by Mary Rickert
“Tell him his wife, for some reason, came here last night and fell asleep on the couch with the baby, and when she woke up, he was dead. Tell him not to call the doctor or the undertaker. His wife wants to bury him right here. Nothing formal. Just him and us. Tell him that’s what she wants, so we’re going to do it that way. Tell him the baby’s wings are still out, and if anyone else sees them they’ll probably want to take him, run tests and stuff. Tell him his wife could never live through that. Make sure he understands.”
“That’s what it was like with Elli’s baby. The other one—the one that died.”
“Tell him you’ll bring him with you when you come home.”
“Theresa? You don’t still think—”
“I screwed up. Okay? I’m sorry, Pete. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. What can I say? I’m sorry.”
“But you know, right? You know I would never?”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“But how? I mean, how did it happen?”
“She said something about a fall, but I think she suffocated him by mistake. Just get here, okay? Don’t let Raj call anyone.”
“Theresa, did Elli say I did that to her?”
“No, it wasn’t Elli. It was me. What do you want? I already apologized. It was a mistake, okay? Can we just move on, here? There’s other stuff to deal with. Do you want to tell him, or do you want me to?”
“I’ll tell him,” Pete said, so loudly that Raj looked up from his Cheerios. Pete hung up the phone. “I have bad news,” he said.
Raj nodded, as if—of course, naturally—it was just as he expected.
“Your baby’s dead.”
Raj collapsed across the kitchen table, scattering the Cheerios. Pete placed a hand on Raj’s back, kept it there for a moment, and then walked out of the kitchen, through the living room, and out the front door.
Pete stood on the front porch, his head pounding. Crazy; it was just crazy that his wife thought he’d do such a thing. How could she ever have loved him if she thought he was capable of such evil? Pete knew that this was not the time to get angry at her, not when she realized her mistake, but he’d gotten drunk last night, and then there was all that business with the baby, and he’d been too distracted to feel it before.
The door popped open. Raj stood there with red eyes. “Tamara?”
“She’s at my house. She stopped by to visit my wife, I guess.”
“I have to make some calls—”
“No.” Pete explained how Raj wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, because of the wings, and how Tamara wanted the baby buried at the farm.
“I don’t think that’s legal.”
Pete shrugged. “Theresa—and I guess your wife too—they think that if anyone finds out about the wings, they’ll take the baby, and you know, run tests and stuff on him.”
Raj considered this. “Okay. Give me a minute. And then you can drive me to your house?”
“We have to take your car. Mine is—”
Raj shut the door before Pete could finish.
Nobody knew that Raj had developed such a deep fondness for his yoga teacher, Shreve. Not even Shreve knew, until Raj called that morning, and, in a choked voice, explained that his baby had died. He wanted her to come and read from the Upanishads at the funeral out on the Ratcher farm.
“But don’t tell anyone else, please,” Raj said. “My wife is very worried because our baby had wings and she thinks it will cause problems if people find out.”
“Your baby had wings?”
“I only just found out recently, myself.”
After Shreve finished speaking to Raj, she called Emily and told her what happened. “Apparently he had wings.”
“Wings?”
“Yep. What do you think about that?”
“I think maybe something like that might freak some people out,” said Emily, choosing her words carefully, “but people are afraid of new things, you know? I mean who’s to say … like, remember what we were talking about a while back? Who’s to say it wasn’t an angel?”
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Shreve said. “I’m nervous about doing this alone, anyway. Do you think you could come with me to the Ratchers?”
Emily watched Gabriel doing a slow figure-eight pattern overhead, a sign that he was getting tired.“Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you as well,” she said.
Mrs. Vecker, Cathy’s mother, is in the grocery store when she overhears Emily Carr and Shreve Mahar having an animated conversation about what would be appropriate to bring to the Ratcher farm “at a time like this.” She tells Cathy later that day. “It’s all over town. Tracy Ragan’s daughter’s husband’s best friend works with someone who is the father of a boy who was helping on the Ratcher farm, and he says Pete Ratcher is a child molester. You remember his daughter; that pretty red-haired girl? Well, she had a baby with wings—that’s how Theresa Ratcher figured it out. Incest, you know, can create all sorts of problems. Theresa Ratcher kicked him out, and I guess the women are going there to see what they can do to help.”
