A Fool and His Honey

“And you watched the baby being born?”

“Hell, no!”

“But you were at the midwife’s?”

“Well…” Rory seemed to be thinking deeply, and that seemed to be difficult for him. “Not exactly, not me. So much as Craig. I think I was in jail.”

I looped the ends of the receiving blanket around each hand so I’d have a good grip, just waiting for a nod from Martin to choke this goofball.

Martin glanced back to see what I was doing, then looked forward hastily, his face convulsing with suppressed laughter.

“Say the word,” I told him.

“Rory,” Martin tried again. “Which one of you took Regina to the midwife’s office?”

“Maybe I went part of the way,” Rory improvised. “They dropped me off at the house on their way.”

“And this baby, Hayden, the one in the backseat, is the child of Regina and Craig?”

“Gosh, I don’t know. They all look alike, don’t they?” Martin turned a little and directed his next words at me. “You know, I’m actually tempted,” he said. “Keep it handy.”

Like most horrible things-roller coaster rides, committee meetings, vaginal exams-the trip eventually came to an end. After thirteen hours on the road (during two and a half of which Hayden screamed) we got to Corinth. By that time I didn’t like anyone in the Mercedes, myself included. Rory directed Martin to his family’s home, in a section of Corinth as derelict as any I’d seen in Lawrenceton. When we pulled up in front of a tiny brick house set up on a hill, the steps up to it steep and crooked, Rory ejected himself from the car with unflattering speed. “I’ll give you a call,” he promised. “Thanks for not turning me in. Take care of old Hayden, now.” He went up the steps two at a time, his extra clothes clutched to him in a paper bag, his hair sticking out all around from a knit watch cap he’d had stuck in his pocket. The streetlight gave the blond hair a tinge of green and his progress a definite touch of the surreptitious.

We watched him go with relief.

“If he had two thoughts at one time, they’d throw a surprise party,” Martin said mysteriously, and I nodded.

“The question is, is he bad or good underneath the stupidity?” I said.

“I don’t think he’s smart enough to be bad,” Martin said.

The same streetlight made my husband look hard and angry. Really, he was just tired and grumpy. Maybe.

“You don’t have to be smart to be bad,” I reminded him.

It was too late, and we were too tired, to cope with any surprises the farmhouse might have to offer. We checked into the Holiday Inn, staggered to our room with all the paraphernalia the baby required. Martin set up the portable crib while I changed Hayden, who rejected another bottle. There was a little refrigerator in the room, so I stuck the bottle in there, laid Hayden in the crib, and patted him on the back until he fell asleep. By that time, Martin was in bed. I felt like an elephant had rolled over on me and lain there for hours. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and crawled in beside him.

Two hours later Hayden woke up.

I was standing beside the crib when I attained consciousness.

Hayden was hungry.

The formula was cold, and there was no way to heat it.

Finally, I tucked it in my nightgown next to my body-you can imagine how good that felt-and held Hayden and jiggled him in the room’s straight chair, trying Binkys and bouncing and humming with no effect. When the formula was slightly less chilly, I stuck the nipple in Hayden’s mouth, and after a brief protest, the baby began to suckle.

Martin slept all the way through this.

In the morning, when he shook me by the shoulder-very gently-I buried my face in the pillow.

“Roe,” he said, kissing me on the cheek, “it’s nine o’clock, and the baby’s awake.”

“Take care of him.”

“I changed his diaper,” Martin observed, trying not to sound proud and failing. “I think he’s hungry, and there aren’t any bottles.”

“Go to the store, and see if they sell formula already made up,” I advised. “Or take him to Craig’s aunt and uncle and let them worry about it.”

Martin heartlessly laid Hayden on the bed by me, and I raised my head enough to see his tiny finger waving. He made his little “eh” sound. His cheek was close enough to kiss, so I did, inhaling the now-familiar baby smell. I could hear the diaper rustle, and knew Martin hadn’t put it on snugly enough. Oh, hell.

I sat up, groggy as it is possible to be. “I was up with him last night,” I said, fixing Martin with as baleful a stare as I could scrape together. “While you slept,” I emphasized, in case he hadn’t gotten the point. I could not find any trace of sympathy for Martin in my heart. It didn’t make any difference that his niece was missing and her husband dead. He’d had what I hadn’t-undisturbed sleep.

“I’ll go look,” he said hastily. “What kind should I get?”

I made him write it down. Hayden was beginning to escalate in his demands. “And hurry,” I added, in case he hadn’t gotten that point.

There was no going back to sleep. I found a Binky, stuck it in Hayden’s mouth, rejoiced to find that pacified him at least for the moment. I dashed into the bathroom, took a hot and sketchy shower, scrubbed my teeth again, and was appalled at the amount of makeup I needed to make myself look healthy this morning. I pulled on tobacco- brown slacks and a sweater of a deep yellow that I believed was called goldenrod. I took a moment to sit down on the bed and do some research with the local phone book. Then I finished rigging myself out with my rings, a chain, some earings, my gold-rimmed glasses, and socks and loafers… By the time I’d finally put myself together, Martin was coming back in the room with a bag. It contained clean bottles and a few cans of ready-made formula.

“You wouldn’t believe what I had to pay for this,” he said with some indignation.

“I don’t care. Did you get a can opener?” I asked tensely.

He produced one from the bag with an air of triumph, and I gave him a heartfelt kiss on the cheek. He was about to go for something more meaningful when I heard the warning tune-up behind me.

“He’s getting serious,” I said, panicking. “We’ve got to get the bottle ready now!”

Working together we had a brand-new bottle full of brand-new formula ready in record time, and Hayden was gumming away on the nipple in blessed near-silence. While I aided and abetted, Martin checked the skinny Corinth telephone book for the address of Craig’s family, the Harbors, who’d taken him in when his parents died.

“Maybe they’re on their way to Lawrenceton,” I said, with a wave of horror. “Maybe they’re on their way there to collect Craig’s body!”

“Nope,” Martin said, his eyes never leaving the columns of phone numbers. “Padgett Lanier told me Craig’s brother had asked him how to ship the body back to Corinth when the autopsy was over.”

I felt a tide of relief sweep over me. The people who had raised Craig for the past five years were here in Corinth. I was not thinking of the Harbors as bereaved; I was thinking of them as baby repositories. And I’d lost any shame I had about it, too.

“Here they are,” Martin said absently. “Eighteen-fifty-six Gettysburg Street.” He closed the phone book and returned it to the drawer with a much more cheerful air.

“Who’d want to name a street after Gettysburg?” Obviously, I was talking right off the top of my head.

Martin looked up at me, his eyebrows raised and a patient look on his face.

“Oh,” I said, abashed. I’m not one of those unreconstructed southerners who refers to the War of Northern Aggression, but it seemed I’d been indoctrinated to some extent. I made a face at my Yankee husband. These people probably had an Appomattox Avenue, too.

We packed all the baby’s things in his diaper bag, folded up the crib for the last time, and went carefully down the stairs to our car. We hadn’t had coffee yet, or breakfast, and yet that seemed secondary to getting Hayden to qualified caregivers.

Since Corinth is only a little bigger than Lawrenceton, we found the Harbors’ house quickly. To my silent