by Mary Rickert
* * *
The mothers heard it from their mothers, friends, even strangers. Lucy, of Lucy’s Diner, heard about it from Brian Holandeigler, who’d heard it from Francis Kennedy, who’d heard it from Fred Wheeler, who said it was all over the canning factory. “Did I tell you we had a call there?” Francis said. “I knew something odd was going on in that house.” Maddy Melvern heard about if from Mrs. Baylor, who had come over to talk to Mrs. Melvern about Melinda Baylor in Iraq. “At least my Mindy ain’t gotta contend with no asshole like Pete Ratcher, who molested his daughter and gave her a baby with wings,” she said. (Maddy made her repeat it twice.) Roddy Tyler heard it from Mrs. Vecker and Mrs. Vecker Senior, and when he walked to the post office that afternoon (in his duct-taped shoes), he told everyone about it. Maddy found Leanne and Stooker outside the drugstore, and after they oohed and ahhed at JoJo, she told them she needed a ride to the Ratchers’. “I didn’t know you were friends with her,” Leanne said. Vin Freedman heard it from Stooker’s older brother, Tinny, and he told Mickey, who called up Elli, but nobody answered the phone there.
Everyone was talking about it. When one of the mothers heard, she could not pretend she hadn’t. The Ratcher girl had a baby with wings. How could any one of them resist this revelation? The mothers packed diaper bags, left work, left home without explanation or offered a poor one, a scribbled note on the kitchen table, or attached to the refrigerator with a magnet. “Went out. Be back soon.”
What they found was a bloodied, bare-breasted Elli Ratcher, kneeling in the dirt, holding her dead baby with his broken wings (right out there for anyone to see) and screaming, “No! No! I didn’t mean it! No!”
The mothers were confused. How long had she been doing this? When had this baby died? And what was all that blood about, anyway?
The mothers, holding their own sons, approached Elli with caution. They circled her and said, “There, there,” or “Everything’s going to be all right.” Some of them got close enough to pat her hot shoulder and get a good look at the baby. Definitely dead. Definitely wings.
When Theresa Ratcher came out of the house, the mothers—thinking she’d come for her daughter—parted. But Theresa only looked at Elli with a confused expression, then spread her arms and arched her back, her skin freckled at the throat but pure white on her breasts, which hung loosely towards her stomach. She stood there, her face upturned to the crows and the clouds and her eyes closed, until a shadow crossed the sun and came diving down. It was a baby, its gray wings pulled back, diving right for Theresa Ratcher, landing on her with arms spread like a hug. With a sob, Theresa’s arms wrapped around him as he repositioned himself and began suckling. The mothers sighed. Theresa Ratcher, slowly, carefully, sank to the ground, kneeling in the dirt, smiling, and running her hand over her baby’s hair, just five yards away from Elli, who keened over hers.
THE MOTHERS
Everyone was at the funeral. Even Pete Ratcher, his wrists and ankles tied, though none of us are sure how he got there. We suspect Raj Singh helped him, though Raj should have been helping Tamara. Tamara has no memory of that day. From the time she fell asleep on the Ratchers’ couch, until after the trial, Tamara walked with open eyes, but remained in some kind of slumber. Perhaps Pete just hopped out there by himself—he hadn’t been tied to anything, so it wouldn’t have been impossible. We suppose that could have happened without any of us noticing. We were busy. There were two babies to bury, Ravi Singh and little Timmy Ratcher, plus all our own babies to attend to.
At that point we were still hiding the secret of the wings, which (we did not yet know) we shared, though several of us considered how much we should reveal about our own babies. If Theresa based her belief in Pete Ratcher’s incestuous culpability solely on the evidence of wings, how much responsibility did we have for clarifying that wings weren’t proof of incest? Still, we mothers—thoughtful, contemplative, responsible women—were not inclined to share our secret, even if it could save a family. Why save one family, if it would ruin our own?
TAMARA
Carla Owens and Melinda Stevens fashioned caskets out of wooden crates they found in the barn, cutting the lids out of planks of wood Pete Ratcher had been using to shore up the beams.
