We are at Pleasant Lake. The wind eases through the alder and rattling oak, and the chop slaps and crosshatches. The hummingbird makes its fruitless daily call upon the plastic lavender bells, the wasps continue their morning work in the shore mud. And in this silence the baby startles.
I whisper to him that it is only her stirring. For I know when I think too strongly of her she comes, she cannot bear to keep from children. It must be so, for otherwise what comfort is death, if you cannot do what you want?
It is matins for me and Obie the baby sleeps. The lake is a radio of voices. And I, it appears, am a childnapper.