Elena found the baby in the snow, wearing only a diaper. It was on its back, silent, hands and legs spinning around like a turtle turned upside-down. She looked up and down the street, toward the houses with their walkways neatly shovelled, and their porch lights giving off a dim yellow glow that looked more like a stain than like a light. Elena pulled her purple knit mittens off and stuck them in the pocket of her long black wool coat. Then she reached down, picked up the baby, pressed it against her chest without thinking to wrap it in her coat, and ran home.
"Did you get the milk?" Harris called when she came in the door, a shadow of snow swooshing in behind her. He was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of hot tea in front of him. He couldn't drink it without milk.
"Store's closed," she said.
"It's a 7-Eleven," he said, "it's never closed." She heard him turn the page of the Sunday paper—unlike most people, he didn't like to read it until after supper. Then he would go through it section by section, sipping tea and eating cookies until midnight or so when he went to bed. Elena didn't bother to hide the baby because she knew Harris wouldn't leave the kitchen and walk down the hall to where she was standing; but she moved quickly in case the baby began to cry, unwrapping her coat as she balanced the baby on alternate hips. Elena's heart thumped as she kicked off her rubber boots, she bounced the baby, who smiled at her, revealing two jagged lower teeth.
"Shhhhhh," Elena said. The baby had yet to make a sound.
"Why was it closed?" Harris shouted.
"It was closed," Elena said, and she rushed upstairs and into the bathroom where she locked the door behind her. Elena set the baby on its back on the green, shag bath-mat, then reached over and turned on the bath water. The baby's skin was mottled pink and white, like swirled ice-cream. Its face was fat and pink. It was bald and had shiny, furry eyes pressed against the sides of its head. The baby's lips were like a puffy little heart, and its eyes were tiny brown "O"s. Holding Elena's stare, the baby seldom blinked.
"Hello," Elena, said, and she kneeled on the floor and kissed the baby's cold, round stomach. She opened the diaper and smiled.
"A girl," she whispered, "I'm so happy you're a girl." The diaper was clean, as if the baby had been left in the snow only seconds before Elena arrived. Elena imagined her falling out of a sack of groceries, or falling off the edge of an arm, as if the owner, the parent, were carrying too many things into the house at once and accidentally let something fall. Elena undressed, picked up the baby and stepped into the warm tub. She held the naked baby against her chest and hummed the tune to Itsy Bitsy Spider. The baby felt solid and sturdy, she held her head up and wrapped her arms around Elena's neck. When Elena placed her hand under the baby's behind, the flesh bunched up and dimpled like and orange peel. Elena squeezed the baby's doughy legs where the fat folded over into four separate sections.
"You're delicious," Elena whispered, "you're like a sweet little fruit."
The door handle clicked on the locked bathroom door.
"Elena," her husband called.
"I'm in the tub," she said, and splashed as if for proof.
"What are you doing? About my tea? You said you'd get milk for my tea."
"Oh, uh, we'll have to talk about it when I get out," Elena said.
"What do you mean we'll have to talk about it?" His voice was concerned, but not angry. Harris seldom got angry, in fact he tried to please his wife whenever possible.
"Can we please just talk about it when I get out," Elena said, and she splashed again, just in case the baby decided to squeal.
"But the paper," Harris said, "How can I read the paper without tea?"
"Well, maybe they're open now," Elena said, "Maybe you should walk down there yourself and see if they're open now."
"Were they robbed or something?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Were the police there?"
"No, they were just closed," Elena said. "Please, can we talk about this later?"
"Elena, did you steal something?"
"What do you mean?" Elena asked. With the baby facing her on her lap, she leaned forward and slid her slippery cheek against the baby's. The baby squeaked, short and quick, like a rubber dog toy. Harris didn't seem to notice.
"Did you steal something?" he asked.
Elena didn't answer.
"That crazy kleptomania stage where you were stealing a new piece of underwear every day is not so far behind us, you know."
"That was six years ago..."
"Well, maybe those things came back. You tell me if it did."
"If what did?"
"If that crazy kleptomania came back?"
"I don't think so," Elena said. Then she kissed the baby lightly on each eye and said, "I'm not sure. But we can talk about it later. After you get back from the store or something."
"Okay," Harris said, he sighed and went gently down the stairs.
A few moments later Elena heard the front door shut.
"You can talk now," Elena said, to the baby, who still had only just squeaked. Elena sat the baby in the tub, facing her, and splashed lightly so the water sprayed the baby's neck. The baby flapped her arms up and down splashing, she smiled and screamed, "BA BA BA BA BA."
