Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

She handed me a fleecy pink blanket. As I tossed it on top of the basket, I was about to thank her for all her help when she said, “You know, it’s not my place to say, but your friend should see a doctor.”

For a second I thought I detected some quotation marks around the way she said your friend. She had definitely avoided asking any more questions, and I was pretty sure she was convinced I was either a kidnapper or was running some sort of illicit, black-market baby-supply company.

“No insurance, right?”

I shook my head. “She’s going through a pretty tough time right now.”

“Yeah, here.” She held out her baby. “Take him.”

Before I could think of a reason to protest, my arms were reaching out and taking the baby from her. He immediately howled in utter despair.

“I told you.” She pulled a pen from her purse and the napkin from her back pocket and started writing on it. “This is my pediatrician. Kind of a dork, but total sliding scale and no questions asked.” She handed the sticky napkin to me with a poignant look. “Watch out for the oatmeal.”

I laughed. “I was wondering what that was. I’m Dixie, by the way.”

The girl looked at me expectantly, and for a moment I thought she might be waiting for me to give her a tip.

She said, “Can I have my baby back?”

“Oh my gosh, of course!”

She laughed and took the baby. His head smelled sweet, like talcum powder and clean sweat. As soon as he was back in his mother’s arms he stopped crying and turned around to look at me accusingly.

“I could use a break,” she said, “but I figure you’ve already got enough babies to deal with for today.”

Just then my cell phone rang.

“Well, I’m out of here,” she said. “This monster’s due for his nap. Cool?”

“Oh my gosh, yes. Thank you so much for your help,” I said, fishing my phone out of my bag. “I would have been shopping for hours!”

“I know,” she said as she disappeared around the end of the aisle. “Call that doctor.”

I pulled my phone out and flipped it open. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was Ethan Crane. I held the phone to my ear with one shoulder and swung the cart around to head for the checkout lanes.

He said, “Hey, it’s Ethan. What are you doing?”

I thought for a moment. Just the sound of his voice made me a little weak in the knees.

“I’m shopping.”

“What for?”

I wondered how he would react if I said I was at Walmart buying a cartful of baby supplies for an illegal alien and her newborn baby that I found this morning behind the bushes in a bed of blood-soaked leaves.

“Hats,” I said.

“Fun. Listen, my friend just opened a restaurant downtown, and I was wondering if you might want to go down and check it out this Friday night.”

I stopped the cart in the middle of the aisle. “With you?”

“Yes, with me.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “I can do that.”

“I’m asking you to go with me. Like a date.”

“Yes, I got that.”

“Just making sure.”

I said, “No, I’d love to.”

I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather not do. Not that I hadn’t been thinking about Ethan a lot lately, and not that I don’t find him completely irresistible, but the idea of going on a date with him made me so nervous that I wanted to stick my head in a hole.

“I have a meeting at six,” I lied. “So I’ll meet you there?”

“Excellent. Eight o’clock?”

Eight o’clock seemed horrible. “Perfect. See you then!”

As I clicked the phone off I heard him say, “Dixie, you don’t even know where—”

The D-word, I said to myself as I rolled my cart into the checkout line. Ethan had used the damn D-word. I’d known it was only a matter of time before he asked me out on a date, but I still wasn’t ready for it. Did this man think we were going to be a couple now? Did he think he was just going to drop in and sweep me off my feet? Did he know things were over with Guidry? Were things over with Guidry? And did he not realize I had absolutely nothing cute to wear?

Then I caught myself. There was that voice in my head again—telling me to run away, to hide, to stay safe.

I decided for now I wouldn’t think about it. Six bags and three hundred and seventy five dollars later, I was back in the Bronco on my way to Joyce’s when the phone rang again. It was Ethan, but this time I let it go to voice mail. Ethan had used the D-word.…

At Joyce’s, I carried the first two of the bags up the front walk and was about to set them down on the mat when Joyce slipped out the front door and pulled it closed behind her. She looked a little bit flustered.

“How is she?” I asked. “How’s the baby?”

“They’re fine, they’re fine,” she whispered. “They’re just waking up. But I have two things to tell you.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “What happened?”

She looked over her shoulder and then leaned in with a whisper. “There’s ten one-thousand-dollar bills in Corina’s purse!”

I put the bags down.

“What?”

She said, “I know, I know. I shouldn’t have been going through her purse, but she was asleep and I thought I might be able to find a phone number, somebody I could call and let them know she was okay, a relative or something, and that’s when I saw the money. It’s just loose in her purse. Ten thousand dollars!”

“Does she know you found it?”

“No no no, she’s still resting and I put it right back. Oh, Dixie, why on earth would she have that kind of money in her purse?”

I said, “Now, let’s don’t jump to any conclusions. For whatever reason, she has a lot of money. It could be her life savings for all we know.”

“You’d think with that kind of money if she knew she was going to have a baby, she’d at least have gotten a hotel room.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, and plus it’s none of our business.”

Joyce didn’t look convinced, and to tell the truth I wasn’t too sure either. It did seem strange. Why would a young girl who apparently had nothing but a cardboard box and the clothes on her back walk around with so much cash? I had heard that illegals often come into the country with every penny they own. They need money to pay the people who help smuggle them in, and they have to pay for everything with cash. Still …

We decided to let it go. For whatever reason, Corina had a ton of money in her purse, and it wasn’t our place to ask why. Although I did wonder if I shouldn’t give her my Walmart receipt.

I said, “What’s the second thing?”

“What second thing?”

“The second thing you wanted to tell me.”

She nodded. “Oh yeah. You know that dead bird?”

“Yes?”

“Well it’s not dead!”

* * *

Joyce’s handbag was sitting on the coffee table in the living room. It had exploded. There were bits and pieces of tissue thrown about, a scattering of crumbs from what looked like a granola bar, a couple of lipstick cases, loose change, and a few fluffy chartreuse feathers. Proudly perched atop the handbag in all its multicolored glory was the resplendent quetzal, clutching a ring of keys in its bright yellow beak and eyeing us curiously.

I said, “Joyce, that bird is not dead.”

She said, “Nope. In fact, it is very much alive.”

The bird cocked its head to one side, flicked the ring of keys onto the table, and chirped what sounded like a cheerful cool!

Joyce said, “I was in the bedroom with Corina and the baby, and I thought I heard you out here unpacking things. I came out and there he was. He looks a little groggy, but other than that he seems perfectly fine. Do you think he got sick and just passed out?”