Waiting for Christopher by Louise Hawes Page A

scooped him into her lap.
    “Now, this octopus,” she went on, snuggling down with him and Lady Macbeth along the length of the booth, “was friends with a beautiful mermaid. Who, by the way,” she added, “had a splendid blue tail.
    “Each morning, the two of them would go jogging along the ocean floor. The mermaid wore a Nike sweatshirt, and the octopus had sneakers on all nine of his feet.”
    “Bwu?”
inquired Christopher. He ignored the rabbit, found his thumb instead, something she hadn’t seen him do before. At the same time, he reached for a strand of her hair, using it like the soft ribbon edge of a blanket, rubbing it against his nose, staring at her through his half-closed eyes.
    “Of course,” Feena told him. “Blue sneakers with blue laces and blue bells that rang whenever the octopus jogged.” He continued staring, though he lost focus, lids drooping until his eyes were nothing but moist slivers of azure. “They ran for miles, those two, over mountains of sand and squashy fields of seaweed.”
    Lying beside him, Feena knew she couldn’t give him up, couldn’t risk taking him to the police. What if they didn’t believe her? She listened to his even breathing and felt an old tenderness, a secret, buried joy. She remembered that other baby, remembered dropping into his crib, batting his mobile and setting the puffy clowns spinning, whirling above their heads. As her own eyes closed, she remembered, too, throaty baby laughs, like singing bubbles, like the language of birds you could almost understand.
    The voice was soft and moany, but Feena couldn’t make out the words. Shaking off sleep, she heard it even after she’d opened her eyes. There was someone singing, someone coming toward them, getting closer and closer. By the time she’d sat up, put a finger over Christy’s mouth, it was too late. They were face-to-face.
    Raylene Watson was alone, unusual enough in itself. But she was singing, too. An almost sweet song that came to a sudden end when she saw Feena and the baby. She threw her head back, then grew visibly stiffer, taller. She hid something she’d been carrying behind her back, and without disguising her disappointment, fixed Feena with her cinnamon stare. “What?” she asked. “You decide to ditch school and home both?”
    Christy wriggled down from the booth, and Lady Macbeth tumbled to the ground. He didn’t stop to pick her up, but rushed, like the worst kind of traitor, straight to Raylene. Feena was suddenly aware of shame, physical and heavy, swamping her. She was ashamed her lips were chapped, while Raylene’s shone like mother-of-pearl. Ashamed the baby’s ponytails were again hopelessly cockeyed, one nearly slipped from its band. “No,” she began to ad-lib. “No, I didn’t ditch anything.” Ashamed that she’d been asleep, that she felt tears still in her eyes, she said, “I just need to watch my … little sister, that’s all.”
    “Here?” Raylene didn’t take her hands from behind her back, merely scanned the dusty ruin with her eyes. “If you’re waiting for your order, you got a long wait.” Her tone was back to the cool crustiness she used in the halls at school. “Cutler’s Family Style’s been closed five years.”
    Christy held his arms out, begging to be picked up, and Raylene had a choice to make. Slowly, she bent down, laid a paperback book on the ground beside her, then folded her arms around him. “Hi, Toffee,” she said, her voice soft again. “How’s my bit of sugar?”
    “It’s Christy,” Feena told her, reaching out, straightening the droopiest ponytail. “Her name’s Christy.”
    “Christy.” Raylene said it over slowly, as if she were feeling the shape of it in her mouth. “Christy,” she asked him then, “you mind if I call you Toffee?”
    Feena, who had learned her lesson, glanced only briefly at the book Raylene left behind on the ground. She lifted her backpack off the other side of the booth, making room for the