Bloodchild Read Free

feeding, when Harlan came to her, she had other ideas.
    "I want to name him Nikos," she said.
    "Nikos? You're kidding. Nikos?"
    "I'm not kidding," she said with vivid indignation. "What's wrong with it?"
    "Nothing's wrong with it. It's just… well, why Nikos?"
    "I don't know. It came to me and I like it so much. Please, Harlan."
    Actually it had come to her in a dream, a dream in which she had envisioned Nikos as a handsome young man, only… only in the dream he didn't have the carrot-colored hair. He had black hair; dark blue eyes, the whiteness around the pupils almost luminescent; and skin as pale yellow as old bones.
    Harlan shrugged. He was disappointed, of course, but he figured she had been the one to go through all the suffering. If Nikos was the name she wanted… let it be Nikos.
    "Okay." He smiled and shook his head. She kissed him gratefully and he went out to see the baby. Nikos was asleep, just like he was every time he came to the hospital during the day. The only time Harlan saw him awake was in the early evening.
    Now, in the car, as if Nikos understood he was being taken from the hospital, he lay in Dana's arms, eyes wide open, quietly expectant.
    "Looks like he knows he's going home," Harlan said.
    "Of course he does," Dana replied. She kissed the baby's cheek and brought him even closer to her breast. "The nurses told me that during the night he was the most alert infant they'd ever seen. He's going to be very smart, aren't you, Nikos?"
    "If he says yes, I'll drive off the road," Harlan kidded, and they started away, heading for their home in Centerville Station. "Oh, I'm going to pick up Jillian at ten-thirty tomorrow. She got the flight into Newark."
    Dana didn't even acknowledge what he had said. She continued to stare down at the baby, who stared up at her. It was as if mother and child could not take their eyes off each other, even for an instant.
    Jillian, Dana's mother, was flying in from Tampa to help with the baby. That was another thing that struck him as unusual—Dana's reaction to her mother's offer after he had finally decided to call and tell her everything.
    "You shouldn't have told her the truth," Dana had said. "You should have let her believe Nikos was actually my baby. Now she thinks I'm an invalid and I can't take care of my own infant."
    Harlan was surprised at Dana's comment because he knew that she and her mother had a very good relationship. Although Jillian was in her mid-sixties, she looked more like a woman in her early fifties. He had always known her to have a youthful, vibrant view of life, even after the tragic death of Dana's father in a boating accident off the Florida Keys. Jillian was a strong-willed, independent, and rather beautiful woman. When Dana and she were together, they were more like two sisters.
    "You can't be serious, honey," he had replied. "Surely you realize she would have learned the truth shortly after arriving, and then—"
    "Then nothing. I can take care of my own infant," she had repeated, and had almost gone into a sulk about it. He imagined it was part of the postdelivery blues, something Dr. Friedman had warned him about only the day before. The trauma, then the drama of burying one child and taking on another the same day had to have some effect on her as well. If he hadn't kept himself so busy these last few days, marking student themes, it would have had as dramatic an effect on him, he thought, and left it at that.
    She turned the baby so he could see its face. The child was staring up at him, but he couldn't smile. Of course, he thought, it was only his imagination, but the infant looked angry. It was as if… as if it took on Dana's moods instantly, as if all that nonsense about breast feeding developing a strong bond between mother and child were true.
    He shook his head and drove on.
     
    Colleen Hamilton paused after she stepped out the south exit of Centerville High and watched as the boys emerged from the gymnasium entrance and ran up