complicated process of unsnapping the crotch of Jane’s sleeper. Mentally reviewing how I’d changed the Althaus baby, I opened the pull tabs on the old diaper, lifted Jane by the legs, removed the soiled diaper, pulled a wipe from the box on the end of the changing table, cleaned the pertinent areas, and pushed the new diaper under Jane. I ran the front part between her tiny legs, pulled the adhesive tabs shut, and reinserted the baby into the sleeper, getting the snaps wrong only one time.
The three girls decided this was boring. I watched them troop through the door to go to Krista’s room. They were so superficially similar, yet so different. All were eight years old, give or take a few months; all were within three inches of being the same height; they had brown hair and brown eyes. But Eve’s hair was long and looked as if someone had taken a curling iron to it, and Eve was thin and pale. Krista, blocky and with higher color, had short, thick, darker hair and a more decisive demeanor. Her jaw jutted out like she was about to take it on the chin. Anna had shoulder-length light brown hair, a medium build, and a ready smile.
One of these three little girls was not who she thought she was. Her parents were not the people she had always identified as her parents. Her home was not really her home; she belonged elsewhere. She was not the oldest child in the family but the youngest. Everything in her life had been a lie.
I wondered what Jack was doing. I hoped whatever it was, he wouldn’t get caught.
I carried the baby into the living room with me. Luke was still absorbed in the television, but he half turned as I entered and asked me for a snack.
With the attention to detail you have to have around kids, I put Jane in her infant seat, fastened the strap and buckle arrangement that prevented her from falling out, and fetched Luke a banana from the chaotic kitchen.
“I want chips. I don’t like nanas,” he said.
I exhaled gently. “If you eat your banana, I’ll get you some chips,” I said as diplomatically as I am able. “After supper. I’ll be putting supper on the table in just a minute.”
“Miss Lily!” shrieked Eve. “Come look at us!”
Ignoring Luke’s continued complaints about bananas, I strode down the hall to the room that must be Krista’s, judging from all the signs on the door warning Luke never to come in.
It didn’t seem possible the girls could have done so much to themselves in such a short time. Both Krista and Anna were daubed with makeup and swathed in full dress-up regalia: net skirts, feathered hats, tiny high heels. Eve, sitting on Krista’s bed, was much more modestly decked out, and she wore no makeup at all.
I looked at Krista’s and Anna’s lurid faces and had a flash of horror before I realized that if all this stuff had been in Krista’s room, this must be an approved activity.
“You look… charming,” I said, having no idea what an acceptable response would be.
“I’m the prettiest!” Krista said insistently.
If the basis for selection was heavy makeup, Krista was right.
“Why don’t you wear makeup, Miss Lily?” Eve asked.
The three girls crowded around and analyzed my face.
“She’s got mascara on,” Anna decided.
“Red stuff? Rouge?” Krista was peering at my cheeks.
“Eye shadow,” Eve said triumphantly.
“More isn’t always better,” I said, to deaf ears.
“If you wore a lot of makeup, you’d be beautiful, Aunt Lily,” Anna said surprisingly.
“Thank you, Anna. I’d better go see how the baby is.”
Luke had unsnapped the baby’s sleeper and pulled it from her tiny feet. He was bending over her with a pair of tiny, sharp fingernail scissors.
“What are you doing, Luke?” I asked when I could draw my breath.
“I’m gonna help you out,” he said happily. “I’m gonna cut baby Jane’s toenails.”
I shuddered. “I appreciate your wanting to help. But you have to wait for Jane’s daddy to say whether or not he wants you to do that.” That seemed pretty diplomatic to me.
Luke insisted vehemently that Jane’s long toenails were endangering her life and had to be trimmed now.
I began to dislike this child very seriously.
“Listen to me,” I said quietly, cutting right through all his justification.
Luke shut right up. He looked plenty scared.
Good.
“Don’t touch the baby unless I ask you to,” I said. I thought I was making a simple declarative sentence, but possibly Luke was good at interpreting voice tone. He dropped the scissors. I picked them up and shoved them in my sweatpants pocket where I could be certain he wouldn’t reclaim them.
I picked up the infant seat and took Jane into the kitchen with me to set out the children’s meal. Lou had left canned funny-shaped pasta in sauce, which I wouldn’t have fed to my dog, if I’d had one. I heated it, trying not to inhale. I spooned it into bowls, then cut squares of Jell-O and put them on plates, adding apple slices that Lou had already prepared. I poured milk.
The kids ran in and scooted into chairs the minute I called them, even Luke. Without prompting, they all bowed their heads and said the “God is great” prayer in unison. I was caught flat-footed, halfway to the refrigerator to put the milk carton away.
The next fifty minutes were… trying.
I understand that close to Christmas children get excited. I realize that children in packs are more excitable than children separately. I have heard that having a sitter instead of parental supervision causes kids to push their limits, or rather, their sitter’s. But I had to take several deep breaths as the kids rampaged through their supper. I perched on a stool, baby Jane in her infant seat on the kitchen counter beside me. Jane, at least, was asleep. A sleeping baby is a near-perfect thing.
As I wiped up slopped tomato sauce, put more sliced apples into Luke’s bowl, stopped Krista from poking Anna with a spoon, I gradually became aware that Eve was quieter than the others. She had to make a visible effort to join in the hilarity.
Of course, her mother had just died.
So I kept a wary eye on Eve.
Far from planning to learn something that evening, I was beginning to hope merely to survive it. I’d thought I’d get a moment to look for family records. That was so clearly impossible, I was convinced I’d leave as ignorant as when I’d come.
Krista took care of the problem for me.
Reaching for the crackers I’d set in the center of the table, she knocked over her milk, which cascaded off the table into Anna’s lap. Anna shrieked, called Krista a butthead, and darted a terrified glance at me. This was not approved language in the Kingery household, and since I was almost her aunt, I gave Anna the obligatory stern look.
“Do you have a change of pants here?” I asked.
“Yes ma’am,” said a subdued Anna.
“Krista, you wipe up the milk with this towel while I take Anna to change. I’ll need to put those pants right in the washer.”
I picked up the baby in her infant seat and carried her with me down the hall, trying not to jostle her from her sleep. Anna hurried ahead of me, wanting to change and get back to her friends.
I could tell that Anna was not comfortable taking off her clothes with me in the room, but we’d done a little bonding that morning and she didn’t want to hurt my feelings by asking me to leave. God knows I hated invading anyone’s privacy, but I had to do it. After I found a safe spot on the floor for Jane, I picked up the room while Anna untied her shoes and divested herself of her socks, pants, and panties. I had my back to her, but I was facing a mirror when her panties came down, and since she had her back to me, I was able to see clearly the dark brown splotch of the birthmark on her hip.
I had to lean against the wall. A wave of relief almost bowled me over. Anna having that birthmark simply had to mean that Anna was the baby in the birth picture with her mother and Dill, their original and true child, and not Summer Dawn Macklesby.
I had something to be thankful for, after all.
I picked up the wet clothes, and Anna, having pulled on some dry ones, dashed out of the room to finish her supper.