* * *
Sylvia and Jan Morris had just spent a couple hours together, talking poetry and mothering, when there was a knock at the door. Sylvia was happy to answer it, thinking it might be just the interruption needed to send Jan on her way. It was nice to have company for a while, but Sylvia was ready for a nap. She opened the door.
“Did you hear about the Ratchers?” Cathy asked in a rush, half into the room before she stopped. “Oh, I didn’t know you had company. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, feeling oddly jealous.
“What about the Ratchers?” Jan asked.
“Pete Ratcher molested their daughter. She had a baby. They say it has wings.”
“What do wings have to do with anything?” Jan asked.
“We have to help,” Sylvia said.
It was decided that Cathy and Sylvia would drive in Cathy’s BMW. They would meet Jan at the Ratchers’. Cathy and Sylvia stood by the roses and waved as she drove away.
“It doesn’t mean he wasn’t molesting her,” Sylvia said.
“But … another baby with wings,” said Cathy. “Don’t you think this is getting kind of strange?”
Sylvia laughed. “Getting strange?”
* * *
As Pete Ratcher drove up to his house, he glanced at Raj. Pete felt bad for Raj, but Pete’s overwhelming feeling was anger at Theresa. How could she accuse him of such a thing? How could she believe him capable of such an act?
“We should probably go in,” Pete said.
“I did not know that your wife and my wife even knew each other.”
Welcome to the club, Pete thought. I didn’t know that my wife thought I was some kind of monster. The two men sat in the car, staring at the house.
Theresa watched from the kitchen window. She glanced at Tamara, who sat at the table, staring into space. “They’re here,” she said. “Your husband is here.”
Theresa thought Tamara might have sighed, but the sound was so faint, she couldn’t be sure.
When they came inside, Theresa gave Raj a hug. In just that brief encounter, she felt the weight of his sorrow. Raj walked over to Tamara and tried to hug her, but she just sat there. He turned to Theresa and said, “Where’s my son? Can I see him?”
Tamara stood up so suddenly that the chair toppled. “I’ll show you,” she said and led him out of the kitchen to the living room, where Theresa had laid the baby on the sideboard with blankets all around him, the unlit candles at either end, like he was some kind of weird centerpiece.
* * *
Shreve and Emily park in front of the house, the engine off, the windows rolled down for air. “I’m glad we finally told each other,” Emily says.
Shreve nods. “We have to figure out exactly what we need to know.”
Emily twists in her seat to look at the two babies in the back. “We have to find out how he died—if it had anything to do with the wings.”
>
“Or if it had something to do with Jeffrey, or the water, or something she ate.”
“But how could Jeffrey have anything to do with Tamara Singh’s baby?”
Shreve just smirks.
“Oh, come on,” Emily says. “Us? And Tamara? I don’t think so.”
Shreve shrugs. “Remember, we’re here to help bury a baby. We have to be discreet.”
The thought of Tamara’s dead baby casts a solemn shadow over them. Both women glance back at their children.
Elli watches from her bedroom window. It takes the mothers forever to unload the two babies, their diaper bags, a bouquet of flowers, and what looks like some kind of casserole or pie. Though both Timmy and Matthew are sleeping peacefully in the hot crib together, Elli keeps having a thought she doesn’t want to have. She keeps thinking, Why couldn’t it have been Timmy?, then hates herself for having this thought. She doesn’t even want this thought, so she doesn’t understand why it keeps popping into her head. She looks at the sleeping Timmy. I would die if anything happened to you. (Why couldn’t it have been you?) It makes no sense. Elli watches the women walk to the back door. She hears the bell ring. The mind, Elli thinks, is its own battleground (like there’s a war going on up there and she’s just a spectator). The bell rings again. Jesus Christ, would someone just answer it? But it’s too late; the babies wake up, crying.
