Karen Kravit
Chapter 1: Private Property
Lena and her son Max were on the last stretch of their drive to Lena’s mother’s house in Crappie Springs, a retirement haven on Florida’s southern Gulf Coast. Though the town was named after a common panfish, pronounced “krawpee,” Lena and Max, a thirteen-year-old lover of language, found fun in the more obvious phonetic pronunciation, and they’d begun modifying every noun in their conversation with it the moment they’d acknowledged their mutual disappointment in the scenery—“the millionth crappy palm tree,” “crappy road kill number seven,” “ruthlessly crappy drive.” But the endless sawgrass, palm grass, and occasional stand of scrub pines mesmerized them, so to stave off insanity they played the list game. It was Lena’s turn, and as she ticked through the alphabet, she searched her forty-something gray matter for the elusive name of the fifth Great Lake.
Max said, “I’ll give you a crappy hint—”
“No! Give me a crappy second!”
Lena looked up and to the left, struggling to access the brain data hidden beyond the windshield, road, foliage, birds, and sky, but something disturbed the panoramic heat shimmer that had been their view for the last hour and a half, and Max saw it, too.
“What’s that?” he said.
About a hundred yards ahead and mere inches off the sun-bleached asphalt, a small figure lurched. Lena blinked and refocused, thinking her eyes, the heat, and the distance were tricking her brain. Whatever it was appeared to be walking upright but was still weirdly low to the ground. An animal standing on its hind legs? A dwarf?
The tiny shape staggered from the edge of the swale to the asphalt and back again.
As they got closer, the figure came into focus.
“Oh, my God,” Lena said.
It was a baby, toddling along the shoulder of the highway, and appearing in the waves of heat, beyond the diapered child, was the growing outline of a black and chrome semi.
Lena slammed her palm into the center of the steering wheel and held it there, making the little Audi scream. But the truck driver couldn’t hear the horn from within its sealed cab, and he obviously hadn’t spotted the baby. The shimmering monster kept coming.
Lena pushed the accelerator to the floor.
Max, who’d leaned forward to see the child better, was thrown back against the seat.
“Whoa!”
Her arms locked at the elbows and right hand cemented to the horn, Lena glanced at her son. He looked frightened but unhurt, so she let her gaze shift back to the narrowing gap between the baby and the truck. As the gap closed, her eyes reflexively squeezed shut, reopening after the truck screamed past.
Lena jerked the car to the road’s shoulder and stopped, scanning the far side of the road, where the child had been only a moment before.
Max pointed and said, “There!”
The tiny form was barely visible in the tall, dry grass.
Lena killed the engine. “Call 911,” she said and jumped out. A surge of adrenaline propelled her, and she didn’t look left or right—she just kept her eyes on the child and ran.
Halfway across the highway, she saw some movement and heard crying. When she reached the little body, she felt a moment of paralysis as she stood over the child, on its back, its round face darkening from lavender to plum and back again as it wailed and waved its tiny fists.
The semi’s wake had knocked the baby onto its back, and she bent to look the child over. Raw, pink scratches covered its flesh. A rush of tears filled her eyes. “Thank God,” she said. “Thank God.”
A disposable diaper with a pattern of tiny, tumbling clowns was taped low and tight at the child’s waist, but its slim thighs were lost in the gaping leg holes, and she could see the child had soiled itself front and back. It was a boy, and his bare feet flailed.
“Shhhh,” Lena said, leaning over the child and casting a shadow across his face.
His screams diminished, and he opened his eyes.
“It’s okay. I’m here.” Not wanting to frighten the child, Lena reached slowly. He reached back, making her smile. “Good. That’s right. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
The baby was shockingly light, as if its limbs and torso were hollow, so she lifted carefully. Based on the eight or ten teeth she’d seen when he cried, Lena guessed the child was somewhere between twelve and eighteen months. She maneuvered him delicately, examining him on one side and then the other, and when she was reasonably certain he didn’t have any broken bones and that there was no blood more significant than the pin-head sized bubbles dotting his scratches, she settled him onto her hip.
The child had stopped crying, but the power and momentum of his keening echoed with a rhythmic hyper-ventilation that caused him to inhale and shudder every second or so. He didn’t struggle to get away, though neither did he cling. Perched on Lena’s hip bone, he leaned away, studying her as she studied him.
Sweat and dirt darkened his scant blond hair, making it stick to his oval skull, and his smudged face was tear damp and snotty. His shirt was twisted at the back, like a wrung cloth, though his arms were through the holes, and all but the top snap were closed. It looked tight and uncomfortable, and Lena tried to imagine the one who’d dressed him. She shook her head.
Lena reached for the child’s foot, but he pulled away. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She tried again, gently cupping the back of the child’s heel and lifting it to examine the sole, finding it dirty, blistered, and raw. Lena twisted awkwardly to get a look at the other foot. It was the same, and she realized he’d been hopping back and forth between the sharp, brown grasses and burning pavement to find comfort for his tender flesh.