Bridget Myer, who was such a fan of Martha Stewart that she cried when the homemaking diva went to prison, assembled a group of women who traipsed through the Ratchers’ massive yard, picking dandelions, daisies, wild lilies, Queen Anne’s lace, lilacs, and green stalks of corn for the altar—a card table covered by a white cloth and two white candles in the fake crystal candlesticks on either end.
It was just after noon. Elli Ratcher had washed off the blood and changed into a white sundress. Theresa Ratcher didn’t change her clothes, though she’d put her shirt back on.
The crates were so small there was no need for pallbearers. Carla carried one to the front, set it on the altar, and Melinda carried the other. The lids were off at that point. The babies, cleaned and dressed by Shelly Tanning, Victoria Simmington, Gladiola Homely, and Margaret Satter, looked real sweet, surrounded by flowers.
Brenda Skyler, Audrey Newman, and Hannah Vorwinkski sang the opening song. They walked to the front and signaled when to start with little nods towards each other, but still didn’t get it exactly right. They sang “Silent Night,” because it’s hard to find funeral songs with babies in them. They hasten to point out, in defense of their controversial choice, that there is no mention of the word Christmas in the entire carol. Also, instead of singing the word virgin, they hummed.
“I’d like any of you guys to think of a better song for a baby’s funeral,” Audrey says, if any of us mocks the choice. “And I don’t count that Eric Clapton song. We ain’t professionals, you know.”
Shreve Mahar stepped to the front of the crowd. She glanced at Elli Ratcher, who looked like a bored but polite schoolgirl at assembly, and at Tamara Singh, who wept into her open hands. Theresa Ratcher rocked her baby in her arms, humming softly. Pete Ratcher, still tied at the wrists and ankles, leaned against the apple tree, close enough to follow the proceedings but not so close as to be a part of them.
Shreve opened the book to the previously marked page and read from the Upanishads.
In the center of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus-flower, and within can be found a small space. We should find who dwells there, and we should want to know her.
Shreve read the passage into a stunning silence, as if even the babies were listening. When she finished, Raj Singh stepped to the front.
“We are here today,” he started, his voice breaking. He looked down at his feet, cleared his throat. “We are here. Today.” Again, his voice broke. He took a deep breath. “We are here.” He shook his head, raised his hands in a gesture of apology, and shuffled back to stand beside his weeping wife.
He did not notice how Elli Ratcher had snapped awake at his words. In the confused seconds after Raj’s departure, she stepped forward, turned, and faced the mothers, glowing in the sun. “We are here today!” she said, in an excited voice. “That’s it, isn’t it? We are here! We are here!” She was quite giddy, as if she had only just discovered herself in her life. Eventually, Shreve escorted her back to stand beside Theresa. There was an uncomfortable period of uncertainty before everyone realized the funeral was over. Several mothers noticed flies gathering near the babies in their little wooden crates on the card table, and Shreve brushed them away.
Raj Singh spoke quietly to Theresa, then walked to Pete Ratcher and began to untie him. The mothers protested, but Theresa said, “He’s not going to hurt anyone. They’re going to dig the graves.” Raj and Pete went into the barn together and came out with shovels. They walked over to the apple tree and began digging, as the mothers drifted back to the house.
THE MOTHERS
We came to the Ratcher farm because of the rumors about a winged baby. We were determined not to leave that strange and unhappy place without some informa
tion. Tamara Singh was a wreck, and nobody could get anything out of her. She lay upstairs in Elli’s bedroom while her husband and Pete Ratcher dug two tiny graves beneath the apple tree.
Elli was also of little use. “We are here,” she kept repeating, her eyes wide.
“Grieving,” some of us said. “Nuts,” said others.
We did not mean it as judgment. We held our babies close and shuddered to guess how we would behave, should something so terrible happen to us.
“Her baby didn’t just die,” Emily said. “He was murdered by her own father.”
It was a long day. We drifted in and out of conversations and emotions while the two men continued digging. We felt horrible for the mothers of the dead babies. We really did. But, also, we were there on a mission.
