Kitabı oku: «Maybe Baby: One Small Miracle», sayfa 3

She thought about it, and found herself grinning. ‘She exploded, told Dad to go to hell … and you too, if you thought she was going to be served on anyone’s platter.’

His brows lifted, fell. ‘That’s about it … you just missed one or two small things.’

‘Well?’ she prompted after a few moments.

His eyes met hers … deep, stormy grey-blue, his mouth curving in that half-smile of sensual intent, and she felt her body heating in response. She couldn’t tear her gaze away; her breaths came short and choppy. He didn’t move—he didn’t have to. Whenever he looked at her like that, she always came to him … came running.

How easy I made everything for him. A loving wife and Jarndirri, all neatly served on Dad’s platter. One kiss, one touch and I became his for the taking.

‘And?’ she croaked, forcing her feet to stay in place. Heart and mind fought a body that suddenly reminded her that, uterus or not, she was still a woman. Sort of.

‘And we had a good laugh later. From the day I moved in, we were like brother and sister. There was nothing there.’

‘Really?’ She tried to snort the word, but it came out breathless. ‘You two always got on so well.’

‘Every way but one.’ The smile slowly grew, and she felt her feet itching, trying to move. Her hands ached, screaming to touch him. She might not love him now, but, oh, he knew every way to arouse her, to give her satisfaction. ‘She didn’t want me either. We tried to kiss once, and ended up falling on the ground laughing.’ He grinned now. ‘She kept wiping her mouth and saying, “Ick, gross, it’s like kissing my brother.”’

‘Did you like it?’ she asked slowly, wishing she could keep the words locked inside, but so many years of wondering.

He took a step toward her, the predatory intent clear, and all the words she’d practised since asking him to come fled her mind. She watched him come, her body coming alive, hot and breathless, her breasts swelling and her hands lifting.

‘Kissing Lea was one of my life’s happier memories. It was then I knew I had a sister for life—and I knew I’d never hurt her.’

Interpreting everything he hadn’t said, as usual, she relaxed—until he took another step closer, body heat the oxygen fuelling her slow-burning body, and she gulped and breathed, trying to keep up with her galloping heart. ‘And then?’

‘I found you three weeks later in the haystack, hiding from Lea with the chocolate stash you stole,’ he murmured, eyes languorous with blatant sexuality, and his tinder sparked the slow flame in her.

Hiding from Lea, she’d whispered frantically to Jared to not give her away when he found her there. He’d looked at her in silence, asking without words what on earth she was doing. She’d lifted the chocolate in laughing offer, sharing her booty if he wouldn’t give her away. And he bent to her, saying she’d made a mess of her face, and took the chocolate smears from her mouth with his lips and tongue. She’d forgotten all about the chocolate, the hay in her hair and on her clothes; she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, crossing the unseen threshold from child to woman in an instant.

He hadn’t kissed her again for a long time—she was only fifteen to his eighteen—but he hadn’t gone with all the young guys to the infamous B&S balls—the Bachelor & Spinster balls—after that. And he hadn’t let any other guy near her either. He’d kept her on constant sensual alert with burning-hot glances and unspoken promises, soft whispers in her ear and intimate jokes for her alone.

But on her eighteenth birthday he’d given her a beautiful diamond ring made especially for her with gold from Jarndirri and a Kimberley diamond, danced with her all night at her party, and took her outside to the high verandah where she kept dozens of sweet-scented potted flowers and her climbing roses—planting them, even in the high ground, would drown them in the Wet—and he’d kissed her again, this time deep and slow with his arms around her.

I’m going to marry you, he’d whispered in her ear after half an hour of dazzling, melting kisses, and, poor, starry-eyed girl that she’d been, she’d had no thought of denying him anything he’d wanted. They’d come back into the house with that ring on her left hand, and her eighteenth party had become their engagement party.

They’d married four years later, after she’d finished university as her father demanded. She’d come home, torn between wanting to teach and aching to be with the man she adored. One slow smile from Jared on her return to Jarndirri, one melting kiss, and her future was decided. She couldn’t have left him again if her life depended on it.

She’d never kissed any other man, had never wanted to. From the first time she’d seen him, she’d been lost; from the moment he’d kissed her in that haystack, his wishes had become her wishes, his world hers.