Lena pulled in a calming breath, and the effort seemed to inspire the child to slow his own inhalations. Lena aimed her gaze across the street at Max, who’d remained in the car, staring at her and the baby. She wondered what he was thinking.
This time Lena looked both ways before crossing the highway. As she approached the car, she smiled and nodded, trying to reassure Max. She went to the passenger side and opened the door.
Max was not reassured. “Is it okay?”
She nodded. “I think so.” She smiled at the baby. “And it’s a he.”
“What the fuck, Mom—?”
“Hey! Watch your mouth.” Lena smiled wider, trying to erase any anxiety that might have been caused by the harshness of Max’s tone.
“But what the fuck—?”
“I said cut it out.” She turned stern eyes on her son but kept a sing-songy tone. “Did you call 911?”
Max understood the cue and calmed his delivery. “No signal,” he said.
“Fuck,” Lena said.
Max raised his brow. “Hypocrite.”
Lena’s focus remained on the baby.
Max said, “What’s a baby doing on a highway?”
Lena shook her head and looked again to the weightless child, wondering if he was verbal.
“What’s your name, sweetie?”
The baby stared and used his fist to rub at the crusty snot under his nose, succeeding only in smearing the mess over a larger area of his face.
“Gross,” Max said.
“He’s terrified.”
Max surveyed the child. “Looks pretty chill to me.”
Lena examined the child’s countenance. His behavior was so strange. She’d expected—anyone would have expected—the wailing to have continued. He was hurt, hot, and in the arms of a stranger, yet he looked at her with what she’d describe as indifference. Perhaps the child was in shock. Or maybe he was just relieved to be off the cutting grass and burning asphalt.
“Where did he come from?” Max said.
Lena looked around. They’d seen no houses or side roads for miles, and there were none in the distance. “I don’t know.” She studied the child again. “Not sure I want to.”
The child’s expression didn’t change, but he said, “Ma.”
“Mommy?” Lena said.
The child looked beyond Lena and swung his arm up and down like a rag doll’s. Was he pointing the way home?
Lena took a breath and considered her options. She could assume the child had wandered from his home, and they could go in search of it, or she could assume he’d been abandoned and take him to a hospital. Either way, he needed medical attention. And even if he’d only wandered off, the toddler’s pathetic condition suggested neglect.
The baby continued to stare, as if to say, I don’t care. He was in the moment, an awful one, but he seemed fine with it.
“Let’s find a hospital.” Lena glanced into the back seat of the car and then looked down at Max.
“You’re going to have to hold him in your lap.”
Max’s face contorted. “No way!”
“The back’s full, and I have to drive, Max.”
Max looked the child over and saw all that his mother had. “He’s got poop in his diapers, Mom. It’s disgusting!” Like any boy, Max had an extreme aversion to baby poop. But unlike other boys his age, Max also had an extreme aversion to dirt and germs. As far back as Lena could remember, he’d avoided playgrounds and sports. And from the time he was five, he’d refused to leave the house or go to bed before showering.
With her free hand, Lena pulled at the tape holding the sagging diaper together, but the baked adhesive wouldn’t separate from the colorful strip. She pulled harder, and the tape, still attached, tore away, taking a long and curly shard of strip. Gingerly, Lena shifted the baby to her other hip to perform the same maneuver, but she let the diaper hang, a shield between her and the child’s dirty bottom. “Give me a towel, get a blanket out of the back, and drape it over yourself.”
Max caught on. “No way, Mom—”
“Now.”
Max glared at his mother before twisting away to reach into the rear seat. He pulled plastic bags, pillows, the requested towel, and blankets from the back. He handed the towel to his mother.
Holding the child slightly away from her and letting the diaper fall to the ground, Lena wrapped the baby’s torso from under his armpits to his knees. She’d thought about trying to rinse him with some bottled water but worried it would cause his abrasions to sting. Now she cradled him like an infant, supporting his head and shoulders with her left arm and draping his wrapped legs over her right.
Max tore three of the bags as flat as he could and molded them to his chest, hips, and legs. He put one pillow lengthwise across his lap and another lengthwise from his head to his waist.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Lena said.
Max glared again but didn’t stop his construction, covering both pillows with a blanket and tucking it snuggly around his body. Then he placed two more torn plastic bags on top, followed by a towel. When he was finished, he had created a soft, semi-waterproof throne for the baby, leaving only his arms exposed, which he pulled tightly to his sides. “Okay,” he said. “Do it.”
Lena rolled her eyes, but then she remembered the baby was watching, so she smiled and said, “Ready?” She put her hands under the baby’s tiny arms and leaned down, the filthy diaper falling to the ground. She placed the child onto Max’s makeshift car seat.
“Jesus, he stinks!” Max turned his head to the right, burying his nose in his shoulder.
Lena ignored him. “Where’s the buckle?”
With his mouth pressed into his T-shirt and his eyes squeezed shut, Max fumbled around with his right hand in a search for the shoulder harness. Finally, he pulled it from under the blankets, held it out to Lena, and expelled a muffled “Here!”
