89

Kumash County, Eastern Washington

Mitch supported Kaye by one arm as she walked and waddled from one side of the room to the other.

“What are you going to call her?” Felicity asked. She sat in the room’s single blue vinyl chair, rocking the sleeping baby gently in her arms.

Kaye looked up at Mitch expectantly. Something about naming her child made her feel vulnerable and pretentious, as if this was a right even a mother did not deserve.

“You did most of the work,” Mitch said with a smile. “You have the privilege.”

“We need to agree,” Kaye said.

“Try me.”

“She’s a new kind of star,” Kaye said. Her legs were still wobbly. Her stomach felt slack and sore, and sometimes the pain between her legs made her feel a little ill, but she was improving rapidly. She sat on the side of the bed. “My grandmother was named Stella. That means star. I was thinking we’d name her Stella Nova.”

Mitch took the baby from Felicity. “Stella Nova,” he repeated.

“Sounds bold,” Felicity said. “I like it.”

“That’s her name,” Mitch said, lifting the baby close to his face. He smelled the top of her head, the moist rich heat of her hair. She smelled of her mother and much more. He could feel cascades of emotions like tumbling blocks falling into place inside, laying a firm foundation.

“She commands your attention even when she’s asleep,” Kaye said. Half-consciously, she reached up to her face and removed a dangling piece of mask, revealing the new skin beneath, pink and tender, with a radiance of tiny melanophores.

Felicity walked over and bent to examine Kaye more closely. “I don’t believe I’m seeing this,” she said. “I’m the one who should feel privileged.”

Stella opened her eyes and shuddered as if in alarm. She gave her father a long and puzzled look, then began to cry Her cry was loud and alarming. Mitch quickly handed Stella to Kaye, who pulled aside her robe. The baby settled in and stopped crying. Kaye again savored the wonder of her milk letting down, the sensual loveliness of the child at her nipple. The child’s eyes surveyed her mother, and then she turned her head, tugging the breast with her, and peered around the room at Felicity and Mitch. The tawny gold-flecked eyes made Mitch’s insides melt.

“So advanced,” Felicity said. “She’s a charmer.”

“What did you expect?” Kaye asked softly, her voice taking on a faint warble. With a small shock, Mitch recognized some of the baby’s tone in her mother’s.

Stella Nova warbled lightly as she suckled, like a small sweet bird. She sang as she nursed, showing her contentment, her delight.

Mitch’s tongue moved behind his lips in restless sympathy. “How does she do that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Kaye said. And it was evident that for the moment she did not care.

“She’s like a baby of six months, in some ways,” Felicity said to Mitch as he carried the bags in from the Toyota to the trailer. “She seems to be able to focus already, recognize faces…voices…” She hmmed to herself, as if avoiding the one thing that really separated Stella from other newborns. “She hasn’t spoken again,” Mitch said.

Felicity held the screen door open for him. “Maybe we were hearing things,” she said.

Kaye laid the sleeping child in a small crib in the corner of the living room. She arranged a light blanket over Stella and straightened with a small groan. “We heard right,” she said. She went to Mitch and lifted a patch of mask from his face.

“Ow,” he said. “It’s not ready.”

“Look,” Kaye said, suddenly scientific. “We have mela-nophores. She has melanophores. Most if not all of the new parents are going to have them. And our tongues…Connected to something new in our heads.” She tapped her temple. “We’re equipped to deal with her, almost as equals.”

Felicity appeared baffled by this shift from new mother to objective, observing Kaye Lang. Kaye returned her look with a smile. “I didn’t spend my pregnancy like a cow,” she said. “Judging from these new tools, our daughter is going to be a very difficult child.”

“How so?” Felicity asked.

“Because in some ways she’s going to run rings around us,” Kaye said.

“Maybe in all ways,” Mitch added.

“You don’t mean that, literally,” Felicity said. “At least she wasn’t born mobile. The skin color — the melanophores, as you call them — may be…” She waved her hand, unable to finish her thought.

“They’re not just color,” Mitch said. “I can feel mine.”

“So can I,” Kaye said. “They change. Imagine that poor girl.” She glanced at Mitch. He nodded, then explained to Felicity their encounter with the teenagers in West Virginia.

“If I were in the Taskforce, I’d be setting up psychiatric stations for parents whose new children have died,” Kaye said. “They might face a new kind of grieving.”

“All dressed up, and no one to talk to,” Mitch said.

Felicity took a deep breath and held her hand to her forehead. “I’ve been in pediatrics for twenty-two years,” she said. “Now I feel like I should give up and go hide in the woods.”

“Get the poor lady a glass of water,” Kaye said. “Or would you like wine? I need a glass of wine, Mitch. I haven’t had a drink in over a year.” She turned to Felicity. “Did the bulletin mention no alcohol?”

“No problems. Wine for me, too, please,” Felicity said.

Kaye put her face close to Mitch’s in the small kitchen. She stared at him intently, and her eyes lost their focus for a second. Her cheeks pulsed fawn and gold.

“Jesus,” Mitch said.

“Get that mask off,” Kaye said, “and we’ll really have something to show each other.”

90

Kumash County, Eastern Washington

”Let’s call it a Brave New Species party,” Wendell Packer said as he came in through the screen door and handed Kaye a bouquet of roses. Oliver Merton followed with a box of Go-diva chocolates and a big smile and eagerly darted his eyes around the inside of the trailer.

“Where’s the little wonder?”

“Asleep,” Kaye said, accepting his hug. “Who else is here?” she called out, delighted.

“We smuggled in Wendell and Oliver and Maria,” Eileen Ripper said. “And, lo and behold…”

She swung out her arms to the dusty old van sitting on the gravel drive under the lone oak tree. Christopher Dicken was climbing down from the front passenger side with some difficulty, his legs stiff. He took a pair of crutches from Maria Konig and turned to the trailer. His one good eye met Kaye’s and for a moment she thought she was going to cry. But he lifted a crutch and waggled it at her and she smiled.

“It’s bumpy out here,” he called.

Kaye ran past Mitch to gingerly hug Christopher. Eileen and Mitch stood together as Kaye and Christopher talked.

“Old friends?” Eileen asked.

“Probably soul mates,” Mitch said. He was glad to see Christopher, as well, but could not help feeling a little twinge of masculine concern.

The living room was too small to hold them all, so Wendell braced his arm against the cabinet in the hall and looked down on the rest. Maria and Oliver sat together on the couch under the picture window. Christopher sat in the blue vinyl chair, with Eileen perched on one arm. Mitch came in from the kitchen with bouquets of wine glasses in each fist and a bottle of champagne under each arm. Oliver helped set them down on the round table beside the couch, and carefully popped the corks.

“From the airport?” Mitch asked.

“Portland airport. Not as big a selection,” Oliver said.

Kaye brought out Stella Nova in a pink bassinet and placed her on the small, scuffed coffee table. The baby was awake. Her eyes moved sleepily around the room and she blew a tiny bubble of spit. Her head wobbled a bit. Kaye reached down to adjust her pajamas.