Then the bottom fell out of the world they’d forged for themselves, the shattering of dreams as beautiful as pure crystal, and just as delicate. When she came home from the hospital, she’d felt the storm building inside him slowly, worse for its being unspoken. He wanted her to talk, to come past her intense grief, to heal … but he only wanted her to say what he was ready to hear. She knew what he wanted—the smiles and laughter, the sensuality and return to the joyous woman she’d once been. He’d wanted relief from the endless pain, for the uncertainty to be over, so he could get on with his life.

He could get on with life, because he still had options. He could still become a father. He could never understand the depth of her double loss. He just wanted her sadness to be over so he could bring up what he’d planned. She felt the leashed impatience as the months passed.

That was Jared. He was willing to run any race, fight any fire, swim any flood … he’d be there whenever she needed him, for whatever reason she needed him, so long as she didn’t expect him to talk, to share—or to feel. He just wanted to get on with it, whatever it was.

With Adam’s death and the hysterectomy, she saw her life through new eyes: the compliance, the hollowness of trying to please a man who only saw her as his adjunct. What did she have that was all hers, that wasn’t handed to her by her father, or given by Jared? What did she really want in life? It certainly wasn’t the souvenir store.

She still didn’t know what she wanted, and within an hour Jared’s mere presence was threatening her determination to find it. He could shatter her newfound strength with the promise of a kiss—and, what was worse, she was almost giving in. With a kiss, he could make her want to come home for good—and she’d never know. Her life would again be Jared’s to own.

She lifted her chin. ‘While that’s all sweet, it’s really rather irrelevant now. I only want to come back until we hear from Rosie—and if she still wants us to adopt her, I’ll give you Jarndirri, the money—whatever you want—if I can have Melanie.’

The long silence unnerved her—especially when he didn’t move or step back. ‘Is that a promise?’ he asked slowly at last.

She frowned. ‘What, about giving you … a divorce?’ She sipped her cooling coffee. Funny, after all the times she’d practised the word, it was still so hard to say. ‘Of course, I told you—’

‘That isn’t what you said,’ he interrupted her, his voice uncompromising. ‘You promised me everything I want, if I let you stay.’

He wants more than Jarndirri.

Her stomach hollowed out. What little coffee she’d drunk churned inside, making her want to be sick. Twelve years together, five years married, so much they’d been through together, and still what she wanted meant nothing to him. A million hectares of earth still held his heart captive—that, and the life he’d planned for them. That was Jared, stubborn to the last.

I can’t give you children, she wanted to scream. I can’t go back to where my sweet Adam was still here, still alive!

Jarndirri was no longer home to her; it was the place where hope and dreams and love and laughter had died. All she wanted was to never go back.

For Melanie, her heart whispered. You’ll have Melanie.

She forced her chin up. Her fists curled, she drew in a breath and said with a semblance of calm, ‘Everything you wanted that I can give you, Jared.’

‘Everything I wanted, Anna,’ he repeated, his voice hard and cold. ‘A little white lie or a big black one, I’ll still be committing perjury for you. Give me your word.’

‘I can’t give you the babies you wanted,’ she snapped, trying to hold in the tears. ‘How can you even think I could—?’

Not a muscle in his face moved. He looked like the red rocks of the Kimberleys: wind-blasted, refusing to falter or weather away under pressure—and, illogically, she felt the stirring of arousal return. Was she a masochist, yearning for a man who didn’t know how to feel? ‘Just give me the promise, Anna. Then I’ll do whatever it takes to give you that baby.’

Something turned to lead within her. She knew what he was demanding—her, back in his bed; back in his life and world. The Curran–West dynasty intact, with no more embarrassing separations … and she knew, looking in his eyes, he had another brilliant plan for them to have a baby. His baby, at least.

She ought to have known he wouldn’t let her bail on him, or the life he loved. The opinion of their neighbours—his reputation, and keeping his promise to Bryce Curran, the only person he’d ever looked up to—meant that much to him.

He didn’t want Melanie—but she couldn’t see what he did want, or what he was planning. She only knew when he had an ace up his sleeve, and he always knew when to play it. This was only step one. He wanted his wife to come home with him—to share his bed again—and wasn’t above using Melanie to get what he wanted.

All or nothing: that was Jared. Win at any cost.

