The nurses began working devotedly with the baby, but the doctor shrieked impatiently that they were wasting time. The shriveled, blue thing was wrapped submissively in a towel and designated for the trash. The grandmother was led from the room and told by the doctor that sometimes God’s plan is not for us to comprehend. He left her alone in the corridor as the intercom belched more important matters.
The old lady stood blank in the long hall for some time, invisible to the underpaid workers rushing by. Jolted from her stupor by a bump to her hip, a nurse impulsively begged forgiveness while rolling a large stretcher past. On top lay a soggy hospital towel concealing its ugliness from the sanitized world. The nurse parked it near some stainless steel doors and rushed off. Instinctively, the old lady grabbed the soggy lump and walked indifferently out the door.
When she got to her car, she laid the package on the worn seat next to her. The door creaked loudly as Maribel tried fruitlessly to shut out the blowing cold. She drove toward her estranged husband, who would not go to the hospital and so did not yet know that his only daughter was dead. At a stoplight, she was surprised to see the towel move. She opened the towel and saw for the first time the sunken face of Jaden Church.
Maribel was tired and could find no love in her heart for this blind runt that was probably retarded. She would not have even taken the baby if she thought it was alive. She had only wanted to make a point. She looked disgusted out of the cracked window and was unconsciously struck by the beauty of the dormant grasses and bare trees along the rural highway. The tall grasses that had crawled out of reach from the industrial mowers were an inimitable bronze-sepia color, encircled by the golden clumps of its mowed cousins and interspersed with the black, leafless branches of native brush and small trees. Together with the red clay and thick fog surrounding the scene, a most beautiful painting by the greatest artist in the universe was on exhibition for all eyes that see. A car honked and drove her forward.
The house was crooked and plain, yet in a “respectable” neighborhood. There was a couch on the front porch with various board games and books keeping it from realizing its duty. The screen door had not yet been fitted with its seasonal storm window and waved languidly in the wind. Maribel entered the kitchen to find the house a bit warmer within than without. She shut the door with her shoulder as she called to her husband.
“Joe, you need to come meet your…grandchild.” He was in the basement “studying”. After a lengthy silence, the sound of despondent footsteps echoed up the barren stairwell. He slowly navigated the corner at the top of the steps into the small kitchen. He kept his head down even after he was done with the steps and shut the door without a sound.
Joe was gray. His hair was gray, his skin was gray, and his eyes were gray. No color could whittle its way through his soul into the physical world. On this day, even the sweat pants and t-shirt were gray. Squinting through his thick, framed glasses covered in dandruff and greasy smudges, he managed, “Where’s Martha?” His wife’s only answer was a harsh look of accusation and disbelief.
He returned his gaze slowly to the floor and drifted habitually into the bathroom where he stayed for three days.
Joe was awoken early Sunday morning to the sound of a crying baby. He walked warily and confused toward the sound, peering in the dim rooms as he passed. The baby lay on the floor in the living room next to the broken TV. It was naked and purple from crying. The carpet near its bottom was soiled with a black tar-like substance which led predictably to the baby’s anus. A fountain of urine rose unexpectedly from a curiously large penis. This made Joe laugh.
He carefully picked up the baby and walked leisurely to the kitchen sink, where he cleaned the baby attentively with dishwashing detergent and napkins amid the dirty dishes. He laid the baby to dry on the kitchen table while he made himself a pickle-loaf and cheese-food sandwich with a glass of homogenized milk. The baby continued to cry.
At some point, it occurred to Joe that the baby might be hungry. He held his sandwich to the baby’s mouth, but it just kept crying. He tore a piece off and gave it to the baby, but that just made it worse. The baby began to choke and wheeze. As he cleared its mouth, he noticed it had no teeth. Joe gazed up to the stained ceiling tiles in laborious thought while scratching his stomach.
Suddenly, he took a bite of his sandwich and a sip of the milk. Chewing methodically, he leaned over the baby and began to drool the mixture into the baby’s gaping mouth. Initially, the baby choked, but in time – either out of gratification or desperation – it swallowed some of the substance.
After breakfast as the baby slept on the table, Joe put on his Sunday suit and modified his hair with his good hand. As he looked into the mirror, he saw the face of a man who had done something. He felt useful for the first time in a long time. He vowed to himself to not make the same mistakes this time around.
Then he turned off all the lights in the house, wrapped Jaden in paper towels and a red and green knitted Christmas stocking, and walked out the back door toward The Bloody Church of Christ.
Jaden slept soundly all through his first sermon.
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