Northwest Angle

TWENTY-EIGHT

When her father and the others had left, Jenny took the basket with the sleeping baby and went outside. Aaron went with her. They walked to the end of Bascombe’s old wooden dock, where there was a bench, and they sat down. Across the channel lay Birch Island, a broad, unbroken shoreline of birch and aspen, yellow-green in the late afternoon sun. Forty miles north lay Kenora. Somewhere between here and there, Jenny knew, was the place where the child’s mother had suffered horribly and died. Died, she was certain, without saying a word about where her beloved little baby was hidden. Jenny felt a weight on her shoulders and understood that it was a sense of responsibility, not just to the child but to the mother.

She stared down into the basket, and her heart melted. “Look at him, Aaron. He’s so vulnerable.”

Aaron glanced, then looked away. “All babies are vulnerable, Jenny.”

“Not like him. His mother’s dead. Nobody seems to know who his father is. From everything we do know, he doesn’t have a family or anyone who cares about him.”

“The truth is that we don’t know much at all about him, Jenny. When we do, maybe we’ll know about things like family.” He eyed the child again. “And whether there’s hope for that face of his.”

Something inside her shriveled into a hard little ball. “That’s all you see?”

“It’s tough to get past.”

“What if he had a normal face?”

“What do you mean?”

“Would that make a difference in how you felt about him?”

“I don’t feel anything about him, Jenny. He’s not my child.”

“Maybe he could be.”

Aaron stood up, and the whole dock seemed to shiver. “I know where you’re headed here. But, Jenny, you’re going to have to give him over to the authorities at some point. He’ll become the responsibility of the county or the state or someone.”

“I mean, Aaron,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, “suppose we had a child and the child wasn’t perfect.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I think it would be too late then.”

“Jesus, Jenny.” He threw his hands up, as if scattering something—crumbs, maybe—across the lake. “I love you. I want to marry you. And I’ve been thinking about this whole issue of children. Okay, I admit it scares me. It’s not something I’ve wanted in the same way as you. But I do want you, and if children will make you happy, then I’m fine with that.”

She gave him a curt little clap of her hands. “Bravo, Aaron. So rational. But I don’t want it to be something that comes from your head. I want it to come from here.” She reached out and thumped his chest over his heart.

“What I feel for you does.”

They were quiet after that, painfully so. A flight of white pelicans cut along the channel, so near the crests of the waves that Jenny was afraid their wings would catch and they would crash into the lake. She watched them curl to the west and glide smoothly to rest in the calmer water of a little bay.

“I just . . . I wasn’t expecting this,” Aaron said at last. “We’re apart two weeks, and when I see you next, you have a baby practically stuck to your breast.”

“I didn’t plan it. But I believe it’s like Amos Powassin said. He’s come to rest where he’s supposed to be.”

Aaron eyed the baby with what Jenny perceived as distaste and said, “Listen to me. You can’t keep this kid.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? Because anyone who sees the way you look at him would believe he’s yours.”

“I don’t think I want to have this discussion with you now.”

“Fine. But we’ll have to have it at some point.”

“Will we? I’d like to be alone with him right now.”

“Perfect,” Aaron said.

He walked away, and in the quiet after his leaving, she could hear the soothing spill of waves against the shore and the soft breathing of the baby asleep at her feet.

“I don’t think it’s going well,” Anne said from the window of the lodge, where she’d been watching the exchange at the end of the dock.

Mal said, “What do you think of him?”

Anne crossed her arms and gave the question a good long think. “He’s smart. He’s handsome. He loves Jenny. He seems very nice. What’s not to like?”

Mal bent and gently touched his injured ankle. “That sounds rhetorical.”

Rose came from the kitchen, holding a big package of frozen hamburger. “Not the best of circumstances under which to meet the O’Connors, you have to admit. What about meat loaf for dinner? And I can do up some garlic mashed potatoes, and there’s a big bag of peas in the freezer. Nothing for a salad, unfortunately.”