Elena said, "BA BA," and splashed some more. Drops of water dripped down Elena's forehead and into her eyes. She began to cry, lightly, as she splashed and laughed with the baby.
"Oh my god," she said, and she leaned forward and clutched the baby, pushing its slippery skin against her own, "I've never been so happy. This is the happiest bath of my life."
The baby said "BA," and squirmed to get out of Elena's arms and back into the deeper water where she could splash.
Harris forgot to wear his hat. The cold nipped his ears and beat through the sparse tufts of blonde hair on the top of his head. He looked into the houses with their big square windows glowing from the well-lit living rooms and dining rooms. He could see wallpaper, people sitting at the table, paintings that were illuminated with special lights perched above the frames, and the spastic blue light from televisions. It was a nice neighborhood with gentle people. Harris felt a flush of pride as he strolled his block. As a teenager Harris never would have imagined that he'd end up in a house like his, with neighbors like his. He had spent most of his youth smoking pot in church parking lots and the bathrooms of gas stations, with friends he couldn't stand and his father despised. Although he couldn't compete with his father, who was a heart-surgeon, Harris had fared well enough to become an anesthesiologist. No one was as impressed with his career as Harris himself.
Harris turned the corner and saw the rotating red lights of two police cars. Not here, he though, not in this part of town. He quickened his pace, heading toward the police cars. When he arrived he heard shrieking inside, a woman, perhaps, or a child; it was shrill and cutting and made him shiver. Harris stood outside and stared at the open front door. The corner of the snowed-over lawn was cordoned off with yellow police tape adhered to white sticks poking out from the ground at odd angles. A uniformed police man stepped out and walked down the grey stone walkway. Crumbs of balled salt crunched beneath his heavy boots.
"Can I help you?" He asked. He was about six inches taller than Harris and black. He had no hat on and his head was shaved. Harris wondered if he was cold.
"I live in the neighborhood and was just wondering what happened," Harris said, trying not to tilt his head as he looked up to speak to the officer.
The policeman pulled a pad of paper and a pen from his back pocket.
"What's your address," he asked.
"4105 Cedar," Harris said, "it's around the corner."
"Name?"
"Dr. Harris Gibson," he said, and he pulled his wallet from his pants pocket, removed a business card that said, "Dr. Harris B. Gibson, Anesthesiologist" and handed it to the man.
"Can you tell me, Mr. Gibson, did you see any strangers in the neighborhood, did you notice anyone unusual driving around or walking by this evening?"
"No," Harris said, "Not that I can think of. What happened?"
"Baby was stolen," the officer said.
"Stolen?" Harris choked. "Do you mean kidnapped?"
"Five year old big brother put her out in the snow while the father was doing the dishes and the mother was on the phone." The policeman pointed with his pen to the dent in the snow that was surrounded by the yellow DO-NOT-CROSS tape.
Two unmarked police cars zoomed up the street and parked behind the black and white cars. Four men, not in uniform, got out of the cars. Two of them examined the snow on the lawn, the other two went into the house.
The policeman who was talking to Harris nodded his head toward them. "She's pretty hysterical," he said, just before the men entered the house.
"You know now that I think about it," Harris said, and his voice began to shake, "I did see some guy driving really fast down my block ten minutes ago. And it wasn't a neighbor."
One of the men who was examining the snow walked over to Harris.
"You saw someone who wasn't a neighbor driving really fast down this street?"
"No, down my street," Harris said, "about ten minutes ago."
"How do you know it wasn't a neighbor," the man asked. He was wearing a spring trench coat, and also had no hat. His hair was shaggy and straight, as if he'd slept on it wet. He was closer to Harris in height, which made Harris relax a bit.
"Because he didn't look like someone from the neighborhood," Harris said, "I mean, I've seen most of the neighbors..."
"What kind of car did he have?" the uniformed police officer asked, and he poised his pencil on the edge of his pad.
"It was a pick up truck," Harris said, "a bright red pick up truck. With a gun rack."
"With a gun rack," the officer said.
"What did the guy look like," the man in the trench coat asked, "white, black, long hair short hair..."
"Black," Harris said, and he quickly diverted his eyes from the towering black officer in front of him, "short black hair...wearing a Raiders jacket...I think."
The black man said, "you saw a black guy wearing a Raiders jacket driving a red pick up truck with a gun rack speeding down your street about ten minutes ago, is that correct?"
"Yes it is," Harris said.