She closed her eyes, shutting him out as her mind raced. She’d survived five years of marriage with plenty of desire and Jarndirri to bond them, but no love—at least on his side. She was a Curran, a strong Outback woman. And love it or hate it, Jarndirri was still home. She could never deny that. Love and hate and grief, it held her captive as strongly as it did Jared.

‘You have my word.’ She looked at him, and to her surprise felt only sadness as she said, ‘But you need to know the truth. I’m only doing it for Rosie, and for Melanie. I would never have called you but for this dilemma. I’d never go back to you willingly, if I didn’t have to. I want a life of my own. I was waiting until the year was up to divorce you.’

‘And you’ve made me thoroughly aware of that fact for the past five months,’ he said, his voice rich with irony, yet somehow as dry as dust.

Hearing some unaccustomed feeling beneath the coldness he was projecting, she wished it was different, that she could be happy about returning. ‘I’m sorry, Jared. That’s the way it is.’

At least, it was the way it had to be. She had a few weeks to convince the authorities they were a united couple—if spending those weeks in Jared’s bed could give her Melanie, a life and a future without the unbearable agony of the past year, she’d do it. Then, when she had the stamped, legal adoption papers in her hands, she’d prove to Jared it really was over. She’d make him believe she didn’t care about anything but Melanie. If she could prove to him that he no longer had the power to move or hurt her, she’d walk away with her baby, and he’d be free to find a woman who could give him what she no longer could. He’d thank her for it one day.

‘Then come home,’ he said, with no emotion at all now, not even triumph. ‘I assume you have everything packed?’

And even though she deserved it, something inside her churned at his uncaring tone. She’d turned him off at last; she should be rejoicing. He was on his way to accepting it was over—if she could hold it together, stay strong, he’d let her go when the adoption went through, let her go find a life with Melanie, and he’d …

She shuddered at the thought of the man who’d always been hers belonging to anyone else—having the children he’d craved from her, and she’d yearned to give.

This was a sacrifice she had to be prepared to make. Part of her would always care about Jared, would always ache and burn when he moved on and had those children, but she couldn’t live the life he loved any more. Why shouldn’t he find happiness with a woman who wanted the life she’d abandoned?

‘Yes, I have everything packed, and given notice to my landlord.’ She kept her tone cool, reserved. ‘I’ve closed the store until further notice.’

‘Good. So drink the coffee. I assume we wait until the baby’s awake.’

‘Her name’s Melanie,’ she amended through clenched jaws.

He shrugged and reached for his coffee, downing it in a gulp. He never minded drinking it however he found it, hot or cold. ‘I’m heading out. I have my phone. Call me when she wakes.’

He was out the door before she could speak. A chill raced down her neck, leaving her shivering with cold in the oppressive Kimberley heat. He was withdrawing from her at last, giving up—and though she ought to be celebrating, although she should think ahead to her life with Melanie, all she felt was a curious regret, an unfathomable emptiness.

Jared made it as far as the other end of the path leading to the beach from her place, safe from her sight, before his legs couldn’t go farther. He heaved in breaths that seemed to take no air in because he kept wheezing. He held onto one of the thick trunks used for fencing posts along the track, bent almost double over it, dizzy and sick. He’d made it to the end of their deal without showing her what she’d done to him. He wouldn’t be weak, like his father had been with his mother, using love to make her stay, pleading for her to fix the unfixable …

I’d never go back to you willingly.

He kept his eyes squeezed tight shut. He hadn’t realised how much hearing the words would hurt, because Anna wouldn’t lie to him. If she said it, she meant it.

‘No. It’s grief speaking. She doesn’t know what she wants,’ he gasped through gritted teeth, between gasping breaths. ‘It’s not over. She’ll come back to me. She’ll love Jarndirri again once she’s there. Everything will be like it used to be. I just—need—to stick to the plan.’

That was it: he needed to focus on the final result. This was no different from his other long-term plans. He’d had no results from planting the saltbush until two seasons had passed. He’d planted crops every year, not knowing if they’d be harvested or fail. He’d plant seeds with Anna now, give her everything she wanted, and wait to reap the benefits.

But what did she want? He knew squat about women’s emotional needs, but some gut-deep instinct told him he hadn’t reached the heart of her need to run from Jarndirri. Or why she’d needed to run from him.

Their loss should have brought them closer. Why hadn’t it? Why had she never shared her loss with him, and allowed him to comfort her? Adam had been his son, too.