What’s she supposed to do? Pick both of them up? She picks up Timmy; pats him on the back, jiggling him. The next thing she knows, Matthew is flying out of the crib and heading for the open window. There’s a screen on it, so naturally she thinks that at the worst he’s going to get a little banged up, but when he hits the screen, he hits it hard; it falls right off the window, and Matthew flies out.
“Mom!” Elli screams.
Shreve rings the doorbell, waits for a while, and then rings again. Emily carries Gabriel’s car seat in one hand and a plate of chocolate croissants in the other, the heavy diaper bag hanging from her shoulder. Shreve, who is similarly burdened, has to ring with the hand carrying the flowers, careful not to squash them. Inside, someone is screaming. “Sounds like they’re taking it hard,” she says.
A shadow passes overhead.
The door opens. Theresa stands there, her expression aghast.
“I’m Shreve Mahar,” she begins, but Theresa runs right past her, brushing her shoulder, so that Shreve has to spin a half turn to maintain balance.
“Where? Where?” Theresa cries, staring up at the sky.
Shreve and Emily exchange a look. Elli Ratcher comes running out of the house, holding a screaming baby. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she cries. “I’m sorry!”
“Matthew! Matthew!” Theresa Ratcher hollers.
Jan pulls into the driveway and surveys the scene before her. A barefoot woman stands, shouting, in the yard, her face craned to the sky. Beside her stands the young red-haired girl, carrying a baby. On the porch is the dark-haired yoga teacher with a diaper bag, flowers, and a baby in a carrier. Standing at the foot of the stairs is a short woman who Jan thinks might be named Emma or Emily. Jan cranes her neck and looks up at the sky. She thinks they must have lost a pet bird, though the hysterical woman and the crying girl seem to be overreacting.
Jan is tempted to stay in the car, in the air-conditioning. She doesn’t know any of these people. She should have come with Sylvia and Cathy. She realizes that the two women who are not looking at the sky are staring at her. She turns off the ignition. When she opens the door, she is hit by the heat and screams.
“Mom! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Elli screams, over and over again.
Theresa stands with her hand shielding her eyes, shouting Matthew’s name.
Jan thinks she should get back in the car and turn around, but Jack gurgles at her from his car seat. She can’t leave until she finds out whatever she can about the wings.
Theresa shouts for Matthew over and over again. She doesn’t know what else to do.
Elli cries, holding Timmy against her chest. Why couldn’t it have been you, she thinks.
Pete Ratcher comes out to the steps. Shreve begins to introduce herself, but Pete runs into the yard, grabs Theresa by the shoulders, and shakes her. Elli lunges to push him away with one hand, and Pete pushes her back. Not hard, they would later agree, but enough to cause Elli to lose her balance. As she tumbles, she opens her arms. All the women scream as Timmy falls, but the screams are abruptly cut short when dark wings sprout through the baby’s little white T-shirt and he flies out of Elli’s reach, over all of their heads.
“I thought he died,” says Emily.
Shreve shrugs.
“Don’t touch the wings,” Jan shouts.
Shreve and Emily look at her and then at each other. “How does she know that?”
Little Timmy, laughing, flies in lazy circles and frightening dives, just out of reach of Elli and Theresa Ratcher, who jump at him as he passes. Pete Ratcher just stands there with his mouth hanging open. I have been drinking too much, he thinks. This can’t be happening.
THE MOTHERS
Even now, we the mothers find ourselves saying this can’t be happening. This isn’t real. Why, in the face of great proof otherwise, do we insist on the dream of a life few of us have ever known? The dream of happiness? The dream of love? Why, we wonder, did we believe in those dreams and not the truth? We are monsters. Why did we ever think we were anything else? Why do we think, for even a moment, that this is all a horrible mistake, instead of what it is: our lives?
TAMARA
When Sylvia Lansmorth and Cathy Vecker drive up, they see Jan, Shreve, and Emily with their baby carriers, diaper bags, flowers, and foiled plate, Theresa and Elli Ratcher, screaming, and Pete Ratcher, standing there, shaking his head.
