you're the daddy?" There was real menace in her voice.
"I mean I found it. I don't know who the mama is. And I sure know I ain't no baby's daddy.
Less it can happen by looking at pictures."
Mama gasped. So did Ceese. He'd never talked like that to his mama in his life. Which, he was sure, was the only reason he was still alive. And from Mama's face, that was about to come to a quick end.
At that moment, the baby cried softly. Which was about the only thing that could have changed the subject from how Ceese had just said his last words.
"Inside a Lucky's bag and covered with ants," said Ceese. "It's a boy. He's alive."
"Seeing how I'm not blind and stupid, I already knew that."
"Sorry, Mama." He said it fervently enough that it might cover for what he said before.
"Before you ask, no, you can't keep it."
"It's real little, Mama."
"They get bigger."
"I don't want to keep it, Mama, I just don't want it to die."
"I know that," said Mama. "I'm thinking. Okay, I've thought. Take it over to Miz Smitcher. She's a nurse."
"Don't you want to take it?" said Ceese.
"No, I don't," said Mama. "That baby was conceived in sin and left to die in shame. Don't want no sin or shame in my house."
Ceese wanted to yell at her that the baby didn't commit any sins and the baby had nothing to be ashamed of, and what about "Even as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren" and "suffer little children to come unto me"? But he wasn't so stupid as to throw Bible verses into Mama's face.
She'd have ten more to answer him with, and no supper as punishment for blasphemy or whatever religious felony she convicted him of. The most common one was failing to honor his father and mother, even though he was the politest kid he knew of. Or maybe just the most beat-down.
Not wishing any further argument with Mama, Ceese walked to the gap in the fence they always used to get between Miz Smitcher's house and their own. It wasn't a gate - it was just a gap where two separate fences had sagged apart. And now that he was there, he realized that holding a baby made it a lot harder to squeeze through. He ended up holding the baby ahead of him in one hand, and he near dropped it.
He got through just in time. Miz Smitcher was a night-shift nurse, and she was heading out the front door to her car when Ceese started banging on the back.
"What is it?" she said. "I got no time right now for - "
Seeing the baby changed her whole attitude. "Please God, let that not be yours."
"Found it," said Ceese. "Covered with ants up in that little valley on Cloverdale. Mama said take it to you."
"Why? Does she think it's mine?" said Miz Smitcher.
Miz Smitcher sighed. "Let's get that baby to the hospital."
Ceese made as if to hand the baby to her.
She recoiled. "I got to drive, boy! You got a baby seat in your pocket? No? Then you coming along to hold that child."
Ceese didn't argue. Seemed like once he picked that baby up, he couldn't get nobody else to take it no matter what he said or did.
Chapter 4
COPROCEPHALIC It irritated Ura Lee, the way folks just assumed that because she was a nurse, she'd take care of their problems, no matter what. Found a baby in a field? Why, give it to the nurse lady! Never mind that she's never had a baby in her life and never worked with newborns on the job.
Only people I ever diapered were Alzheimer's patients and stroke victims. Madeline Tucker, now, she's taken care of four sons, she's got diapering down to a science, not to mention bathing and feeding babies. She's got a car at home, no job that she's already running late for, and it's her boy found the baby. But it never crosses her mind to take the baby to the hospital herself, does it?
Because Ura Lee Smitcher is a nurse, so it's her job.
"Fasten your seat belt," she told Ceese.
When he didn't obey, she glared at him. He was moving his head and shoulders in a weird way.
It finally dawned on her that he was trying to snake his head through the shoulder strap.
"Use your hands, child, or do you think God stuck them on the ends of your arms so you