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She smiled. “Okay.”
“Good. It’s a date.”
Thinking about the evening ahead, along with the limitations of her wardrobe, kept her from obsessing over the girls. She didn’t want to go out on her first date with Mat wearing shorts, but she’d also said she wouldn’t leave the house, so she consulted Willow Grove’s yellow pages and made some phone calls. Before long, she had a list.
Bertis agreed to pick up everything for her while Charlie did some maintenance work on the Airstream. By late afternoon, the older woman had bustled back in with the items Nealy had chosen over the phone.
The straps on the high-heeled shoes pinched, but they were sexy and she didn’t regret them. And the short tangerine maternity dress had a deeply scooped neckline, so at least it looked good from the bust up. Her favorite item, however, was a delicate black and gold choker with a tiny beaded heart that rested in the hollow of her throat.
She put everything away until later and settled in the kitchen with Bertis. They were drinking glasses of the sun tea she’d made earlier when Lucy charged in, extending her arm to display the bandage.
“It was so gross. You should have been there. The needle was this big, and they took out a ton of blood, and it really hurt, and Mat fainted.”
“I didn’t faint!” Mat was trying to placate a very fussy baby as he came into the kitchen, but his eyes were on Nealy. He seemed to be reassuring himself that she was still safe.
“Almost,” Lucy retorted. “You got real white and your eyes shut.”
“I was thinking.”
“About fainting.”
Button’s matted hair and creased cheek indicated she’d just awakened. She had a bandage on the inside of her small arm, just as Mat and Lucy did. On a baby, however, it looked cruel, and Nealy felt an irrational stab of anger at Mat for having forced her to undergo something so painful.
The baby squirmed in his arms. Her whimpers turned into sobs, and Lucy went to her. “Come here, Button.” She held out her arms, but the baby batted them away and howled louder.
Mat shifted her to his shoulder. “I swear she screamed for forty miles. She only fell asleep about ten minutes ago.”
“If your arm was as small as hers, you’d be crying
, too,” Nealy snapped.
Guilt ruined the scowl he tried to give her. He began to walk the baby around the kitchen, but she refused to settle down, so he took her into the living room. Before long, Nealy heard the faint sound of a cow mooing, but the baby’s screams continued unabated.
“Bring her here and let me try,” Bertis called out. But when he returned, Button only screamed louder and twisted her head until her teary eyes came to rest on Nealy.
Her bottom lip protruded, and she looked so pitiful that Nealy could hardly bear it. She rose and moved toward the miserable infant, although why she thought Button would come to a second-stringer like herself after she’d already rejected her favorite people, she couldn’t imagine.
To her astonishment, Button reached out. Nealy took her in her arms, and the baby gripped her as if she’d come home. Shaken, Nealy set her to her shoulder. As she stroked her back, her tiny spine shook beneath her palm. Nealy felt like crying herself. She carried her out to the sunporch where they could be alone and settled the two of them in the big wooden rocker.
The porch was warm from the afternoon heat, but the rocker sat in a corner that was shaded by a maple growing at the side of the house, and the ceiling fan stirred the breeze coming through the screen door. Button curled against her breast as if Nealy were all she had left. Gradually the hiccuping sobs faded as Nealy stroked her, kissed her Band-Aid, and crooned nonsense. She heard the low voices of Lucy and Bertis in the kitchen, but nothing from Mat.
Button finally looked up into Nealy’s eyes, her expression full of trust. As Nealy gazed back, she could almost feel her heart expanding until it filled all the dark, cold spaces that had been carved out inside her. This little baby had absolute confidence in her.
Nealy heard a rushing in her ears, the sound of great black wings beating a final retreat, and as she looked down at the beautiful little girl curled in her lap, she finally felt free.
Button gave a triumphant chortle, almost as if she could read Nealy’s mind. Nealy laughed and blinked away tears.
Button was finally ready to address what had happened. She settled herself more comfortably in Nealy’s lap, grabbed her toes, and began to talk. Multisyllabic words, long sentences, complex paragraphs of baby chatter, detailing the injury, the insult of her experience.
Nealy gazed into that small, expressive face and nodded in response. “Yes . . . I know . . . A terrible thing.”
Button’s chatter grew more adamant.
“He should be hung.”
More outrage.
“You think hanging’s too good for him?” Nealy stroked her cheek. “Well, all right. How about torture?”