"Where were you when you saw him," the man in the trench coat asked.
"In my living room, I looked out the window."
"And you could see the Raiders jacket from there?"
"Yes... well, I'm not sure if it was a Raiders jacket or not. It looked like a black jacket."
"I see. And where do you live?"
"On Cedar," the uniformed police man said, "I've got the address here."
"Do you mind if we come to your house and ask you some questions," the man in the trench coat asked.
"No, not at all," Harris said. "I was just on my way to 7-Eleven to buy some milk, I should be home in a few minutes."
"Okay," the man said, "We'll see you then."
Harris walked toward the 7-Eleven, then cut down an alleyway and ran back home. His heart was throbbing in his ears and his teeth ached.
"Honey," he yelled as he came in the house. "Elena, Elena?"
"Up here," she shouted.
Harris ran upstairs and found Elena sitting alone on the bed wearing a bathrobe with her hair up in a white towel. Her face was shiny and red, her eyes looked small and smooth, as they always did when she washed her make-up off.
"Oh god, Elena," Harris said, and put his hand to his heart in relief. "You didn't steal a baby did you?"
"No," Elena said, and she half snorted and waved her hand in the air for emphasis.
"God, thank god," Harris said, and he slumped against the wall, panting for breath. "The police are down the street, they'll be hear in a minute."
"Why?" Elena asked.
"Someone stole a baby from down the street, and I had this weird feeling that it might have been you, so I made up a lie and told them that I saw a black guy in a truck zooming down the street."
"A black guy in a truck?" Elena said, and she stood up, unwrapped her wet hair and began frantically rubbing the towel over her head.
"A black guy in a red truck with a gun rack...wearing a Raiders jacket. Tell them you were in the kitchen on the phone, I told them I was sitting in the living room when I saw him."
"A black guy in a truck with a gun rack?" Elena dropped the bathrobe to the floor, her pale skin almost glowed in the dim light of the bedroom. She dressed in jeans, underwear and a shirt that she had already laid out on the bed.
"Yeah, a black guy in a truck wearing a Raiders jacket." Harris took his long wool coat off and threw it on the bed. It was identical to Elena's coat, except it had square front pockets instead of slanted.
"Why did you say a black guy in a truck?" Elena snapped. Her face was burning red and she stepped toward Harris. Tears were welling up in her eyes.
"I don't know..." Harris stammered, "I thought that maybe you had..."
"Who cares what you thought," Elena said, and she reached for her tennis shoes that began to put on without socks.
"Why are you so upset? Why are you putting your shoes on?" Harris' voice quavered, he pulled at the crotch of his pants.
"Everyone knows that black men don't drive trucks! Of all the idiotic things to say. Black man, fine. Raiders jacket, fine. But a truck? A truck? What black man do we know who drives a truck?" Elena frantically tied her shoes. Then she stood and paced the room, pulling clothes from drawers and dropping them into an empty Saks Fifth Avenue bag that happened to be sitting by the bed.
"We don't know any black men," Harris whined.
"I mean know of. I mean seen. I mean have you ever seen a black man in a truck? NO! Of course not. Black men don't drive trucks. They drive BMW's, or Celicas, or Jeeps, or Range Rovers, or Hondas, or beat up piece of shit gold Cadillacs, but they do not drive trucks!"
"Elena," Harris gasped, "Did you steal the baby? Did you take the baby?"
"I didn't steal it for Godsakes, I found it in the snow. They just left it there!"
Harris plopped onto the bed and slapped his hand against his forehead.
"Let's go," Elena said, "Let's get outa here before the police arrive,"
"If we go, they'll know you took her," Harris said. He was staring at the floor.
"I'm leaving," Elena said, "I'm leaving with the baby. You stay."
Elena walked into the guest room and snatched up the baby who was sleeping naked on a towel in the center of the bed. The baby jerked her head up and screamed. She kicked her arms and legs, wailing, and pulling her back away from Elena who held her at arms length so as not to be whacked in the face. Elena carried the screaming child into the bedroom. Harris peered over at Elena with a slow, donkey-like look on his face.
"For Godsake Harris," Elena shouted, "Help me! Help me calm her down!"
"What can I do," Harris whispered, but Elena couldn't hear him over the screaming.
Elena pressed the baby against her chest and tried to sing, the baby kicked her legs, then silenced for a second before she released a stream of urine that drenched Elena's shirt.
"Do something," Elena shouted, "The police are coming, you must do something."
Harris calmly stood. He went downstairs, then returned a moment later with a hypodermic needle in his hand.
