Picture Perfect Read online

  There was nothing about Alex in the mouth, in the shape of the fingers and feet, in the length of the torso. It was almost as if the lack of contact had diminished Alex's mark on his own infant.

  The baby burrowed closer to Cassie, demanding her heat. And she thought about how she was his only means of support--for food and shelter and warmth right now, and later, for love. He would come to her when he drew his first crayon picture, coloring half the kitchen table as well. He'd hold out a scraped elbow and believe a kiss could quit the sting. He'd open his eyes every morning and know, with that sunny childhood certainty, that Cassie would be there.

  He needed her, and that, Cassie realized, was the way in which he most resembled Alex.

  But this time, being needed wasn't going to be synonymous with being hurt. This was her second lease on life. She and this baby were going to grow up together.

  Will touched the baby's hand and watched his fingers close like a summer rose. "What are you going to call him?"

  The answer came to Cassie so quickly she realized that she had simply been carrying it all along. She thought of the very first time she had been loved by someone who wanted nothing in return. Someone who had given her enough hope to believe, years later, that Alex still might change, that there might be someone like Will, that a child might consider her his very world. "Connor," she said. "His name's Connor."

  WITHIN TWO WEEKS CASSIE WAS LIGHT ON HER FEET, JOYOUS. AFTER carrying around so much extra weight, she could not get used to the spring in her step. But she also knew that part of it came from a decision made only hours after she had given birth to Connor. She wasn't planning on leaving, not immediately. Maybe three months, maybe six, maybe longer. She told herself she wanted Connor to be strong before making the trip, and none of the Flying Horses challenged her. In fact, Cyrus had given her a traditional cradleboard as a baby gift, and when he passed it across his own bed, he had simply looked her in the eye. "It will be nice," he said, "to take him to next year's powwow."

  She was going to contact Alex as she'd promised; she owed it to him, but she had put it off for a week, and then Will's truck had broken down and she didn't have a way to get into Rapid City. So, blissfully free from her obligations, she sat on the porch with Dorothea, shelling peas for dinner.

  Connor was in his cradleboard, swaddled tight, wide awake. Most of the day he slept, so Cassie was surprised--she'd just finished feeding him and he was still alert, his light eyes surveying the landscape.

  "Giving up your nap?" she asked. She popped a pea into her mouth.

  "You," Dorothea scolded. "We won't have enough for tonight."

  Cassie put her bowl to the side and stretched out, lying back against the rough pine boards and staring at the sun. She could not look at it now without thinking of Will, of the puckered pink scars that still frowned across his chest.

  Connor started to cry, but before Cassie could even sit up, Dorothea had clapped her hand over the baby's mouth. Startled, Connor widened his eyes and fell quiet.

  Dorothea took her hand away and looked up to see Cassie staring at her, furious. "What the hell do you think you were doing?" Cassie demanded.

  It felt strange to be so self-righteous on someone else's behalf, especially when motherhood was such a new thing, like a pretty party dress you could take out of your closet and try on but felt nervous about wearing around all day. "He was crying," Dorothea said, as if this explained everything.

  "Yes, he was," Cassie said. "Babies cry."

  "Not Lakota babies," Dorothea replied. "We teach them early."

  Cassie thought of all the archaic family values she'd run across in cultural anthropology, including the Victorian tenet that children should be seen and not heard. She shook her head.

  Dorothea looked surprised herself. "I know it used to be done in the days of the buffalo because if one baby scared a herd away, the whole tribe would go hungry. I don't know why we bother anymore."

  "Well, I'd rather you didn't," Cassie said stiffly. But she was thinking of all the times she had lain beside Alex in the dark, stifling tears of pain. She remembered hearing the sound of his hand striking her, and her intake of breath, but never hearing a cry. She considered the lesson she'd learned in her marriage: that if you were quiet and blended into the background, you were less likely to make waves.

  She glanced at Connor, peaceful, willfully silent. One day, in the long run, it was a skill he might need.

  The truth of that nearly broke her.

  CASSIE SAT IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT OF ABEL SOAP'S JEEP, BENT FORWARD at the waist as if she'd been punched in the gut. She had borrowed the jeep to come to the feed and grain in town, which housed the nearest pay phone. Talking to Dorothea earlier had convinced her she could no longer put off the inevitable. She would call Alex and tell him where she'd been all this time. She would have to trust him with the truth.

  The thought made her slightly dizzy. There was no proof Alex had changed during the past six months, no indication he wouldn't lash out at her--and Connor--during a rage. She had left Alex so that her baby wouldn't suffer before it was born. How could she even be considering taking Connor back now?

  Her mind raced. She could leave Connor with Dorothea and Cyrus and go back to Alex herself, for a little while, just until she saw that things had changed. If she did it soon, in the first few months, Connor might never know the difference. But she couldn't leave Connor. She'd only too recently discovered him to be able to let go.

  She got out of the truck and walked into the store. Horace waved as she struck through the cluttered aisles toward the pay phone. For several moments she held the receiver in her hand, as if it had the same power and irrevocable impact as a loaded gun.

  When Alex's voice came over the line, her milk let down. Cassie watched the dark patches spread on her T-shirt and hung up.

  A few minutes later, she tried again. "Hello?" Alex said, irritated.

  "It's me," Cassie whispered.

  She could hear the background noise--water, or maybe a stereo--being switched off. "Cassie. God. Did you just call?" Alex's voice sounded round, filled to a bursting point with shock and joy and relief and other touches she could not name.

  "No," Cassie lied. This time, she could not let him sense her indecision. "You're all right?"

  "Cassie," Alex said, "tell me where you are." There was a silence. "Cassie,please ."

  She ran her fingers over the cold snake of metal that connected the receiver to the pay box. "I need a promise from you, Alex."

  "Cassie," Alex said, his voice low and urgent, "come home. It won't happen again, I swear it. I'll see anyone you ask me to. I'll do anything you want."

  "That's not the promise I need right now," Cassie said, stunned by the sacrifices he was willing to make to his pride just to have her return. "I'm going to tell you where I am because I don't want you to worry, but I want to stay here another month. I want you to swear to me that you won't come till then."

  He was thinking of what she could possibly be doing that would require another month away: some underground activity, or a delayed visa, or a calculated goodbye to a lover. But he forced himself to listen. "I swear," he said, digging for a pen. "Where are you?"

  "Pine Ridge, South Dakota," Cassie murmured. "The Indian reservation."

  "Thewhat ? Cassie, how--"

  "That's it, Alex. I'm going to get off now. I'll call in a month and we'll figure out how and when I'll come back. All right?"

  No, she could hear him thinking.It is notall right. I want you here, now, mine . But he didn't say anything and she took this as a sign of hope. "You won't break your promise?" she asked.

  She could feel him smile sadly all those miles away."Che`re," he said softly, "you have my word."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CASSIE pressed herself across Connor's fiery, wriggling body, pinning him to the examination table while two white nurses straightened his flailing arms to draw blood. Her head was just below Connor's mouth, and he was screaming conv