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"Why did you help me last night?" she asked-- or more like demanded. "I saw how the baby was unhappy. That's all."

"Sure. Have you met anyone since I left, since you got your driver's license and all?" I shook my head.

"You just need to be introduced to people. I can do that for you if you help me," she said as a way of beginning some sort of negotiation.

"I don't need to be introduced to anyone."

"What's wrong with you?" she screamed. She stamped her foot. "Why does this child stare at me like this?"

I glanced at Baby Celeste, who was fixed on her. "You amuse her, I guess."

"Oh. I amuse her. Don't I amuse you? Even a little?" she asked with a mix of hope and flirtation.

I kept working.

She reached out and gasped my arm to spin me around. "Well?"

"What do you want me to say?"

She smiled. "When I think of something good. I'll let you know, and then you can say it. For now, thanks again for helping me." She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, close to my lips, then deliberately brushed her breasts over my arm. "Um," she said with her eyes closed. "it's been too long."

To me it felt as if the whole world had stopped. everything-- the breeze, the birds, all hearts in every living thing, were on pause.

"I'm so horny," she whispered, "I'd even consider giving you instructions. We can really help each other. Noble man."

I couldn't speak, couldn't make a sound. My throat had closed.

She laughed, then turned and walked away, pausing to look back at me flirtatiously. I hadn't moved a muscle since her kiss. Her laugh floated around me. What frightened me the most was that she had awakened my own sexuality. It stirred and stretched inside, tingling at my breasts, warming the inside of my thighs, making me feel weak. I trembled and closed my eyes.

When I opened them. I looked down and saw Baby Celeste gazing up at me. She looked angry.

She looked like Mama.

And for the first time I wondered, was she really my child or was she somehow hers?

17

Unstrapped

.

Nothing Betsy did was ever done well enough

or properly in Mama's eyes. She trailed after her, finding dust where she had supposedly just dusted or found things that should have been put away. She didn't wash dishes clean enough and she always set the table poorly. Periodically, over the next week. Mama would burst into Betsy's room and find clothes that weren't hung or put in the dresser drawers, dust on her furniture, the bed awkwardly made, and the baby's things not in good order. When she saw some makeup spilled on the vanity table, she confiscated all of Betsy's cosmetics, telling her she would return them when Betsy learned how to care for her things and not make such a mess.

At the end of the week, Mama had her polishing- the old silverware. Whenever she made her do something new, she held out the possibility of a reward, but that reward was always dangled at the end of a long pole, a pole far longer than Betsy's reach.

"Rub harder." Mama told her. "You should be able to set your reflection in the spoon."

"This silverware is so old nothing will bring it back," Betsy moaned. Then she turned and demanded money and the keys to the car so she could go into the village and buy herself sanitary napkins or Tampax as well as some other hygienic things. Instead. Mama gave her some of her own from her own bathroom closet where I would go monthly to get what I needed. It was an unspoken, unrecognized thing never mentioned or in any way noted. Frustrated. Betsy declared she would walk to town and she would finish the silverware later.

"And who is supposed to babysit for your infant while you do that?" Mama asked her.

"Ill take him with me," Betsy vowed. "I've got to have some time away from this... this hellhole."

Mama glared at her. If you set foot on that highway without my permission. I'll consider it insubordination and fine you a thousand dollars for every step you take."

"You can't do that."