"Hold her still," he instructed Elena. She clasped one arm around the back of the baby's thighs, the other around the top of her back, holding both the baby's arms against her body. Harris inserted the needle into the baby's dimpled bottom, slowly pushed the syringe, then stepped back and sighed.
The baby's cries faded into a whimper, then her chest raised and lowered and she fell silent and asleep.
"She'll be out for a few hours."
"Thank god," Elena said, sighing and rocking the silent baby. "Thank god."
Elena and Harris put the baby in an open suitcase on the floor in the back of the guest room closet. Harris had put a pillow in the suitcase as a mattress and covered it with a towel in case the baby went to the bathroom. Elena covered her with a pink cashmere sweater that Harris had given her for Valentine's Day the year before.
When Harris pulled the closet door shut, they both sighed and shook their heads. Then Elena changed her shirt, went into the bathroom and put on make-up— lipstick, eyeliner and mascara. Afterwards she went downstairs and sat beside Harris on the sofa while they waited for the police. Harris looked at his watch impatiently. He wanted to read the Sunday paper. He wanted tea and milk. He didn't want the baby. After twenty minutes, when the police had still not arrived, Harris went into the kitchen and retrieved the paper. Then he sat in the red velvet wing chair that faced the front door and read the sports section. He shifted several times in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs, tugging at the crotch of his slacks each time another police car or TV news van drove up the street.
Elena sat peacefully on the couch. She lay her head against the arm rest and tucked her feet beneath her.
"Do you like the name Rose?" she asked, as Harris turned a page.
"The baby already has a name," Harris said.
"Yes, but that was the name her birth-parents gave her. We need to give her our own name."
"Elena," Harris said, and set the paper on his lap. "As soon as this circus-full of police clears out and everything calms down, we're going to put that baby back in the snow where you found her."
"That's what you think," Elena said, slyly.
"That's what I know," Harris said. "You can get pregnant if you want. We can adopt. We can take in foster kids. Anything you want. Any baby you want. Just not that one. Not the neighbor's."
"I don't want a different baby," Elena said. "I want that one. That's the one I found."
"People don't find babies, they make them, for Godsakes."
"Finders keepers losers weepers," Elena said.
"Harris sighed and picked up the Parade magazine, flipping to his favorite section, the questions about celebrities.
An unmarked car pulled up moments later. Harris was relieved to see that it was the detective in the trench coat, and not the tall, black officer. Elena offered coffee, which he decline, and Harris brought out a plate of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies that he placed on the glass coffee table in front of the couch. Elena picked up a cookie, bit off half, theen replaced the cookie on the plate. Harris picked up her half-eaten cookie, and another whole cookie and popped them consecutively into his mouth while holding his left hand under his chin to catch any crumbs. The detective never sat down, and so Harris stood too, pointing at the spot where he said he had been sitting on the couch, and then pointing out the window to the street where he said he saw the black man in the red pickup truck. Elena remained curled up in the corner of the couch.
"Now you're sure it was a black man?" the detective asked.
"Positive," Harris said. "I'm just not so sure about the Raiders jacket."
"And you are sure the truck was red."
"Yes. But I'm not sure of the make. I don't know too much about trucks. Drive an Acura myself."
"Good cars, I've heard."
"Yeah, smooth on the highway. And stops on a dime."
"My cousin has one," the detective said, and looked up from his pad, "he says he'd never buy anything else."
"I'm with him," Harris nodded.
"Yeah, and the guy can afford whatever he wants. He's the president of Knight-Watson Accounting."
"He's got good taste in cars," Harris said, laughing lightly.
"But bad taste in women," the detective said. "Last wife took him to the cleaners."
"Well if he spent as much time shopping for a wife as he did when he was shopping for a car, he wouldn't have had such a problem!" Both men laughed. Elena hadn't been following the conversation. She was drifting through names in her head, trying to remember the names of all her classmates since kindergarten, and then reducing each name into all its possible nicknames and taunts.
When Harris closed the door behind the detective, Elena stood up and said, " How about Willomena?"
"Save it for your own baby," Harris said, and he scurried upstairs to check on the baby.
"Don't wake her," Elena said, and she followed him up the steps.
Harris flung open the closet door, then leaned down and put his hand against the baby's neck. She was cool and there was no pulse.
Elena leaned past Harris, cooing and making kissing sounds. Harris shrugged his shoulder to get her back.
"I may have given him a little too much," he said.
"Her," Elena hissed, "it's a girl!"