“Is that him?” Sylvia asks. “He looks like a child molester.”
Cathy points at the flying babies, swooping across the sky. “I told you things were getting strange.”
“Matthew! Timmy! You come down here this instant!” Theresa shouts.
Pete turns and walks back to the house.
Emily sets her baby carrier gently on the ground and places the foiled plate beside it, then shrugs out of the diaper bag. She checks the straps on her baby’s carrier, making sure they are tight before she walks over to Theresa Ratcher. “Try your breast.” She has to say it a few times before Theresa hears her.
“What?”
“When I have this problem, I just take off my shirt. He always comes down for my breast.”
Theresa hesitates only a second, trying to process the strange revelation of this woman she’s never met acting as though losing a winged baby is a common concern. She pulls off her tank top and lets it drop to the ground.
“You have to take off your bra,” Emily says. She turns to Elli. “Watch your mother. Do what she does.”
Sylvia and Cathy sit in the car and watch in amazement as Theresa and Elli Ratcher take off their tops and unfasten their bras.
“Maybe we should come back later,” Sylvia says, but another car pulls in behind them and they are blocked in the driveway.
Lara Bravemeen heard about the winged baby from the mailman, who heard about it from the senior Mrs. Vecker. When Lara drives up and sees the two women disrobing, the babies frolicking in the sky, she thinks she has found nirvana. She shuts off her engine, jumps out of the car, peels off her T-shirt, and unbuckles her bra.
“What the fuck is going on?” Cathy asks.
Theresa and Elli Ratcher stand with their arms spread, tilting their faces and breasts towards the sky. The babies begin a lazy glide towards them.
That’s when the shot rings out.
Shreve jumps about a foot at the noise; turns and sees Pete Ratcher, standing there with a gun.
Emily looks from him to her baby, sitting in his carrier on the ground.
Theresa and Elli both turn, their mouths open in horror.
Pete Ratcher shoots again.
Shreve drops the flowers and runs with her b
aby.
The small body of Timmy Ratcher falls like a stone. Elli tries to catch him, but he crashes to the ground at her feet, and she falls over him, screaming. Matthew Ratcher stops his gentle glide and, wings beating furiously, shoots towards the sun.
Theresa Ratcher makes an inhuman sound. She runs at her husband, her fists raised.
Pete Ratcher watches her coming with his arms at his side, the gun hanging from his hand. Theresa dives at him and they both crash back into the house.
Tamara and Raj turn from their baby’s corpse at the noise. They’d heard the screams and the gunshots, but were so absorbed by their grief they hadn’t tried to process any of it. Now they see Theresa Ratcher, bare-breasted, straddling her husband, pounding him with her fists.
That’s when Emily comes in, picks up the gun, and rests the muzzle against Pete Ratcher’s head.
Raj steps towards them. Emily says, “Come any closer and I’ll kill him.” She turns to Theresa. “Got any rope?”
“It’s in the barn,” Pete says.
“Shut up.” Emily presses the muzzle to his forehead.
Pete glances at Raj, who is standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Behind him stands his wife, but she doesn’t look like she cares much about what is happening. Over her shoulder, Pete can see the dead baby; his small gray wings folded around his tiny shoulders.
Theresa comes back into the kitchen with a coil of rope. Several women with babies follow her. Cars pull into the driveway, the sound of crunching gravel audible even through Elli’s screams.
“Who are all these—”
“Shut up,” Emily says. “You”—she glances at Raj—“tie his wrists and ankles.”
Raj opens his mouth to protest.
“Do it,” says Emily, “or I’ll shoot.”
Emily is amazed anyone believes her. Pete Ratcher continues to lie there, though he is at least twice her size and actually knows how to use a gun.
“No,” Emily says as Raj begins to wrap the rope around Pete’s wrists, “tie them behind his back. Roll over. Slowly.”
Pete makes a sound that might be a chuckle, but he rolls over, slowly.