silver snowsuit the man’s wife had picked out after an hour of neurotic deliberation in Babies “R” Us. It was designed to resemble a space suit and even had a patch proclaiming JUNIOR SPACE RANGER on its sleeve. Some of the child’s straight blond hair protruded from beneath the hood and his cheeks were flushed. It was as if he, too, had been through an ordeal like the man and was similarly exhausted. He was heavier and more substantial than the man had imagined he would be. And he would only get bigger. Is he too much for me? the man wondered. Am I big enough for him?
Look at him, he said to Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Isn’t he beautiful?
Livia Pinheiro-Rima rolled down the window and threw her cigarette out into the night. Then she turned and looked at the man and at the child.
He will break hearts, she said. Yours among them, I’ve no doubt. Children do that.
Do you have children?
Yes, she said. Two. One I’ve lost touch with—I suppose he might still be alive. But I know the other is dead. And did they break your heart?
Yes.
Both of them?
Each in his own cunning way.
The man looked down at the child he held. I don’t think Simon will break my heart, he said.
Of course you don’t. No parent does. Here—give him to me. Let me hold him. Now, while he’s all rosy-cheeked and sleeping. Before you take him away forever and I never see him again, the thought of which I cannot bear.
The man carefully handed the child to Livia Pinheiro-Rima, who held him against her bear-fur coat. She gently stroked one of his flushed cheeks with the backs of her fingers. The man saw that she was crying.
After a moment of watching her, he said, Will you tell me what you did?
What do you mean? She did not look up at him. She continued to caress the child’s cheek.
I mean back there, at the orphanage. What did you do?
The baby is yours, she said. You don’t want to know what I did. It shouldn’t be a part of his story, or yours.
But you’ve got to tell me!
Have I? She stopped caressing the baby and looked at the man.
Yes. Otherwise I’ll always worry.
Why would you worry?
I just want to feel safe. That he is mine.
You are safe. He is yours. I assure you.
Did you give him money?
Here, she said. Have him back. He’s yours. That should be all that matters.
The man took the baby back from Livia Pinheiro-Rima. She turned away from him and once again lit a cigarette and regarded her face in the dark window.
They rode in silence until the taxi entered the narrow winding streets of the old town. Livia Pinheiro-Rima reached into the pockets of her coat and extracted two black leather gloves that she carefully slid over her large slender hands, pushing down the V between each of her fingers so that they fit her snugly. Then she folded her gloved hands in her lap and looked back out the window.
I’m sorry, said the man. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you. For everything you’ve done. For my wife, and for me, and for the baby. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you. What you said before, on our way out, about how you felt. I have felt the same. Feel the same. I’m sorry I didn’t say that then.
Livia Pinheiro-Rima turned away from the window and looked at the man. Well, thank you, she said. It’s nice to know. Although what good it will do either of us, I know not.
The man held the baby and Livia Pinheiro-Rima pushed them all through the revolving door and into the lobby of the Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel.
Come, she said. We must celebrate this occasion with a drink.
The man followed her into the bar. Livia Pinheiro-Rima walked around the bar to her seat in the corner. She unhooked the horn toggles on her coat and shrugged it off, allowing it to fall onto the floor. She was wearing the black sequined evening gown she had worn the night the man had first met her, and the man thought, She must have known we would succeed at the orphanage, otherwise she would not have worn that dress. He followed her around the bar, sat down beside her, and looked around as if there might be someplace to stow the baby but of course there was not so he held the baby on