Harris picked up the baby from the suitcase, letting the sweater drop to the floor, and lay her on the bed. Elena followed behind him.
"So when will she wake up?"
"Never," Harris said, solemnly. "She's dead."
"What do you mean she's dead?" Elena didn't believe it.
"I overdosed her. Never happened before... to me at least, but I was in a rush, you were rushing me. I must have guessed the weight wrong."
Elena pushed Harris aside and leaned her face over the baby's.
"Can't you do CPR?"
"I don't remember how to do it on a baby," he said, and he said on the bed and put his face in his hands. Sirens were whining out on the street, howling like a pack of wolves. Harris shivered.
"You're a doctor! Do something! Do CPR!" Elena stood up straight, her head began to shake as if she was straining to pop it off her neck.
"It won't work. She's dead. I probably killed her right away. Feel her." Harris dropped a hand on the baby's bloated belly and nudged her. "She's already growing stiff. She probably died minutes after I dosed her."
"Haa-ris!" Elena screamed. "You're an anesthesiologist. You knock people out every day!"
"Yup," Harris groaned, his eyes half open as if her were willing himself not to expire.
"And you've never killed anyone before? You've never had to revive someone you killed?"
"No!" He looked up. "You know that. You know that I've never killed anyone."
"So here it is," Elena was sobbing, "here's your first big mistake, and you made it on my baby!"
"Jesus Christ Elena, could you cut me some slack?" Harris stood, suddenly energized. He picked up the baby; her back remained straight, as if she were strapped to a board. "First of all, it isn't your baby. If it was, you'd be a bit more hysterical than this."
"It is my baby," Elena stomped her foot like a child.
"It's a baby you knew for about an hour. NOT YOUR BABY. Secondly, you were freaking out and I rushed," Harris walked into the bathroom with the baby, "I rushed when I couldn't afford to rush, and here's what happened." He raised the baby in the air, as if he were making a toast.
Harris stepped onto the scale holding the baby. Then he stepped off and handed the baby to Elena, who held her out as if death were contagious. Black mascara tears were forming lines down Elena's cheeks, her nose was red and shiny and she appeared to be drooling as she sobbed. Harris wondered if he'd every recover from the sight of her, wet and disheveled, holding a dead baby. "Lingerie," he said to himself, imagining Elena in a red lace number he gave her on their honeymoon, then he stepped back on the scale.
"There you have it," he said, without looking at Elena. "I guessed his weight wrong."
"Her weight."
"I thought she weighed about 20 to 22 pounds. And she only weights 15 pounds. That's over a 30 percent increase. A 30 percent mistake."
"Doesn't... seem... like... so much," Elena choked between words. She held the baby out to Harris, a black tear dropped from her chin to the baby's forehead leaving a tiny splatter mark.
"Are you... sure you... can't do CPR?" She stuttered.
"Positive," Harris said, taking the baby and looking away. He lifted the baby then rotated her, examining her from all angles. "She must be about four or five months old."
"God Harris, you're so dumb!" Ellen shrieked, "Sometimes you are so dumb!"
"Elena," he snapped, "I said I was sorry."
"She's not four or five months old, she's older—she sits up by herself and has teeth!"
"Well, I guess she's just small. That's what killed her. If she had been a bigger baby she wouldn't be in the state she's in now."
Elena rushed out of the bathroom, wailing like a whinnying horse. She went into the bedroom where she changed into a thick, flannel nightgown. Harris followed her, continually flashing pictures of lingerie-clad Elena in his head. It disturbed him to see his wife like this, crying, ugly, looking at him with disgust. And he couldn't stand to look at the dead baby in his arms, to look at his first deadly blunder.
"To tell you the truth," Harris said, trying to calm Elena by remaining composed, "this is a lot easier to deal with now that she's dead. If she were alive there would be the issues of food, diapers, hiding her and all that. Now we just take her back where you found her and get on with our lives."
"Get on with our lives? Get on with our lives? I just found a perfect little baby in the snow. A perfect baby! No pregnancy, no bloated breasts, no gaping vaginal canal—nothing!" Elena pointed to her body parts as she mentioned them, then directed a shaking finger towards Harris and yelled, "A perfect baby without all the work, and YOU had to kill it!"
"I told you it was an accident," Harris said, frustrated. He lay the baby on the hand-made Persian rug in front of the dresser. "Thank God," Harris muttered, as he took relief in the fact that he hadn't killed the baby at work where he would be humiliated in front of his colleagues.
