Out came a fawn that looked coated with plastic, like it’d been vacuum-packed for freshness. Two dark-pink balloon-looking things glistened with wetness. The placentomes. A hoof moved. It was alive.
Jimbo tried to think what to do next. He grabbed some shop towels, wet them, and began rubbing the fawn. How hard should he rub? He slid the fawn away from the doe and alternated between light and hard strokes. He’d had to pound hard on Darrell that time with the hot dog. When it finally popped out, it had been Jimbo who cried. Darrell had toddled off as if nothing had happened.
Jimbo tried not to think about those early days with Darrell.
“This is your brother — Darrell Sutt,” his father had said, like Jimbo might not remember his own last name. It was the first time Jimbo had seen his father that year, and as usual, James Sutt Sr. was drunk. Soon as he started sobering up, he was gone again. Jimbo’d practically raised himself and now he was saddled with raising someone else too. He’d tried to find out who Darrell’s mother was but hadn’t gotten far. If nothing else, Darrell’d been a good excuse to quit school. Most things, he learned the hard way. But they’d survived and because the woods were so full, not once had they gone hungry. Or taken charity, because Jimbo discovered hunters would pay good money for him to process their kill — enough for Darrell to get treatment at the hospital and eventually be admitted into the special school.
Maybe the fawn would turn out normal. With its blunt little button nose, tiny white hooves that hadn’t yet blacked, it looked so perfect. Tufts of hair and white spots scattered down the spine like pearls. It was startlingly beautiful and radiated a kind of luminescence that encircled the body like a halo. Could the fawn breathe? Did Jimbo need to peel the shiny stuff off?
Despite knowing just about everything there was to know about killing and processing deer, he knew nothing about their birthing. With Darrell and the Sutt track record, the last thing Jimbo needed was to become a father. Nothing about Darrell had ever been normal. He hadn’t even come with a birthday. Jimbo’d made that up too.
Images flashed through his mind: Darrell screaming in that makeshift pen. Darrell covered in red bumps. Darrell slamming his head on the floor. Darrell turning blue. Darrell falling into the fire. Darrell’s chest not moving for such a long time. But he was about to turn nineteen; they’d both survived.
Beginning with the nose, Jimbo worked at the spider weblike covering, and was making his way toward the tail when he sensed someone watching. He hadn’t heard anyone drive up. Damn electric cars. In his peripheral vision stood a woman who looked like Cassie except she was too round.
“Darrell asked me to take him back, so I did. It was the least I could do.” Her voice sounded flat and sleepy, but it was the most beautiful music in the world.
He couldn’t take his eyes away from her swollen belly. It looked liked she’d swallowed a basketball. Cassie was staring at the fawn. “It was pregnant too?”
Pregnant.
“Here, let me help.” She kneeled down and took a towel. “Your brother is sweet. I’ve always heard he was crazy but he seems nothing but nice.” She wiped at the fawn’s eyes and nose.
Realizing she was pregnant had paused Jimbo’s brain. He couldn’t think. There were things he needed to say, but breathing was about all he could manage. The noise inside his ears grew into a roar. Talking hadn’t exactly been their thing, yet over the weeks they’d spent together, he’d confided a couple things about Darrell and their father. She hadn’t said much about her own father but Jimbo gathered that Josiah DeBardelaiwin kept Cassie in a gilded cage.
Jimbo grabbed her by the wrist.
“Let me go,” she said, pulling away and trying to stand, but he squeezed until she gave up. She dropped the towel.
“Is it mine?” He wasn’t sure which answer he wanted — for it to be his or someone else’s.
Instead of getting up, she lifted the fawn’s head between her hands. “It’s none of your business.”
“You saying it ain’t mine?” He suddenly knew which answer he wanted.
She blew into the fawn’s nose. “I’m saying it’s none of your business.” She took a deep breath and blew again. The fawn’s face twitched. “Did you see that? It moved. Now what do we do?”
“Then whose is it?” he said. “Tell me.”
She slipped off her sweater and wrapped it around the fawn. “Is there milk in the mother?”
“Who else’d you fuck?” Jimbo spat, and palmed her belly like he might steal it, might take the ball and run down the court. “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”
Cassie sat back on her heels and pulled the fawn to her, as if that was her answer.
“I sensed it. Some things you just know in your bones.”
“I didn’t say it was a girl.”
“You didn’t have to. Your face said it.”
“You had a 50/50 chance.”
“I knew it, same as I know it’s mine.”
Cassie kept stroking the fawn. It blinked but didn’t move. “Aren’t they born walking?” she asked. “Maybe I should put it down.”
He wanted to hear Cassie say it was his. Even if he had to make her, he wanted her to say it. It was beginning to dawn on him that their two worlds were no longer separate. We have something in common, something that’s ours.
Cassie swallowed hard. “Here,” she said, guiding his hand. “Feel that?”
How could he not? Her belly heaved beneath her shirt. He could see it and feel it. But he wanted to see more. He lifted her shirt and with his eyes traced the veins that spread beneath the translucence. A fragrance rose to his nose — not fruity, not apple — just clean. Soap. He expected to be sorry, to be angry that he hadn’t used condoms with her. But the only thing he felt was aroused.
“Look. The fawn’s trying to walk,” Cassie said. “We’ve got to do something.”
“When’s it due?”
“Next week.”
“What day? Darrell’s birthday’s the first.”
“The second.”
The fawn struggled to steady itself.
Her belly button stuck out like a turtle. Jimbo kissed it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her belly heaved again. “They’re called Braxton Hicks contractions. They’re not the real ones,” she said, after slowly exhaling. “My father wouldn’t let me.”
Josiah DeBardelaiwin was a rich prick who thought he owned the entire state. He probably hated the idea that his blood had mixed with a Sutt.
“Say it. I want to hear it. Say it’s mine.”
“Look! It’s up.” The fawn was standing, each stick-thin leg quivering. As it wobbled, Cassie’s smile spread like a brush fire. Jimbo could drown in that smile; he’d die happy. That wild tongue. Those sharp teeth. Those pink lips. He wanted to put his tongue between her lips so badly that he grabbed her and pressed his mouth on hers so hard that her teeth cut his lip. When he tasted blood, he thought his heart had exploded.
“I love you,” he said. He opened his eyes.
She was still looking at the fawn.
“I’ll take care of the baby, I promise. I’ll be a good father. You’ll be surprised. Are you listening?” He’d do anything for his baby. He reached out and pulled the fawn to them. It weighed nothing, felt like grabbing air.