In Which An Unorthodox Familial Structure Is Established
Joe stumbles in late one night with a baby in his arms. "His name's Alex Marshall, and he doesn't have anyone else, and I just didn't know what else to do."
Macy eyes the baby with a little trepidation, but Greta, who had younger siblings, takes the bundle from Joe and says, "Come have something to eat, there's leftovers on the stove. We can talk once you've eaten, but you look done-in, Joe."
He looks at Macy, who hasn't said a word yet, and says, "I know bringing home orphan babies wasn't on offer when you said I could stay here, Mace, and if you want I'll take him and move in somewhere else, but I couldn't--"
Macy shakes her head, says, "No, of course you couldn't. And no one's moving out. Come sit down, Joe."
When Joe's eaten, he looks up and says, "His mother was a street whore, but then the baby came along and she had to do something else, tried working as a barmaid, did a stint cleaning uptown, but she took sick and the babe's sick, and there was no one to care for either of then and now she's dead. I couldn't leave him."
"Of course you couldn't," Macy says, smiling now, a little, and touching Greta's arm.
"Could I maybe hold him? If he's be a member of the family, we ought to get to know one another."
Great holds out the baby, places him carefully, so carefully, into Macy's uncertain arms. She looks up at Greta and Joe, smiling tentatively. "I've never held a baby before."
"Well, get used to it, love," says Greta. "He likes you."
Macy looks down and sees that the baby is smiling.
* * *
Macy was feeling slightly more confident around the little infant when she told Joe and Greta "It will be fine, like you said, he likes me. Besides, you can't take a babe on the rounds, and the Foundry is no place for one either."
Her confidence lasted nearly an hour. At which point, Alex woke up and began screaming.
Macy knows that babies need milk in one end, and the other end cleaned, and there was something Joe said about burping, but that was pretty much the entirety of Macy's child-rearing knowledge.
Every time she approached the child, the wailing got louder. Macy had no idea how to deal with the volume such a small child could produce. She also had no idea that a baby could make such smells.
(And given that Macy's sense of smell is pretty much shot after years of apothecary fires, it must reek).
Macy paced, and fretted. She was honestly starting to wonder if the child was going to do himself serious injury, he had been screaming for so long. She's out of tricks; it was time to call in a specialist.
Macy stuffed some soft cotton in her ears, wrapped the child securely in a blanket, and made a beeline for the little set of rooms above the chandlery.
Her hands are too full of baby, and she's too scared to shift him to one arm to knock, but the baby is making enough noise to wake the dead. The sleeping stood no chance, and Kevin wrenched the door open, bare-chested and heavy-eyed. "Macy?" he said over the wails. "Why do you have a baby?"
Macy just thrust the bundle, blanket and all at him. "Help me!" she wailed almost as loud as the baby.
Kevin has never let Macy down yet, and today is no exception. He tugs open the blanket to look at the red, wailing face, then cradles the infant against his chest with one arm. He swings the blackened kettle over the banked fire, never ceasing the gentle bouncing motion, murmuring softly an old song.
He seems entirely unaffected by the wailing, which after a minute or two, miraculously, begins to taper off.
By the time the kettle has boiled, the baby is fast asleep.
Kevin puts the teapot on the table as Macy sank gracefully into one of the chairs. Kevin sits down next to her more carefully as he brushed the child's forehead with a delicate sweep of his thumb. "I haven't done this since Frankie was a babe," he said, smiling. Satisfied that the child was truly asleep, he looked up at Macy. "Now, want to tell me what's going on?"
Clutching her tea like a lifeline, she sketched out the highlights of the story.
Kevin's expression is closed. "He can't, he..." he catches himslf and falls silent as he stares at the sleeping face in his arms. "Of course he did," he says to himself at last. "Here, let me show you hold to hold him, then I'll see if we have anything that you might need from when Frankie was small..."