Bad Seed 2

Mrs. Wilson was looking out the window. She was looking out the window in her beautiful, pristine, cool kitchen. She was looking at the neatly trimmed grass of her cool, green, empty back yard. She was holding a baby.

Mr. Wilson was watching her, empty confusion written across his features. The house, and the kitchen in it, was dim in the light of the setting sun. Lights seemed to bother the child, and his wife hadn't put him down once since he'd arrived that morning in a simple looking car, delivered by a simple looking man. He was the sort of man who the eyes of their neighbors would slide off of the instant that they noticed him, and if Mrs. Wilson had been in a position to think about things, she would've considered that a small blessing.

"I suppose, we ought to have some sort of celebration," she whispered barely loud enough for her husband to hear. "The neighbors will expect a celebration after our successful adoption. If we act happy, they won't think twice about any of this. It's not like his picture will be in the news."

She was still staring out the window. He was still staring at the back of her head. The baby was still asleep.

"You have a sister."

"Had, a sister," she whispered absentmindedly. "She's gone now."

"How is that possible? I've known you for five years, how can you have some sister I don't know about?"

But Mrs. Wilson said nothing.

Mr. Wilson rose and began to pace. "There has to be somebody else. They said he'd been missing? Where did they find him?"

"There was no one at the house when they got there," she answered in a flat whisper, her eyes never moving from the unknown point in the yard where they had alighted. "No one alive. Both of them had been shot, and the baby was gone. None of the neighbors had even known there was a baby there. If anyone heard the shots, no one called the police. She could've been there for weeks for all they cared." Her voice broke before she could continue and she closed her eyes hard and fast against the world that she had drawn around her like a fortress.

Her sister had been two years younger. Her sister had had dirty blonde hair. She could never stay out of messes or mud. She could never stay out of back alley brawls. She could never have survived in the world on her own.

"She didn't show up for work. Her boss said she'd never missed a day, so he called someone. The baby had been gone when they got there. There wasn't a gun in the house. He had to be somewhere."

Circe with the eyes that sparkled and the laugh that carried even through the broken glass and rusted nails that littered the ground no matter how hard Penelope tried to clear it.

Mrs. Wilson was crying silently, and the baby slept through her tears.

Mr. Wilson wrapped his arms around her, pulling her stiff form against him, cradling her head against his chest.

"There was no one else," no one else they could find, and Penelope Wilson wasn't as surprised as she could've hoped to be. 'The family' always had a good way of slipping back into the cracks and shadows whenever there was a tab to be paid or a responsibility to be covered.

"But even if there had been..." Even if there had been, Penelope Wilson didn't know how she could condemn the sleeping weight in her arms to that life. For years she had turned her face to the sun and let the reality of where she came from slip away. She had lied to herself and told herself that none of it happened, that none of them were real, that she had never had a sister.

And now she didn't have a sister.

This boy was real. This boy was a real, solid, breathing life in her hands. She thought of what would happen to him, passed from home to home, never wanted, never cared for, unless it was by someone who had something they wanted from him.

Mr. Wilson was frowning as he held the shaking body of his wife. He really was a normal man, a faceless man, a man like countless that you might know right now. He had never had any real shadows to run from. He had never known the touch of exploitation or the sting of neglect. He had always  had a normal life, and had planned to have it still.

But in that moment, he became more than he had been before.

"He's your family."

Mrs. Wilson sobbed at the word but nodded her head, willing herself not to drop out of consciousness.

"Then he's mine too."

And he turned her in his arms, looking down into the pale face of the dark-haired boy who merely a day before he hadn't known existed. The child was small and sallow. He didn't know what had happened to bring him into this world or why his wife had hidden so many things from him,  but he loved her. And in that moment, he loved the child as well.

Penelope Wilson had lost all scope of normal as her ears buzzed with the static of her husband's words. She looked up at him with eyes that were wide and more awake than they'd been in ears. "What if they find us, Charles?"

He didn't know. He didn't know who would be looking.

"Uncle Steve... The man who had him when they found him, they have him in custody now, but if he killed my sister, if he took this child, then he can find us." She sank to her knees, and her husband sank with her, keeping his arms around her as she began to rock back and forth.

"The police have him," Mr. Wilson murmured gently. "The police have him and everything will be okay. That's their job."

Penelope knew that that wasn't always the  case, but without knowing what else to do, she nodded bleakly.

"Charles... I never wanted you to know..."

And he kissed her. And in his eyes, she was as clean and pristine and cool as the home that she had cultivated for the three years that they'd been married. And if she had her secrets, he didn't care. And if she wanted to be hidden, he would hide her behind lacy white curtains and a brick-front house. Mr. Wilson would love his wife just as he always had, and he would love his sons too. Both of them.