TAMARA
When it was revealed that Elli and Theresa Ratcher’s babies had been seen flying, the mothers (after dismissing Elli, with her “We are here” glassy-eyed uselessness) turned to Theresa. “Yes. So what?” she said to anyone who dared ask outright, did her baby fly? By Theresa’s reasoning, this was no longer the point.
The mothers, most of whom had carried their heavy secrets for months, confided in Theresa Ratcher. By seven o’clock, the house was a riot of noisy babies; the plumbing just barely keeping up with the women’s needs; the hot kitchen cluttered with fresh-baked casseroles, frozen pizza, and dishes in a constant state of being washed.
Finally, Theresa Ratcher called for everyone’s attention. The mothers hushed the ornery babies, who, irritated from confinement, would not be hushed, and tried to listen to what Theresa was saying.
“You are all telling me the same thing. All the babies have wings.”
At first, the mothers were horrified. Misunderstanding, they thought Theresa was not revealing a universal truth, but the deep secret they had confided in her. It was only after a few moments that someone realized what she’d said. “All the babies have wings?”
The mothers looked at each other. Nodding. Slowly smiling. Yes, it was true. There was a murmur, which quickly escalated into a babble of excitement, not funereal at all.
Theresa Ratcher opened her arms and Matthew broke free, diving and swooping overhead.
Soon babies were flying throughout the rooms, gleefully darting around each other. Some of the mothers, cut by babies’ wings, drifted in a confused stupor, “awakening” (for lack of a better term) to the shock of a houseful of flying babies, but other mothers had grown so adept at avoiding the wings that they were able to explain what had occurred.
“All of them?” the stunned mothers asked.
“Yes. All.”
Pete Ratcher and Raj Singh dug beneath the apple tree, the white blossoms only recently swallowed into tiny, bitter apples. They worked, accompanied by the buzzing of flies and bees, in mutual silence, until, just as the sun was leaning on the horizon, babies began flying out of the house. Both Pete and Raj stopped digging. “What can it mean?” Raj asked.
“It means the devil’s come to Voorhisville,” Pete replied, though Theresa and Elli both later said he was not a religious man.
Inside the house, Theresa once more quieted the women. “We have to make some decisions about how we’re going to proceed,” she said. “I mean, all of us sharing this secret.”
Elli finally broke her spell of repeating “We are here” to cry, “My dad killed my baby!”
“We’ll call the police.” Cathy reached for her cell phone.
“Wait!” Shreve said. “What’s going to happen if we call the police? They’re going to want to see the body, right? And if they see the body, they’re going to see the wings.”
“But that doesn’t mean anyone’s going to guess about our babies,” Maddy said.
Emily, who had slung the gun bandolier fashion across her chest (using one of Theresa’s flowered scarves), sauntered to the front of the room. “I think probably all of us have had some close calls with our babies flying at inappropriate times, but right now nobody’s exactly looking for babies with wings. If word gets out about the possibility, we might as fuckenwell call up People magazine ourselves, because someone is going to discover us. Sooner or later, someone is going to catch one of our babies flying, and then all hell is going to break loose. We need to take care of this, ourselves. Also, for those of you who’ve been asking, I wrote down the recipe for the chocolate croissants. It’s on the refrigerator.”
Jan Morris stood up and introduced herself as a realtor-poet. “I notice,” she said, “that I am a bit older than most of you. I learned in my first marriage, which was a disaster, that you can tell how things are going to go by looking at how things went. We have two dead babies here. I don’t think we have to look any further to see what chances our babies have in the world. We have all the information we need.”
“It’s like a painting,” Lara said, “you know? That little bit of red in the corner, that little dot of color. You might not necessarily notice, but it’s there and it affects everything. If you cover it up, it changes everything, but it’s still there.”
The mothers were silent, processing this, some more successfully than others.
“If we don’t call the police, what do we do about him?” Cathy Vecker asked.
“Where is he, anyway?” Maddy said.
Sylvia stood up, so suddenly she knocked over her cup of tea. “He’s out there! With our babies!”
