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Jon chuckled when I took him back, which, given his age, I knew was impossible. He wasn't really
laughing, just like he wasn't really glaring. Still, it was cute.
I pretended he really liked me, though at this age he couldn't pick me out of a lineup. I cuddled him close
all the way up the stairs, when Laura couldn't see.
The truth was, nights like this were the highlight of my life right now. I jumped whenever the Ant called.
Bottom line? Baby Jon was the closest I was ever going to get to having a baby of my own. No tears, no
sweat, no periods& no babies.
Ever.
Sinclair and I could do a lot would do a lot, if he ever got over our little problem of the month. But we
couldn't make our own babies.
Jess told me over and over not to be silly, there were only a zillion babies in the world who needed good
homes, and Marc backed her up with horror stories of abuse from the E.R. She was right they were
both right and I tried not to feel bad.
But at thirty, I hadn't thought I was forever turning my back on having my own babies. It was funny&
I'd never seriously thought about having a baby. I just always assumed I would. And then I died. Isn't
that the way it goes sometimes?
"It's dumb," I told Baby Jon, stripping him of the nasty diaper and setting it aside (I would later place it
beneath the Ant's bed, where she'd go crazy trying to find it). "Dead people can't do lots of things. Walk,
talk, have sex. Get married. Bitch. I'm lucky I can do anything, instead of just hanging out in a coffin and
slowly turning into fertilizer. So what do I focus on? The good stuff? The cool powers? No, I piss and
moan because Sinclair can't knock me up. Does that make sense? Does that sound like a person who's
counting her blessings?"
"Fleh," Jon replied.
"Tell me." I sprinkled him like salt on a roast, rubbed in the powder, and then put a new diaper on him.
He sighed and waved his little arms, and I caught a tiny hand and kissed it. He promptly scratched me
with his wolverine-like nails, but I didn't mind.
Chapter 22
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"I can't thank you enough for coming out," the Ant said. Again. To Laura.
"It was our pleasure, Mrs. Taylor. Your son is adorable."
The Ant looked doubtfully at the monitor, which occasionally vibrated with Baby Jon's snores. "It's& it's
nice of you to say so. I hope he wasn't any trouble."
"He'sdar ling!" Laura exclaimed, brushing spit-up off her shoulder.
"Yeah, a laugh a minute," I grumped. "And I'm busy tomorrow, so don't even think about it."
"I'm free," Laura piped up.
"That's all right, girls. My fund-raiser was postponed, anyway. And Freddy can come over then,
anyway."
"Freddy?" I asked sharply. "Hooked-on-her-migraine-medication Freddy?"
"She's not hooked," the Ant, no stranger to substance abuse, insisted. "She just has a lot of migraines."
"I don't care if she has a lot of brain tumors! She's not watching Baby Jon!"
"It's not up to you," the Ant snapped. Then, "Who?"
"When is your meeting?" Laura interjected quickly. "I'm sure we can work something out."
The Ant puffed a strand of hair out of her face, which didn't move. "Laura, I appreciate thatyou are
trying to doyour best, but there's nothing to work out. I'll be the one to decide what's best for the baby."
I got ready to pull her head off her shoulders and kick it up the stairs, a grisly surprise for my dad if he
ever got back, when Laura asked, "Like you decided before?"
Whoa.
"What?" the Ant asked.
"What?" I warned, frozen in the act of reaching for the Ant's tiny head.
"The baby. From before. You decided what was best for her& that you couldn't take care of her."
"Now?" I asked my sister, who had apparently gone insane when I wasn't looking. "You're picking now
to do this?" Rotten timing: a genetic legacy poor Laura couldn't escape.
"I don't I don't "
I dropped my arms to my sides. The Ant had a whole lot more to worry about right now than beheading
by stepdaughter.
"It was a good choice," Laura added, "if it was the one that was best for you. Still, do you ever wonder
what happened to her? Do you ever think about her?"
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"No," the Ant said, looking right into Laura's incredible blue eyes. "I never think of her. Just like when
you aren't here, I never think of you. That was a long time ago, and I never think about how when you
wear your hair pulled up, you look like my mother. The way she looked when she liked us more than the
bottle. I never think about that, and I never think about her, and I never, ever, ever think about you." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]