“You know,” Mal said, “I keep thinking about that girl and her situation and who might have been cruel enough or angry enough to do what was done to her. And this other one, too. This Chickaway.”

“Thinking what?” Rose said. She sat down at the table with her husband.

“I had a man in confession once who told me he had horrible thoughts about killing his girlfriend.”

“Are you allowed to tell us this?”

“I won’t tell you who he was, sweetheart. And it was a long time ago. He and God have already had a face-to-face on this issue.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“Go on,” Rose said.

“He was inclined to kill her because she’d betrayed him, slept with another man. Sent my guy into a murderous rage. He was going to kill her, and then he was going to kill the guy she’d slept with.”

“But you talked him out of it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Did he?”

“You mean did he kill her? No. He killed himself instead.”

Anne said, “And the point is?”

“Maybe Chickaway fathered the child and took Lily Smalldog off Stump Island before she began to show and anyone would know. He hid her on that remote island and was keeping her safe there.”

“Safe from Smalldog?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Because he knows Smalldog and what he’s capable of.”

“But Smalldog gets wind of it because of all that formula, tortures Chickaway until he tells where Lily is, then kills him, hauls the body off, and goes after Lily. Is that it? A murderous rage? I don’t know, Mal,” Anne said.

Mal shrugged. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“But the baby has a cleft lip,” Rose pointed out. “Lynn Belgea said Noah Smalldog was also born with a cleft lip. So wouldn’t the baby be Smalldog’s?”

Mal considered the possibility, then offered, “You told me she also said that Indians have a much higher rate of cleft lip than other ethnic groups, so maybe it’s just chance.”

Anne said, “He’s leaving her.”

Rose and Mal swung their attention to Anne, who was still looking out the window.

“What? For good?” Mal asked.

“I mean right now. She’s staying on the dock with the baby. He’s heading back here.”

“I guess we can’t talk about him behind his back then,” Mal said.

“You make it sound awful,” Rose said. “It’s just a family discussion.”

“If you say so.” Mal let out a small groan.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m worried about that ankle.”

Mal laughed. “With everything else we have to worry about, this ankle’s nothing, Rose. What kind of Catholic would I be if I couldn’t take a little suffering?”

Anne said, “I’m going out to be with Jenny for a while.”

“Go on,” Rose said. “She could use family about now, I bet. And, Mal, would you mind having a little talk with Aaron while I make myself scarce?”

“A little talk? About what?”

“Whatever he wants to discuss,” Rose said.

“If it’s women, I won’t be much help,” Mal said.

Aaron opened the screen door and stepped in. It was clear he was deep in thought, and when he looked up, he seemed surprised to find them there.

Anne said, “I’ll be back,” and she slipped past him and out the door.

Rose said, “I’d better get to that meat loaf.”

She went into the kitchen, but not so far away that she couldn’t hear what passed between the two men in the other room.

Mal said, “You look like a guy who could use a beer.”

“Thanks.”

“Rose, you mind bringing a couple of those beers out here?” Mal called.

She went to the big refrigerator in Bascombe’s kitchen and pulled out two bottles. When she took them in, she found Aaron sitting at the table with Mal. The look on his face reminded her of the thousand-yard stare she’d heard about in men suffering from shell shock. She set the beer in front of him.

“Thank you,” he said and looked at her with those vacant eyes.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Mal said.

She returned to the kitchen and began to prepare the meat loaf. All the while she kept an ear tuned to the conversation between Mal and Aaron.

“This beer’s Capital,” she heard Mal say. “Sounds like an endorsement, but it’s the name of the brewery. Out of Middleton, Wisconsin. You like it?”

“It’s fine, I guess.”

“One of my personal favorites. Speaks well of Bascombe’s taste that he keeps it stocked even out here in the middle of nowhere.” They were quiet in a way that made Rose uncomfortable. “Tough circumstances for meeting the family,” Mal finally said.

“Tell me about it.”

