The infant in her arms was perhaps four months old. She had a sweet little pink face. Her pink blanket was filthy.
“I got all the kids here,” Doreen said. “You all comin’ in? Gettin’ cold with this door open.”
All the kids, Alison thought. My God, Doreen was actually going to try that scam.
Inside, the hot odors of food and feces were even more oppressive. Alison sat on the edge of a discount-store couch and looked around the room. Not much had changed since her last visit. The old Zenith color TV set — now blaring Bugs Bunny cartoons — still needed some kind of tube. The floor was still an obstacle course of newspapers and empty Pepsi bottles and dirty baby clothes. There was a crucifix on one wall with a piece of faded, drooping palm stuck behind it. Next to it a photo of Bruce Springsteen had been taped to the soiled wallpaper.
“These kids was off visitin’ last time you was here,” Doreen said.
She referred to the two small boys standing to the right of the armchair where she sat holding her infant.
“Off visiting where?” Alison said, keeping her voice calm.
“Grandmother’s.”
“I see.”
“They was stayin’ there for awhile but now they’re back with me so I’m goin’ to need more money from the agency. You know.”
“Maybe the man you have staying here could help you out.” There. She’d said it quickly. With no malice. A plain simple fact.
“Ain’t no man livin’ here.”
“I took a picture of him this morning.”
“No way.”
Alison sighed. “You know you can’t get full payments if you have an adult male staying with you, Doreen.”
“He musta been the garbage man or somethin’. No adult male stayin’ here. None at all.”
Alison had her clipboard out. She noted on the proper lines of the form that a man was staying here. She said, “You borrowed those two boys.”
“What?”
“These two boys here, Doreen. You borrowed them. They’re not yours.”
“No way.”
Alison looked at one of the ragged little boys and said, “Is Doreen your mother?”
The little boy, nervous, glanced over at Doreen and then put his head down.
Alison didn’t want to embarrass or frighten him anymore.
“If I put these two boys down on the claim form and they send out an investigator, it’ll be a lot worse for you, Doreen. They’ll try and get you for fraud.”
“Goddamn you.”
“I’ll write them down here if you want me to. But if they get you for fraud—”
“Shit,” Doreen said. She shook her head and then she looked at the boys. “You two run on home now, all right?”
“Can we take some cookies, Aunt Doreen?”
She grinned at Alison. “They don’t let their Aunt Doreen forget no promises, I’ll tell you that.” She nodded to the kitchen. “You boys go get your cookies and then go out the back door, all right? Oh, but first say good-bye to Alison here.”
Both boys, cute and dear to Alison, smiled at her and then grinned at each other and then ran with heavy feet across the faded linoleum to the kitchen.
“I need more money,” Doreen said. “This little one’s breakin’ me.”
“I’m afraid I got you all I could, Doreen.”
“You gonna tell them about Ernie?”
“Ernie’s the man staying here?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Not since you told me the truth.”
“He’s the father.”
“Of your little girl?”
“Yeah.”
“You think he’ll actually marry you?”
She laughed her cigarette laugh. “Yeah, in about fifty or sixty years.”
The house began to become even smaller to Alison then. This sometimes happened when she was interviewing people. She felt entombed in the anger and despair of the place.
She stared at Doreen and Doreen’s beautiful little girl.
“Could I hold her?” Alison said.
“You serious?”
“Yes.”
“She maybe needs a change. She poops a lot.”
“I don’t mind.”
Doreen shrugged. “Be my guest.”
She got up and brought the infant across to Alison.
Alison perched carefully on the very edge of the couch and received the infant like some sort of divine gift. After a moment the smells of the little girl drifted away and Alison was left holding a very beautiful little child.
Doreen went back and sat in the chair and looked at Alison. “You got any kids?”
“No.”
“Wish you did though, huh?”
“Yes.”
“You married?”
“Not so far.”
“Hell, bet you got guys fallin’ all over themselves for you. You’re beautiful.”
But Alison rarely listened to flattery. Instead she was watching the infant’s sweet white face. “Have you ever looked at her eyes, Doreen?”
“ ’Course I looked at her eyes. She’s my daughter, ain’t she?”
“No. I mean looked really deeply.”
“ ’Course I have.”
“She’s so sad.”
Doreen sighed. “She’s got a reason to be sad. Wouldn’t you be sad growin’ up in a place like this?”
Alison leaned down to the little girl’s face and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. They were like sisters, the little girl and Alison. They knew how sad the world was. They knew how sad their hearts were.
When the time came, when the opportunity appeared, Alison would do the same favor for this little girl she’d done for the two other little girls.
Not even the handsome Doctor Connery had suspected anything. He’d just assumed that the other two girls had died from crib death.
On another visit, someday soon, Alison would make sure that she was alone with the little girl for a few minutes. Then it would be done and the little girl would not have to grow up and know the even greater sadness that awaited her.
“You really ain’t gonna tell them about Ernie livin’ here?”
“I’ve got a picture of him that I can turn in anytime as evidence. But I’ll tell you what, Doreen; you start taking better care of your daughter — changing her diapers more often and feeding her the menu I gave you — and I’ll keep Ernie our secret.”
“Can’t afford to have no more money taken from me,” Doreen said.
“Then you take better care of your daughter,” Alison said, holding the infant out for Doreen to take now. “Because she’s very sad, Doreen. Very very sad.”
Alison kissed the little girl on the forehead once more and then gave her up to her mother.
Soon, little one, Alison thought; soon you won’t be so sad. I promise.
The Beast in the Woods
By the time I get to the barn tonight, there’s already a quarter moon in the September sky, and the barn owl who always sits in the old elm along the creek, he’s already hooting into the Iowa darkness.
For the first twenty minutes, I rake out the stalls and scatter hay around the floor. Dairy cows take a lot of work. After that I spread sawdust to eat up some of the dampness and the odors.
Not that I’m paying a whole hell of a lot of attention. All I can think of really is his old army .45. Ordinarily it hangs from a dusty holster on a peg in the spare room upstairs where he moved after Mom died two years ago of the heart disease that’s run in her family for years. Dad says he moved in there because whenever he was in their room, lying in their bed, he’d start to cry, and he’s a proud man and doesn’t think tears are proper. Also, when he was drunk one night, he told me that a few times when he was in her room, he talked to her ghost and that scared him. So now he keeps their bedroom door shut and sleeps in the room down the hall.