Suddenly the mothers were frightened again, thinking of their babies flying over Pete Ratcher, who was untied and essentially free to commit murder again. The mothers ran outside, shouting. Upstairs in Elli’s room, Tamara Singh wrapped a pillow around her head to try to muffle the noise.
Raj Singh stopped digging, but Pete Ratcher, after glancing up to see what all the fuss was about, continued.
Theresa took off her shirt. Emily did the same. Strangely, Elli did too, though of course Timmy was dead.
Matthew Ratcher flew to his mother’s breasts, and Gabriel Carr flew to Emily’s. The mothers, observing this, stopped shouting; took off their shirts, blouses, and bras; and offered their breasts to a darkening sky dotted with bats and babies, who dove to their mothers with delighted gurgles. It wasn’t long at all before the yard and house were filled with mothers in the madonna position. Elli remained in the yard for a long time, bare-breasted and with empty arms. Nobody noticed when she returned to the house.
Raj stepped into the freshly dug holes, and Pete Ratcher handed the crates to him, then helped hoist him up. Pete immediately began refilling the holes with dirt. Raj tried to help, but was incapacitated by grief, so Pete Ratcher did this part alone. When he was finished, he left Raj standing there, beneath the apple tree, weeping.
Pete Ratcher walked back to his house, weaving around the nursing women, guided by the fireflies’ tiny lanterns. Theresa looked up from her adoration of Matthew and said, “Get away from me, you monster.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Pete Ratcher said, loud enough to get everyone’s attention. “I’m his father. I’m Elli’s father. And I’m your husband.”
Theresa shrugged. “Well, you got two out of three right.”
Pete Ratcher stood there, stunned. The women took advantage of his state to tie him up again, while Emily pointed the gun at his dirty forehead.
“You’re under arrest,” she said.
“Says who? You’re no policeman.”
But it didn’t matter. We were the mothers.
PETE
“We used to have animals on this farm. Cows. Chickens. An old rooster. This was when I was a boy. We even had a horse for a while there. Here’s the thing: you gotta kill the ones born bad. I know, it’s not easy to do. Nobody ever said it was easy. You think I wanted to kill my own grandson? You think I’m happy about that? But somebody had to do something. These aren’t babies that can grow up to be regular men. You mothers are losing sight of that. Sure, they’re cute right now, most of them, but what’s going to happen over time? You can’t carry them around forever. They
’re growing, and they’re growing unusually fast. Can’t you see that? Come on, be realistic now. Just try to step back for a while and consider what’s happening. What do you think’s going to happen when they’re grown? We have to take care of this now, before it becomes a real problem. Think of it like Afghanistan or Iraq. I know you ladies voted to fight the wars there, right? Well, Voorhisville is our Iraq. Don’t you see? We have a responsibility. We have to take care of this mess. Here. Now. We can do this. We should do this. Tonight. In the barn. I’ll do it. Just say your goodbyes and I’ll take care of the rest. I’m not saying it’ll be easy—they do sort of look like regular babies, but that’s their trick. They’re counting on us to feel that way until they get strong enough to do God knows what. We have a responsibility to the world. Do you think they’re going to stay all cute and cuddly, flapping around like sparrows? You have to ask yourselves the hard questions. You have to ask yourselves what they will become. You have to ask yourselves, seriously, what you are raising here. You might as well get it into your heads: I’m not going to be the only one who feels like this. You’re the mothers, so it’s only natural you want to protect them, but there are going to be others who feel the same as me. Lots of others. What are you going to do about them? You’re not going to be able to keep ignoring this. You’re not going to be able to tie everyone up. All I’m saying is that the world will not accept them. That’s a given. All you have to decide is, do you make the hard choice now and get on with your lives, or do you just prolong their suffering because you can’t cope with your own?”
THE MOTHERS
Afterwards—before they started playing “Maggie May” 24/7, and before we were down to our meager rations of pickles and jelly, but after the windows had been boarded up with old barn wood—we had a little quiet time to think about what Pete Ratcher had said and came to the conclusion that he was probably right, but that didn’t change anything.