“We’ve heard a lot about you, Aaron. All good.”

“I’m not so sure you’d get the same report now.”

“People under stress sometimes say things they regret later.”

“But that doesn’t mean it’s not how they feel.”

“Maybe only how they feel in the moment,” Mal said. “We change, moment to moment, circumstance to circumstance. That’s what forgiveness is about.”

“Jenny said you used to be a priest, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Forgiveness was pretty big in your line of work, I imagine.” Rose heard the cynical undertone.

“I like to think it still is,” Mal replied.

For another long minute there was only a huge, looming silence from the other room. Rose peeked through the doorway and saw the two men on opposite sides of the table sipping their beer. She wasn’t sure it had been such a good idea to leave Mal alone with this responsibility.

But she could see her husband’s face, and she didn’t see any alarm or discomfort or unpleasantness there. He simply looked as if he was waiting.

And she remembered something Cork had told her about interviewing suspects, how silence was a pretty good way to get someone with something on his mind to talk.

And then Aaron said, “It’s the baby.”

“What about the baby?”

“Jenny wants to keep him. She’s been with him like two days, and she’s already thinking about him as if he’s her own. How crazy is that?”

“They’ve been through a lot together. She risked her life for that little guy, and is probably the reason he’s still alive. There are cultures that believe that kind of relationship binds people forever.”

“The deal is this, Mal. I didn’t go through any of that. I have no emotional attachment to this kid at all. And what kind of kid is he? Let’s be honest, he’s got a lot of strikes against him. Hell, I’m not even ready to take on the challenge of a normal kid. That baby—and how Jenny feels about him—scares me to death. Christ, and I thought the toughest thing I was going to face was meeting the incredible O’Connors.”

“Incredible?”

“That’s how Jenny talks about her family.”

“She loves them.”

“Well, bully for her.” The room plunged again into awkward silence. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“I know.”

“Mal, can Jenny forgive me, do you think?”

“Forgive what exactly?”

“Who I am?” Aaron said. “Or maybe who I can’t be.”

“I think that’s a question only Jenny can answer. Your beer’s getting warm.”

Jenny said, “He’s a selfish idiot.”

“Maybe. To me, he just seems really confused, Jenny. Who wouldn’t be?”

“I’m not.”

“What if you have to give this baby up?”

“I know I’m going to have to give this baby up.”

“Really? Because that’s not the sense I get from you at all.”

Jenny looked down at the child, who lay in the basket at her feet, awake now and staring up intently at her face. She said sadly, “Who’s going to take him?”

“I don’t know. I imagine a decision like that gets made by people with authority.”

“According to rules,” Jenny said bitterly.

“The rules are there to protect the children. You know that.”

She did, but it didn’t matter. Suddenly she was crying. It came over her in an unexpected flood, as if some flimsy dam had finally burst inside her. She leaned to her sister, who held her.

“I know it’s crazy,” she confessed. “Don’t you think I know that? But I can’t help it. The moment I saw him, I knew. It was like I was meant to find him.”

“It’s okay,” Anne said and smoothed her sister’s hair. “I understand.”

“I was so scared out there. Scared for him and Dad and me. I didn’t know if we were going to make it. All I could think about was that poor girl in the cabin and what had been done to her, and would they do the same to me, and, God, what would they do to him?” She drew away from Anne and reached down, pulled the baby from the basket, held him and went on crying.

“It’s all right,” Anne said. “It’s over, Jenny.”

“Is it? We don’t know who that man out there was or why he wanted the baby. Because it was the baby he was after. That much I’m sure of.”

“Okay. But we’re all here to help protect him. He’s safe now.”

“Then why am I so afraid?” She ran her hand along the baby’s soft cheek, then gave her sister a desperate look and spoke words that came out of some dark place of knowing deep inside her. “Can’t you feel it, Annie?”

“Feel what?”

Jenny clutched the child as if some terrible force were trying to wrench him from her. “It’s not over yet,” she said. “The worst is still to come.”