On the Doorstep. Dana Corbit

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СКАЧАТЬ the police and emergency workers first. Then Social Services. Or is it Social Services first?”

      Did she really expect the baby to answer? She shook her head, both to answer the ridiculous question and to pull herself together. She could do this. Even if she did work for a private agency rather than Social Services, she still was familiar with laws concerning abandoned children. She’d just never seen one close-up before.

      The first newborn wail came as Pilar dialed 911. The pitiful, hungry cry cut straight to her heart, making her feel helpless. She refused to give in to it. Maybe she couldn’t meet all of the baby’s needs at this moment, but she would do everything she could for him.

      Over the noise, she communicated the major details: abandoned live infant, appeared healthy, found at Tiny Blessings Adoption Agency. After she hung up the phone, having been assured that help was on the way, Pilar lowered herself into her office chair.

      The baby, though, would have none of it. He continued to protest until Pilar popped back up and started pacing. She walked, she swayed and she rocked. But nothing pacified him until, desperate, she washed her hand and popped her index finger into his mouth. As she moved him into a reclining position, he suckled greedily, still too new to understand he didn’t have the real thing.

      He was so perfect, a tiny bundle from God that someone didn’t have the wisdom to recognize. She would have recognized the gift, would have had the good sense to cherish it.

      As she touched his tiny hand, the baby grasped her index finger. Her chest ached. Her eyes filled. It was only another reflex, she reminded herself. He hadn’t chosen her and grabbed hold of her. Somehow, though, it still felt as if he had, as if an infant young enough to only differentiate comfort from discomfort had picked her, had placed his future in her hands.

      For a blip of a moment, she imagined them as more than foundling and rescuer. In that stolen, secret moment, she was just a regular mother caring for her beautiful son.

      In the distance, a siren fractured the silence, bringing her back to the real world where some people abandoned their children, while others only dreamed of a child to hold.

      The child dozed in her arms, still sucking occasionally on her finger. The image was so precious and melancholy at the same time. A postcard for a place she probably would never see for herself. She wished— No, it didn’t matter what she wished. She had no business letting the tale unfold in her thoughts, developing it like a play with costumes, scenery and makeup. Coveting was sinful.

      She slowly withdrew her finger from the baby’s mouth and shuffled to the door, reluctant to hand over her little charge but resigned to doing what was right.

      “Goodbye, little one.” As she passed through the entry to the front porch, she placed a kiss on his fuzzy blond head. A single tear broke through her defenses and inched down her cheek.

      “I don’t even know your name.”

      “His name’s Gabriel.”

      Detective Zach Fletcher couldn’t help being curious when Pilar’s head came up with a snap at his announcement. With five years under his belt as a beat cop and then another four years as a Chestnut Grove Police Department detective, Zach had developed a sixth sense about guilt, and Miss Estes had it written all over her. Only it didn’t make sense because she’d been the one to report the crime. What did she have to feel guilty about?

      Zach was grateful for Pilar’s suspicious reaction because it distracted him from the ghosts of the past hovering in his thoughts. The whole scene felt like a cruel déjà vu, and he wasn’t ready to return there. He wondered if he ever would be.

      Did Pilar worry he thought the baby was hers? He almost smiled at the thought. Even if he hadn’t seen Pilar at Chestnut Grove Community Church most Sundays for the last two years, he would have recognized that someone with a figure as slender as hers couldn’t have been pregnant recently. And only the worst detective would have linked the fair-skinned, light-haired infant with Pilar, who had olive skin, dramatic dark eyes and long black hair, due to her Puerto Rican heritage.

      “How did you beat the ambulance here?” She glanced at his car, which was parked up the street near hers. Instead of waiting for his answer, she crouched to retrieve the thick blanket from the basket and wrapped it lightly over the baby.

      “I was on my way to work, caught the call on the police radio. I live close by.” He chose not to mention that he couldn’t have kept away if he’d been ordered to, that he had this overwhelming need to make a difference this time when he’d failed so miserably before.

      “When will the ambulance arrive?”

      “In a few minutes.”

      He checked down the street and hoped he was right. When he glanced back at Pilar, he caught her watching him with a strange expression. Was it wariness? Or curiosity?

      Pilar looked away, but Zach continued to study her, for investigative purposes only. She was dressed in what he would describe as one of her trademark outfits: a ruffled, feminine blouse and a pair of tailored black slacks. Though she usually wore skirts to church, the theme was the same. It wasn’t just her choice of clothes that made her look tall. She was at least five-seven in stocking feet.

      Others might have been surprised that he could give such detail about a woman he didn’t know well, or that he was noticing even more specifics about her now—such as her open-toe shoes and dark painted toenails—but Zach considered it his job to remember details.

      What he noticed at that moment was how natural Pilar appeared, swaying with a baby she’d just discovered, literally, on the doorstep. The infant looked so comfortable sleeping there, as if this morning was like any other instead of one that would change his life.

      She wrapped the blanket tightly over the baby, though she shivered herself. He was tempted to drape his herringbone sport jacket over her shoulders but worried it might offend her or make her more skittish. Her skin appeared to be the only thing keeping her from shattering into dozens of pieces.

      Her uncharacteristic vulnerability surprised him. The Pilar Estes he’d observed at church had always seemed so strong, so independent. Her life and her family, all active members at their church, had appeared too perfect for the two of them to ever be friends. He’d experienced too-perfect at home and knew now what a fallacy it was.

      But Zach recognized the importance of keeping a careful distance from case witnesses. He couldn’t worry about Pilar right now when his focus needed to be on this new case and the abandoned infant. When he stepped closer to get a better look at the baby, he tried not to notice that Pilar took an automatic step back.

      “He had a rough morning, but our little guy doesn’t look too worse for the wear,” he said, keeping the conversation light. “God was watching out for him.”

      The sides of Pilar’s mouth pulled up at that. “How did you know the baby’s name was Gabriel?”

      “There was a note.”

      She seemed to accept that and didn’t even ask to see it. “He probably wasn’t outside too long. The mother even knew enough to swaddle him tightly so he wouldn’t be able to move and maybe be smothered in the blankets.”

      Zach ignored the hitch in his throat and said a quick prayer of thanksgiving over the mother’s insight. The situation could have been a lot uglier. “It wasn’t an average person who abandoned this baby.” He pointed СКАЧАТЬ