She runs, her pace slowing.
I follow her in the night. We are on the road that led me here to begin with. I’m out. I’ve made it out. But this one last obstacle stands in my way. I have to get the baby from her.
She turns, looks over her shoulder. Her mouth parts as if to scream for help. As though I’ve come to take something from her that is truly hers. It dawns on me that she believes this. She believes that the baby belongs with her and not Birdie. She’s as delusional as Tom.
I catch up to her.
“Vanessa!” I call.
My voice echoes across the field. I can make out the lights of vehicles down the road about three-quarters of a mile from us. The edge of town is waiting. The FBI is waiting. I just have to get there.
Her name is like blasphemy. A curse hollered inside the walls of a church. She turns to face me. The baby clutched in her arms. Her shirt wraps the child like swaddling. Her face and shoulders bear the bloody marks of her fight with the cedar trees. They have clawed and scratched at her body much the way they did mine, but without protection, she was vulnerable.
Her eyes are what strike me the most, though.
Those same eyes that I’d seen staring down at me—staring through me—when Tom was on top of my waist, bearing down with all his weight on my throat.
There is something there.
Madness.
I recognize it. It’s the same wild fury that I saw in her eyes the night she slapped me at the party. Pure unadulterated rage. It’s the look of a woman that’s willing to do whatever the hell she has to do to keep what she has. And she’s already lost so much.
I approach with hands raised, trying to appear non-threatening.
“Vanessa,” I say her name again. I want Vanessa to know that she matters, that what she wants matters.
“Get back,” she says. Her voice is ragged, worn like old leather. She’s out of breath, panting, her chest heaving. I make out sweat around her collarbone. The baby has stopped crying.
“Vanessa,” I’m pleading now.
“I said, get back,” she repeats. This time her voice is stern, finding itself again.
“I know he hurt you,” I say.
“You know nothing.”
I pause and try to think of what to say next, how to phrase what needs to be vocalized in order to get her to see reason.
She takes a step backwards.
And then it dawns on me.
I approach again. Taking a few steps forward.
“This child isn’t Tom’s,” she says through tears.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“The reason he said it was sent to him by God is because Tom is—was—sterile.”
The revelation stops me.
“But what about—”
“It was someone else’s. Someone that I was in love with,” she answers without having to hear the question.
My mouth parts, ready to speak before my mind. I can’t put a voice to what I’m feeling. It had never occurred to me that the child might not be Tom’s. He knew, though. He knew all along.
“It’s better this way,” Vanessa says, clutching the baby to her chest tightly.
I take another step forward, driving her back along the side of the road.
“Vanessa,” I say. “I need you to let me have that baby.”
“No!” she shouts. The baby cries at the sharp sound. She turns to shush it, comfort it. I approach more closely.
“You know this isn’t right,” I say.
I take several steps forward.
Vanessa looks again at me and backs up. I spot what I’m seeking then. In the moonlight, the metal glows. I step forward again, driving her back.
“This child—FUCK!”
She steps directly into the bear trap on the side of the road. As the trap clamps down on her ankle, she drops the baby. I watch in slow motion as the child falls toward the grass. I race forward, not watching my step as I approach.
I dive for the child, scooping it from the ground.
I stand up and look down into my arms. The baby scrunches up her face, letting out the purest cry I’ve ever heard. I turn and look at Vanessa, writhing on the ground, struggling with the bear trap.
She looks up at me. Tears streak down her cheek and glisten in the moonlight. She parts her mouth as though to say something, and I pause, long enough to hear it. But instead of speaking, she closes her mouth.
There’s nothing left to say.
IONE
“Ione!” Vanessa wails after me.
I have to turn off the instinctive part of myself that wants to go back and help her. She’ll be fine, I tell myself. She’s stuck there. She’s not getting away. And she’s not dying.
It’s enough to keep me going. That and the idea that I have to get the baby to safety. I look down as I jog. Her eyes are that cloudy blue that all babies’ eyes seem to be. I wonder what color they’ll end up. If they’ll match her mother’s. Or her father’s.
Who is her father?
I don’t have time to speculate. The energy that it takes to focus on finding my footing as I descend back into the creek bed, cross it, and climb up and out steals any mental prowess I might otherwise be able to devote to the question.
For now, it doesn’t matter.
Now all that matters is getting out of here. Getting back to Birdie. If she’s alive.
I try not to go down that dark path. I’m familiar with catastrophizing. Ever since my father died, I’ve lived my life that way. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it doesn’t seem like a far stretch for the imagination to get there right now. I know that Birdie’s in dire straits. I just have to hope that someone got to her before the fire did.
Out of breath, I reach the tree line. I hold the baby girl close to my chest, being sure to cover her face with Vanessa’s shredded blouse. I give her the most protection I can from the errant branches that we’ll
