dorothy.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what he meant.
“I can stand living with them, if that’s what everyone wants.”
“No, Dorothy. They just want her.”
“But—we go together. We go together, don’t we, Father?”
“She can’t stay here. Mildred doesn’t want a baby crying in her house.” He glanced around the shack. “Anyhow, it will be a better life for her.”
I still didn’t understand. “They want to keep her?”
He kept his gaze on Mildred’s chair. “That’s what they say.”
“Will we live with you and Mother in the house?”
“I told you, it’s just her.”
“She will live with them,” I stated.
He still wouldn’t look at me. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
A bubble of hope rose. “Will Edward be there?”
“That I do not know.”
Calm yourself. Edward must want this. Picture our daughter as heir to the Lambs’ beautiful home, with its silver wallpaper and stained-glass windows, the staircase that sails up three flights. Her inheritance. She will want this.
“He will call for me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
I clung to my thinning hope. Surely once things were right, Edward would call for me. Surely he would be sorry he’d made me wait and worry and wonder, but he’d had to smooth things over with his parents. He’d had to make things right. That must be hard for them. It wouldn’t be easy to accept the housekeeper’s grandchild as your own.
I understood now. It was temporary. Not for keeps.
Father put aside Mildred’s knitting and sat in her ugly peach chair. He fingered the wooden armrest as I laid the baby on the floor and then flew around the cottage, gathering her necessities. The baby was still nursing but could be weaned, though my breasts throbbed—or was it my heart, cushioned behind them—just thinking about it.
At last I picked up the baby and faced my father. He held out his arms. The baby gazed up at him with those kittenish eyes.
My voice caught. “She can’t be without her blanket.”
“No.”
I leaned down and inhaled the smell of the baby’s corn-floss hair, her scalp, her breath—medicine to hold me until we were together again.
She cried when Father took her. She only knew one word, though that was smart for a baby her age. She called it as he took her out the door.
“Maa!”