Another laugh, still nervous. “With a two-hundred-pound man. Years ago. Guy who ran away and passed out from dehydration. I had to get fluids into him before I hauled him to town for a saline drip. This is a little trickier. She won’t need as much water, though.”
“True.”
He puts a finger to the baby’s lips. Dalton isn’t a huge guy. About six feet tall. Maybe one-seventy, lean and fit, as he needs to be for life out here. That fingertip, though, seems like a giant’s, bigger than the baby’s pursed lips. He prods, and her mouth opens.
“Now let’s just hope I don’t get bit.” He wriggles his finger in and then stops. “Though I guess that would require teeth. How young do you think she is?”
“Babies can be born with teeth, but they usually fall out. They don’t get more until they’re at least six months. She’s well below that. Maybe a month?”
“Fuck.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay, here goes, I’ll prop—”
Her eyes fly open, and he freezes, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. She looks up at him, and it is indeed a picture-perfect scene, as she stares up at Dalton, and his expression goes from frozen shock to wonder.
I want to capture it … and I want to forget it. I want to pretend I don’t see that look in his eyes, don’t see his smile.
“Hey, there,” he says, and the baby doesn’t cry, doesn’t even look concerned. She just stares at him.
“Water,” I say, and I feel like a selfish bitch for spoiling the moment, but I can’t help it. I need to shatter it, and I hate myself a little for that.
“Right.” He wriggles his finger into the baby’s mouth. She starts to suck on it, and he laughs again, no nerves now, just a rumbling laugh that comes from deep in his chest.
“Reminds me of a marten I found, when I was a kid,” he says.
“A baby marten?”
He shrugs. “I had a bad habit of bringing home orphaned animals. My mom…” He trails off, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve heard him use that word. When he speaks of Katherine Dalton, he says “my mother.” That isn’t who he means here. He means Amy O’Keefe, his birth mother. The parents he never talks about. The ones he can’t talk about without a hitch in his words, a trailing-off, a sudden switch of subject. He lived with his parents and his brother out here until he was nine and the Daltons “rescued” him, from a situation he did not need rescuing from.
“Your mom…” I prod, because I must. Every time this door creaks open, I grab for it before it slams shut again.
“Water,” he says, and I try not to deflate.
I lift the pot, and then realize there’s no way in hell I can “drip” it from this suddenly huge pot into her tiny mouth.
“Take out one of our shirts,” he says. “Dip a corner in and squeeze it into her mouth.”
I’m not sure that’s sanitary, but I settle for taking a clean shirt of mine, one fresh from the laundry. As I dip it in, I say, “Is this how you fed the marten?”
“Nah, it’s how I fed birds. For the marten, I’d put food on my finger and hope she didn’t chew it off.” He looks at the baby. “You gonna chew it off, kid?”
“No teeth, remember?”
“These gums feel hard enough to do the job.”
I’ve relaxed now. He’s talking about rescuing orphaned animals, comparing them to the baby, and that eases tension from my shoulders. That’s what he sees this as—the rescue of an orphaned creature. Not picking up a baby and being overwhelmed with some deeper instinct that says “I want this.”
That would be silly, I guess. But we all have our sensitive spots, and this is one of mine: the fact that I cannot provide a child should he decide that’s what he wants. It’s an issue I never had to worry about because I did not foresee myself in a relationship where the question might arise. Now I do.
I wet the shirt and trickle water in the baby’s mouth. I’m being careful to have it close enough, so we can see how much she gets, and suddenly she clamps down on the fabric itself. She sucks hard and then makes such a face that we both laugh.
“Not what you expected, huh?” I say.
Her gaze turns my way. I seem to recall that, at this age, babies can’t see more than shapes, but she’s definitely looking. Processing. I swear I can see that in her dark blue eyes. Every move, every noise, every passing blurry shape is a cause for deep consideration, her brain analyzing and trying to interpret.
I dip the fabric into the pot and pres
s it to her lips. She opens them and sucks. Makes that same face, distaste and displeasure, like a rich old lady expecting champagne and being served ginger ale. She fusses. Bleats. But when nothing better comes, she takes the shirt again and sucks on it.
When she’s finished, she fixes us with a look of bitter accusation.