Adam …

He set his jaw so hard his teeth hurt, but it stopped the stinging of his eyes. He wasn’t weak like his dad. He’d be strong for her, no matter what.

He hadn’t won her back to him with all he’d tried. The past two weeks it felt as if he’d run slam into the boulder of limitations he’d never known he had—the eternal lack of understanding that stood between man and woman.

I can’t stand being alone any more, she’d said in her note. Something about that sentence haunted him. He couldn’t get everything she’d said—or was it what she hadn’t said—out of his mind. Unable to understand, unable to forget them, all he had to do was find a way to bring her home. By now he was desperate enough to seduce, kidnap, bargain—whatever it took. Everything would be fine once they were home.

She wants a baby … and now she’s got one, his mind whispered, but only if I help her. She needs me now.

Maybe all she needed was an excuse to come home?

Step one achieved, thanks to a dumped baby. Was that tiny scrap of humanity the small miracle he needed to get his life, his wife back?

CHAPTER FOUR

‘THAT’S what I said, Ollie. Take a week off—everyone. Go away somewhere on full pay. Anna’s coming home with me, and we want the place to ourselves,’ Jared said to the station’s foreman over the chopper’s radio, sounding clipped, just a touch embarrassed. Outback men did not do emotion, and especially not in front of other men.

‘How’re we gonna get out of here now, Jared?’ The surprise was clear in Ollie’s voice, but the curiosity was under tight control. This was personal stuff, and the one thing the Jarndirri men did well, besides work from before dawn to after dusk, was keep their own stuff locked under a tight drum. Following the example set them for years by her father: real men did not share their feelings; they worked, played football and drank beer. Bonding, talking was what women did. ‘The Wet’s about an hour from starting—’

‘Take the other plane—the Jeeps are too dangerous with the Wet coming. Stay at a town or resort, take the wives and girlfriends—it’s on me.’ He spoke in a light tone, but he kept throwing glances back at a sleeping Melanie.

Anna was similarly anxious. If she woke up and Ollie heard the wails.

‘John and Ellie Button won’t want to go anywhere,’ Ollie argued, while Anna became more and more nervous. ‘Jarndirri’s their only home unless they visit their kids, which they don’t do in the Wet.’

‘Then make it clear they’re on paid leave. I can’t leave Jarndirri, but we want time on our own.’ He was back to that stiff awkwardness that told Ollie to back off.

‘You’ll need help, even in the Wet—’

‘Anna will help me. She knows the place backwards, and it’s only for a week. Will you stop arguing, Ollie, and take the holiday?’

Filled with urgency, Anna leaned to his ear. ‘Don’t say any more to him, or it will look suspicious,’ she whispered, feeling the heat of him warm her shivers, relieving her fears just by being here. Jared was so good at thinking on his feet, and finding the solution to any emergency—as perfect at it as he was at flying. Though the winds were fickle and lightning flickered in the distance, the Cessna hadn’t so much as wobbled. He was in full control, plane and life.

He nodded at her warning. ‘We’ll be there in a few hours. Feed the animals and corral them first.’ He signed off without saying anything as sappy and uncharacteristic as Have a good holiday. Like the harsh red land they flew over, massive monolithic rocks that looked like God’s marbles, the deep, inaccessible rivers and impossible waterfalls spread across Jarndirri, the men were silent, rugged, remote—and strangely unforgettable. Haunting her soul: they were her men, her land. She could leave, she could run, start a new life anywhere, but a part of her heart would always be here in the Kimberleys.

Turning, she looked at the sleeping form in the car seat—Melanie had a dreaming smile on her face—and Anna felt that gaping, shell-blasted hole inside her soul touched again with balm, sweet as baby powder, absolute as the trust this baby girl gave her.

It would never heal. She could never forget Adam, would never stop aching for the other babies that never had the chance to live because of her thin uterus walls. But when this beautiful baby was with her, she felt alive again. Even if it was for a few weeks, a few months, she’d take the time with Melanie … and then, maybe, she’d find the strength to walk away from the only real home she’d ever known, to divorce the only man she’d ever loved and still wanted, even if she wasn’t in love with him now—

‘Don’t think about it.’

She started and pulled herself together. ‘What?’

His gaze met hers, his strong, calm. ‘You’ll be a mother—either of this baby, or another. Don’t give up hope. It’s going to happen.’