"An accident for godsakes!" he said to Elena.
"Well next time you decide to have an accident do it on someone who doesn't matter to me!"
Harris walked to the bed where Elena had buried herself under the covers. He pulled the patchwork comforter down to Elena's waist and picked up her hand.
"Elena, I'm sorry. I told you, if you want a baby, we'll get you pregnant."
"Don't you understand!" Elena sat up, her voice was deep and strained, the voice of nightmares and fear. "I don't want a baby. I wanted that baby. That baby. That was my baby. I found her. She was mine!" Elena threw her head into her hands. Her back quivered. Harris reached up and placed his palm on her shoulder. She shrugged him away, moaning and bobbing up and down, as if she were dovening.
"Well, maybe you'll find another one some day," Harris offered.
Elena raised her wet, blotchy face for an instant and glared at Harris.
Harris hissed long and slow, like a valve being opened. Then he stood and undressed for bed. Elena rolled to her side and pulled the covers up high against her neck.
"Don't worry about the baby," Harris said, climbing into bed, "I'll take her back."
Elena didn't respond.
"You know they won't stop looking until they have a body. And we want them to stop looking so that they'll get on with their other work. Catching crooks and all that."
Elena's back raised and lowered again. Harris pulled the crotch of his pajamas and rolled over.
"Goodnight," he whispered, pushing his rump back so it touched hers. Elena scooted away.
Around four in the morning, Harris woke up, put on surgical gloves, took the baby into the bathroom and scrubbed her body, sanding it down like a block of wood. Then he stuck the baby in a trash bag, and lay the bag on the floor while he dressed in a black cotton sweatsuit and tennis shoes.
Harris slipped out of the house into the cold with the bag flung over his shoulder like Santa Claus. He ran down the slippery sidewalk, made narrower by the encroaching snow. As he turned down the street where the baby was found, he saw several police cars parked out front. Harris turned and ran back toward his own house. He couldn't bring the baby into the house again; he wanted the dead-baby-fiasco to be over and done with. As he passed a neighbor's house, Harris tipped the plastic bag and dumped the stiff baby into a bank of smooth, moundy snow. The baby bounced on her head, making a dull knock, like wood against wood, then landed face up as she was found. Harris sprinted all the way home, being sure to stay on the sidewalk as not to leave any footprints.
"Baby's gone," Harris said, when Elena walked into the kitchen the next morning. He was having breakfast, a toaster-waffle and orange juice instead of tea, as there was still no milk.
Elena sighed and sat at the table across from him. She had washed her face, it was clear and shiny, blank like a turned-off television.
"We really need milk," Harris said, "Can't have my tea without milk."
Elena wiped a tear and then her nose with the same finger.
"Why don't you go out and buy yourself something special today," Harris reached his hand under the kitchen table and pinched her knee. "Something lacy, new underwear or something."
Elena looked up and nodded her head. She was wearing Harris' bathrobe, it looked like a giant yellowed beach towel. Harris imagined himself yanking it away, pulling it open like drapes in a dark room torn from a gleaming window. Underneath he'd find a shiny new Elena wearing white lace underwear; sharp, red fingernails on the tips of her hands that had never touched a dead baby.
"It was a mistake!" Harris suddenly said.
Elena swiped the top of her index finger against her nose and sniffed.
When Harris walked into the hospital that morning, he felt the power of reinvention. "Just look in my chart," he though, "never had an overdose. Not one." With each epidural, with each dose of morphine, with every vein tapped, Harris felt a rush of growing confidence. He stirred up that confidence during his drive home that night, cutting off slower and older cars, speeding through yellow lights, and passing a Porsche in the left lane. When he turned onto Cedar Road, using his flat right palm to rotate the wheel, Harris' stomach dropped. He shifted in his seat, pulling at the crotch of his pants. It had been snowing all day. Elena was out front shoveling snow from the walkway into the garden. She was wearing her black wool coat and a blue longshoreman's cap that someone had left at their house a couple of weeks back.
"Lingerie," Harris said, his voice sounding shallow in the sealed car, with the heater hissing fiery air onto his shoes.
Harris slowed the car as he approached the house. Elena had her back to him, she looked crooked and broken as she hunched over the shovel. Harris pressed his hot foot against the gas pedal and zoomed down the street.
Jessica grew up in Santa Barbara, California. She received her BA from The University of California, Berkeley, and her MA from Johns Hopkins University. She lived in Canada for several years and now lives in Baltimore with her husband David and her daughters Madeline and Ella.