Lena dug around to find the belt and then pulled the shoulder and lap harness across the baby and Max. She had to lean over the child to locate the female fitting, and she got a powerful whiff. She gagged, covering her mouth and nose, thankful Max couldn’t see her from behind the barrier he’d built. The child didn’t fuss as she snapped the belt into place.
She looked down at the filthy diaper. “Give me a plastic bag.”
Max gave a muffled reply. “There aren’t any more.”
Her shoulders slumped. She hated to leave the thing lying on the roadside, but the child’s odor was bad enough. Surely the gods of nature would forgive her under the circumstances.
She shut the door, stepped over the diaper, ran quickly to the driver’s side, got in, turned over the engine, and turned the air on full blast.
Then came a partially stifled plea from Max. “Windows—open the windows!” Lena opened all four and left the air conditioning on.
They pulled back onto the road and continued toward civilization. As she drove, Lena scanned the roadside. The landscape, consistent for many miles, was dry sawgrass stretching from the road’s shoulder down a steep and shallow slope and into a canal paralleling the road. They drove along dark water, intermittently dotted with glossy green lily pads and an occasional purple-white flower. They’d seen a few birds along the way, and because Max had researched indigenous fauna, he’d been able to identify most of them. But this stretch was birdless. Forty or fifty feet from the road’s edge ran a gray, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Beyond the fence, a dense forest of palms and pines spread into the distance. At times they could see through the trees all the way to the horizon, but at others they couldn’t see more than twenty feet in.
Max turned his head to the right and gasped. He could feel the baby’s faint weight through the pillow on his lap, but he couldn’t see the child or what was before them due to the pillow pillared between him and the baby’s back and head. He looked out the passenger window and tried to focus on the details of the blazing, monotonous scenery, gulping the hot, heavy air to keep the child’s stench from entering his lungs.
They’d driven a mile or so when they came upon it. Lena checked the rearview mirror and slowed to a stop.
Max said, “Why are we stopping?”
“Look.”
Max took a deep breath and turned his head to the left, sweeping his nose and brow across the back of the pillow. Now he could see what his mother saw.
Parallel to the car was a wide break in the fence on the other side of the road. Posted on the left portion of fence was a battered yellow and black sign: Private Property, No Hunting, Fishing or Trespassing, and to the right, an ibis—the first bird they’d seen since rescuing the baby—perched in the upper branches of a bald tree, its neck and head lowered to below its shoulders like a weird, white vulture.
Thirty or forty feet beyond the fence, a faded, neon pink doublewide rested haphazardly in the sand, a battered red truck parked at one end. A chipped, plaster of Paris Doberman pinscher, cast in the heads-up, Sphinx pose and painted what had once been a glossy black, sat near the foot of some faded plywood steps leading up to the trailer door. Two rusty, kids’ bikes lay abandoned in front of the truck, and an empty chicken coop constructed of drooping, rusted mesh stood off to the left.
His nose and mouth buried in his arm, Max said, “You sure?”
“Where else could he have come from?” Lena turned to the baby. “Home? Is Mommy here?”
The child’s bland expression didn’t change.
As Lena turned back toward the sad homestead, a boy came out of the trailer and descended the wobbling steps. He wore dark shorts, a plain T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and looked maybe a year or two younger than Max. When the boy noticed the car, he took a few steps toward it.
Lena waved, but the boy didn’t wave back. Instead, he stopped in the middle of the yard and dropped to the ground, cross-legged on packed sand and scrub, looking at Lena and the car—and whatever else he could see inside it. The boy had the same straw hair as the baby and stared at Lena with the same empty-eyed expression. Almost no expression at all, really. She guessed he was the baby’s brother.
Max pulled his mouth from his sleeve, his voice becoming clear. “This is creepy. Let’s go, Mom.”
Lena couldn’t take her eyes off the languid boy. “Agreed,” she said. But before she moved her foot from the brake, she stuck her head out the window and said, “Is this your baby brother? We found him on the highway.”
The boy’s response was to twist around and look over his shoulder at the silent trailer. When he untwisted his torso, he turned his gaze downward, as if to examine his bare feet. Every movement had a certain listlessness about it, while an unseen force poked him along against his will. He stood, turned away, retraced his steps back to the trailer, up the stairs, and back inside.
Lena turned back toward Max and the toddler perched on top of him. With a tiny, open palm, the baby stroked the smooth cloth of the harness that lay against him and looked out the front windshield, and Max had reburied his nose and mouth in his upper arm. She couldn’t hand the child over to whoever was in that trailer.
Muffled once again, Max said, “Let’s go.”
Lena nodded, faced forward, and shifted her foot to the accelerator.
After a few minutes of driving in silence, Max said into his arm, “Erie.”
His mother nodded and stared out the windshield at the silent highway. “No kidding.”
Max chuckled. “No,” he said. “The lake you couldn’t think of—it’s Erie.”