His eyes held the depth of a thousand words unspoken. Anna felt a juddering shiver touch her neck. Again he’d known her heart was bleeding, and he was always there.

There finding a solution for her, because he had to make everything right and he didn’t do emotion—and she’d held onto his solutions like a lifeline for too many years. We can do IVF, Anna. We can try again, Anna. Just one more try for a baby, Anna. I know it’s been tough on you, but think of the end result—the baby you’ve craved for years.

That was what he’d always say: It’s been tough on you, the baby you want, as if losing four babies hadn’t affected him at all.

Had any of it hurt him, made him feel the loss as acutely as she had? Until Adam, she hadn’t truly known. He’d never shown any emotion during those years. He’d kept on working, planning for the next child. But when Adam had died, he’d cried in her arms; and the echoes of his cry when she’d collapsed the next day still rang in her heart.

Anna! For God’s sake, someone, help us!

But the feeling, the emotional connection she’d yearned to know in the man she’d loved all her life seemed to be no more than a day’s aberration. The old unemotional Jared had returned the moment he’d been back on Jarndirri soil a week later, working from four in the morning till six at night as usual. The only hint of emotion he’d showed had been a state of repressed anger and the sense of exhausted patience at her ongoing grief and refusal to touch him, or share their bed.

Even today, when she was close to the sharing he claimed he wanted to hear, it was no different. Don’t get depressed, Anna, you’ll be a mother.

He’d been dry-eyed at his father’s funeral, at her father’s funeral. Even after the hysterectomy, he’d been calm, focussed on her pain, her loss. We’ll find a way, Anna. But he’d cried when Adam had died. For a whole hour, he’d cried …

‘Thank you.’ Stilted words through a tight throat; she didn’t know what else to say. Like her dad, Jared held to the old code of honour: Never back down, never surrender. Always keep your word. He’d married her, so he’d stick to her for life. She knew he’d do his best to never show her the resentment, how cheated he was that she’d never given him a son.

Regret was weakness to Jared; divorce would be seen as the ultimate failure.

She’d already been through a failure, a loss and madness so deep and profound that divorce could only be dessert after a heavy main course—it would almost feel like sweet relief.

Almost.

‘She’ll have to make do with a bed pushed against the wall with chairs for a day or two, until I can fly to Geraldton to get some baby things,’ he said, his voice flat.

She frowned at him. ‘Why? Where are … the things we had for Adam …?’ She almost choked, saying it. Her arms and heart ached with useless longing.

In the ten seconds that followed their son’s name she heard every beat of her heart.

‘I gave them away.’ His voice was taut.

Her heart jerked, and one shoulder moved forward, not a shrug but a tiny movement that showed too much. ‘When?’

‘Three weeks ago.’ Jared had turned back to the horizon, watching where he flew. The flight path was one he knew like his own skin, but he wasn’t looking at her. Jared could always look her in the face as he talked about her emotions, but she doubted he even acknowledged his own existed. ‘The Lowes needed some new things for their baby.’

That was it, all he had to say about destroying their son’s nursery? The last vestiges of their son’s life had been pulled apart … the Lowes had eight kids now, by her count. It was so unfair. They had the kids and the things she’d made or painted for Adam with her own hands.

She nearly choked on the fury, the gut-level jealousy she’d never lose. ‘And you never thought to ask me about it?’

Her pulse beat so hard against her throat, she heard it beating. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six … boom-boom, boom-boom … ‘You hung up on me.’

She turned to look out the window. They were flying over the mining community of Tom Price. The scattered houses and gaping holes in the earth looked so lonely from up here. ‘I see.’

After a long silence, he said in a quiet voice that hid all emotion, ‘Say it, Anna.’

She shrugged, as if she didn’t care. ‘What’s the point? It’s done.’

He said nothing in response, and she refused to make it easy for him. She kept looking at the world below while everything they weren’t saying grew legs and arms, put a timer device together on the bomb of silence and set it ticking down. The unseen contest had no winners because he never spoke, and she had nothing to say—or too much. Fury, jealousy, betrayal and all the useless regret.

She had to stop this, find accord with Jared somehow, or they’d never survive the next few weeks together. Why didn’t Melanie wake up? If she’d make a single sound …

Three, two, one—

‘They’re in danger of losing everything.’

