Nothing.
Jean pointed to a straw basket. In it was the soft lavender blanket.
Elsa tied off the umbilical cord and cut it, then got slowly to her feet. Weak. Shaky. She wrapped up the tiny, still baby.
As she offered the baby to Jean, tears blurred her vision. “A girl,” she said to Jean, who took her with a gentleness that broke Elsa’s heart.
Jean kissed the blue forehead. “I’m namin’ her Clea, after my mom,” Jean said.
A name.
The very essence of hope. The beginning of an identity, handed down in love. Elsa backed away from the heartbreak of watching Jean whisper into the baby’s blue ear.
Outside, Elsa found Loreda pacing.
Elsa looked at her daughter, saw the question, and shook her head.
“Oh, no,” Loreda said, slumping her shoulders.
Before Elsa could offer comfort, Loreda turned and disappeared into their tent.
Elsa stood there, unmoving. That terrible, terrible image of a baby coming into the world on a crumpled newspaper over a dirt floor wouldn’t go away.
I’ll name her Clea.
How had Jean even been able to speak?
Elsa felt tears rise up, overtake her. She cried as she hadn’t cried since Rafe left her, cried until there was no moisture left inside of her, until she was as dry as the land they’d left behind.
* * *
AT A LITTLE PAST ten o’clock that night, Loreda finished digging the small hole and dropped her shovel.
They were far from camp, in an area surrounded by trees; a place as dark as the mood of the two women and one girl standing beneath them.
Anger suffused Loreda, overwhelmed her; she felt it poisoning her from the inside out. She’d never felt its like before, not even when Daddy left them. She had to hold it inside her one breath at a time; if she let it go, she’d scream.
And look at her mother. Standing there, holding a dead baby in a clean lavender blanket, looking sad.
Sad.
The sight of it doubled Loreda’s rage. This was no time to be sad.
She fisted her hands at her side, but who was there to hit? Mrs. Dewey looked dazed and unsteady. Ghostly.
Mom knelt down and carefully placed the dead baby in the small grave and began to pray. “Our Father—”
“Who the hell are you praying to?” Loreda snapped.
She heard her mother sigh and slowly get to her feet. “God has—”
“If you tell me He has a plan for us, I’ll scream. I swear I will.” Loreda’s voice broke. She felt herself start to cry, but she wasn’t sad; she was furious. “He lets us live like this. Worse than stray dogs.”
Mom touched Loreda’s face. “Babies die, Loreda. I lost your brother. Grandma Rose lost—”
“THIS ISN’T LIKE THAT!” Loreda screamed. “You’re a coward, staying here, making us stay here. Why?”
“Oh, Loreda…”