Her voice got more and more runny, the words souping together. She let go of my wrist, and started crying. She lifted her hands and curled her fingers toward the tight skin on her palms, and held them near her face but not touching it. Her tears trickled into the flipper scars that her final touching of Lavender had left on her face. Her crying woke the baby up, and she started crying, too. Her little face got red and her mouth gaped open, but no sound came out. Then my Mom said to her, in the most terrible voice I've ever heard, "Baby, what'd you come here for? I got nothing to give you. I got nothing to give anyone." And she rolled over and turned her back on her.

I stood there, watching them, thinking that any minute Mom would turn back and pick her up and take care of her. But a long time passed, and Mom just lay there, crying all shaky, and the baby lay there, all red and crying without sound.

So I picked her up. I knew how, I used to hold Janice's baby before she gave her kids away. I held her against my chest, with her head on my shoulder so it wouldn't wobble. I carried her around and rocked her, but her face stayed red and she kept breathing out through her mouth, really hard. She didn't make any sound when she cried, but I thought maybe newborn babies didn't cry out loud. I thought she might be hungry. So I went in the kitchen and I checked the refrigerator, to see if Mom had bottles and government aid formula in plastic envelopes like Janice used to have. And there was, so I warmed one up in the microwave until the plastic button on it turned blue to show it was the right temperature. Then I sat down and put the bottle in her wide open mouth. But she acted like she didn't even know it was there, and kept up her unbearable screaming.

I sat down on the couch with her on my lap. Her little legs were curled up against her belly. I looked at her red wrinkly feet and her teeny toes. My old T-shirt looked dopey on her, and I wished I had something better for her to wear. Maybe she was cold. So I pulled a corner of my blanket up over her. Her mouth stayed open and her face stayed red. I really wished I had a suck-on thing to stick in her mouth. But I didn't. So I started rocking her on my lap, and singing this song Janice used to sing to baby Peggy, about a mockingbird and a ponycart and all sorts of presents the baby would get if she'd be quiet. And right away she closed her mouth, and went back to being pink instead of red. She opened her eyes that she'd squinched shut and looked right at me. Her eyes were kind of a murky blue. I looked into them and I knew Mom had lied. Because she looked at me just the way Lavender used to, when I didn't know if he was looking at my face or at something inside my head. I knew she was his, and as long as I had her, he wasn't really gone. This baby was something he'd touched, something he'd left for me to hold onto and keep. Part of him for me to keep.

I suddenly felt shaky and my throat closed up so tight I couldn't breathe or sing, but she didn't seem to mind now. She just kept looking up at me and I kept looking at her, and I wondered if this was what Lavender had meant about closing a circle. Because I knew she was loving me as much as I loved her. It was as important as he had said it was. I held her until her eyes closed, and then I carefully lay down on the couch with her on my stomach and my blanket over us. Her face was against my neck, breathing, and every now and then her mouth would move in a wet baby kiss. Before I fell asleep, I named her Lisa, from an old song Lavender used to sing about Lisa, Lisa, sad Lisa, Lisa.

After that, she was more my baby than Mom's. Coming home to her was like coming home to Lavender. I meant that much to her. She was always crying and wet when I got home. Mom never seemed to notice when she needed changing, and even if she hadn't been deaf, she wouldn't have heard this baby cry. So I'd clean her up and feed her and hold her and rock her. And I'd sing to her. She liked that the best. She was just like my Mom that way. I got the idea of tuning the stereo to an all-music station and leaving it on for her when I had to go to school in the morning. Since our place had been trashed, the stereo always had a background sound like cars going by in a wet street, but Lisa didn't care. I'd put her down in the morning and turn on the stereo for her, and she'd still be happy when I got home from school. She slept with me at night, since I was afraid she'd fall out of Mom's bed. But my couch was perfect, because I could put her between me and the back of it, and she'd be safe all night long, just as safe as the little mice nesting inside it.

A new pattern came into my life. I was taking care of things, taking care of the Mom, just like Lavender had told me, and taking care of him, in the form of Lisa. Mom didn't have to do much at all. She got her checks, and kept the house clean. I took the checks to the store and got food and sometimes a few extra little things for Lisa. She loved anything that made a noise, rattles, bells, anything. The only time Mom got mad was when I spent seven dollars on a stuffed lamb with a music box inside it. She yelled at me in her mushy voice, because to get it I had to buy tofu instead of hamburger and skipped getting margarine and eggs and jam. But it was worth it to watch Lisa wave her little fists excitedly every time the lamb started playing.

After four or five months, I noticed Mom wasn't keeping the house as clean. She still swept and stuff, but not like before, and I was doing almost all the cooking. Something had gone out of Mom and left her flat, something more than just a baby coming out of her stomach. I think she had expected more, had thought that Lisa was going to be better somehow. Disappointed was how she acted at first, and then later, disinterested. I felt mad about it, and I'd try to make her pay more attention to Lisa. I'd take her to Mom and show her how Lisa was learning to smile, or how she could sit on her own. But it didn't do any good. Mom would hold her awhile and look at her, and then she'd go set her down on the couch, without even making sure she couldn't roll off. She never talked to Lisa or played with her. And after a while I knew she never would. So I started loving her even more, to make up for Mom not loving her.

It got harder as Lisa got bigger. Summer went okay, but by the time school started again, it wasn't safe for me to leave her all day. I tried putting her in a cardboard box while I was gone, but it was hard to find ones that were strong enough. She'd get hold of the edges and try to stand up, and I was afraid she'd fall. She was eating more, too, so even if I left a bottle inside her box for her, she'd still be really hungry when I got home. Mom didn't notice her at all, and of course she couldn't hear Lisa's silent crying. Mom didn't seem to notice much of anything. She'd tidy up the house each day, and then just sit at the table. Late at night, she might put a scarf around her face and go out for a walk. But that was about all she did, and it didn't make me feel any safer about leaving Lisa all day. So after Christmas I just didn't go back to school and no one ever noticed.

When I think about those days, with Lisa starting to be a real person and all the time we had together, they're almost as good as the days with Lavender. Lisa's eyes turned brown, but they never lost that Lavender look, where she could look right through me while I rocked her to the music. Her hair was dark like Mom's, but curly at the back of her head, and she was almost always smiling. I hated dressing her in stuff made from old T-shirts. The stuff was too small, and Mom hadn't made her any new clothes. So I asked the aid lady who came about once every two months then, and she told me where I could get baby clothes that rich people gave away. She gave me slips for Lisa and me and Mom, and helped me write down the right sizes on them. That aid lady wasn't too bad.