It took her a moment to realise what he meant. He’d taken the safe option, talking of the nursery furniture and the Lowes. She should have known he would. Jared had never had to reach out to her—he waited for her to come to him, to tell him what she needed, so he could fix it. She had always gone to him—until she’d had nothing left to say, nothing left to ask him to fix.

Countdown reset, defences built, places of refuge established. Husband and wife stared out of separate windows, facing each other down from either side of a silent battleground. It was Christmas detente, meeting in the middle for a meaningless game of football, knowing hostilities would soon be resumed. Too much had been left unsaid between them, too many emotions buried in the trenches of memory. The fragile cobweb of deception for the sake of a baby was the only thing holding them together.

‘Fair enough,’ was all she said in response, trying to dull the sharp edge of the bayonet she’d been stabbing him with. What was the point? His armour was impenetrable.

Three, two, one—

‘I thought you’d understand. People matter more than things. Isn’t that what you always said every time you gave our things away to someone in need?’ he growled out of nowhere.

‘I’m surprised you remember that,’ she replied without inflection.

‘I remember everything.’ His gaze was cold, and again she shivered. When she didn’t answer, he sighed with the exaggerated patience she hated. ‘Tell me what’s going on in your head, Anna. We’ve got to find a way to put this right, climb out of this crazy mess we’re in.’

At least he was finally asking, instead of telling her to come home, or using his body to bring her to capitulation; but didn’t he know that, if he had to ask what she wanted, it was useless to her? ‘There’s nothing either of us can do, Jared. There’s no solution. Nothing can change what’s done. It’s over.’

‘Obviously—that’s why you called me, why you’re here now.’

The frozen tone put her on the defensive. ‘I don’t know any other man who keeps secrets the way you do, who hides emotion so well. If you have any emotion.’

He made some adjustments to their flight path. He frowned hard at the horizon, as if there was imminent danger. ‘One day you’re going to have to face that what happened last year happened to us both, instead of thinking it was only your pain, your sorrow. One day you’ll know running from it does nothing.’

‘I didn’t run from anything. I left you.’ She felt her nostrils flare as she dragged in air. ‘Just because we aren’t together any more doesn’t mean I haven’t faced it—all of it.’ What I lost—and what I am. Cold and shivering to her soul, she’d faced it. She had no choice: Adam came to visit her nightly, that cold, sweet, sleeping face. Eternal sleep in a cold white casket instead of the sky-blue cradle they’d made for him, with stencils of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse … the pretty mobiles dangling above for him to laugh at, to reach for.

‘You never talked about it.’

Anna heard a disbelieving laugh, a half-sneer in it, and part of her didn’t believe it had come from her; she’d never heard it come from her lips before. Yet she was glad for the distraction. ‘So which are you in this scenario, the pot or the kettle?’

Very quiet, so quiet she barely heard him over the plane’s rumble, he said, ‘The doctors told me to wait for you to start.’

‘And of course that was the only thing stopping you,’ she retorted. ‘You’re just a pillar of communication. Always so open with what you feel.’

He didn’t answer that—and in the silence something in her snapped. ‘That’s it, Jared, retreat into your own head, don’t tell me anything. I always made it so easy for you, didn’t I? I did the talking, the loving, and you didn’t have to try. That’s what’s getting to you, isn’t it? For the first time in twelve years I’m not blurting out my every feeling and emotion to you, so you can work out how to fix it all. I walked out, and didn’t want or need your solutions or to make things right—and you couldn’t handle it. For months you’ve been the one coming to me, but I didn’t come home as you expected. How embarrassing has it been for you? The Great Jared West is a failure with his own wife. Is everyone laughing at you—or, worse, pitying you?’

She waited, her heart pounding hard. After long moments, he spoke without emotion. ‘It’s nothing I’m not used to. And I’m still here.’

Anna blinked, blinked again. What did that mean? The cold, emotionless Jared West, the King of Jarndirri, had actually felt like a failure at some point in his life?

A little wail came from behind as she tried to work out what he was trying to tell her. As ever, his verbal economy hid a wealth of secrets, but she didn’t have the tools to dig for it.

The baby’s wail grew in decibels. She sounded frightened. Relieved to have something to do, she unbuckled her seat belt and moved to Melanie. She picked her up and cuddled her, crooning to the baby, but Melanie’s cries grew stronger. As Anna sat in a back seat, Melanie began head-butting Anna, screaming now, pulling at her ears and staring at Anna in pleading and indignation combined.