Fiction by Charles Fink

Charles K. Fink has a Ph.D. in philosophy and taught as a professor at Miami-Dade College for thirty years. His family has deep Southern and Western roots—sharecroppers in Louisianna, plantation owners in Georgia, Confederate soldiers in North Carolina, sheep ranchers in Texas. He lives in Florida with his wife and three cats. His philosophical writings have appeared in Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of Philosophical Research, Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Asian Philosophy, and Buddhist Studies Review, among other journals. This is his first published work of fiction.

The Miracle Baby

Clora was propped up in her hospital bed, cradling her new bundle of joy in a pink felt blanket. It was a bright spring day, and Clora’s blond hair shimmered in the sunlight that streamed diagonally into the room through an open window. The new mother lifted a corner of the blanket from the baby’s face, looked down, and then covered the baby’s face again, as if opening and closing a giftbox. This she did repeatedly, but each time she looked down, it seemed as if she was hoping for a different gift. In the doorway, Clora’s mother, Myrtle, suddenly appeared. She was a plump woman, barely five-feet tall, and seemed to have difficulty finding clothes that fit her oddly shaped frame. What she was wearing today—a frumpy green dress that hung over her like a tent—was no exception. She was standing in the doorway, breathing heavily and clutching her purse against her bosom with both hands.

“Mama!” Clora exclaimed, covering her baby’s face with the pink blanket.

“Walked up…three flights…of stairs,” Myrtle said, breathlessly. She lingered in the doorway for a few moments, panting, but soon caught sight of the pink-blanketed bundle in Clora’s arms. “Is that my brand-new granddaughter?” she giggled, clutching her purse even tighter to her bosom.

“Yes,” Clora said shyly. “This is her all right.”

Myrtle waddled toward Clora with outstretched arms and stopped abruptly at her bedside.

“Why do you have her little face covered?” she asked, dropping her arms.

“No reason.”

“No reason? Well, then, can I see her?” 

Clora slowly lifted a corner of the felt blanket, gradually revealing the baby’s face. “Ain’t she pretty?” she gushed, as if marveling at new piece of jewelry. “I’ve named her ‘Vernina’ after her daddy—her daddy, Vernon…Vernon’s her daddy.”

“I know who you’re married to, Clora,” Myrtle said, eyeing her daughter curiously. Bending over slightly, she took a deep breath as she beheld the little angel for the first time. Vernina was indeed a pretty baby. But what struck Myrtle was that unlike Clora or Vernon, or anyone else in the family for that matter, Vernina had thick, straight black hair, brown eyes, and was as tanned as a Hawaiian surfer. Myrtle looked up at Clora and stated the obvious. “You been sleeping with a Mexican.”

Clora gasped. “How can you say such a thing, Mama?” She covered the baby’s face and turned away from her mother.

“Because I have eyes.”

“Leave it to you to rain on my parade.”

“And you know who else got eyes?”

“Stop it, Mama.”

“That husband of yours. That’s who. He got two of them. Two big blue eyes, just like you.”

“I said stop it, Mama.”

“And you know what else he got just like you?”

“I’m not listening, Mama.”

“Blond hair.”

“No more, Mama.”

“And both of you is as white as sheets.” Myrtle looked up prayerfully at the ceiling. “Oh Lord, why did I live to see this day?” Then she collapsed on a chair beside Clora’s bed, dropped her purse on the floor, and buried her face in her hands. After a long moment, she mumbled into the palms of her hands, “This is why you didn’t want Vernon to be here when you had the baby. Right?”

“I can barely hear you, Mama,” Clora said, still looking away from her mother. “Not that I want to, but I can’t understand what you’re saying when you talk into your hands.”

Myrtle ignored her daughter. “You didn’t want Vernon to be here,” she mumbled, “because you wanted to know what the baby looked like before he did.” She parted her fingers and peeped through the narrow spaces between them at Clora. “Am I right?”

“No, you are not right,” Clora said indignantly. “This baby’s Vernon’s. I just wanted time to do my hair before he came here. That’s all. I always try to look my best for my sweet Vernon.”

Myrtle peeked through the gaps between her fingers at Clora’s lacquer-soddened hair, woven into a hornet’s nest atop her head. It reminded her of cotton candy. “Clora, what are you going to tell Vernon?”

“Well,” she began, pausing momentarily to formulate her thoughts. “They say that there’s Indian in our family.”

“They do?”

“Yes, they do. It goes way back to cowboy times. So, I figure this Indian’s been hiding in our family for a long, long time and finally just popped out in little Vernina.”

“Popped out? Like a jack-in-the-box?”

“Something like that.”

Myrtle dropped her hands onto her lap, leaned back, took a deep breath, and again looked up prayerfully at the ceiling. “Oh Lord, why did you not run me over with your chariot of fire?” Then she lowered her head and sighed. “Clora?” Clora stubbornly refused to face her mother. “Clora, look at me.” After a moment, she turned her head and glared defiantly at Myrtle. “You don’t got no Indian in you. You’re Irish. All four of your grandparents was born in Dublin. That’s in Ireland, in case you don’t know. None of them were cowboys. And that husband of yours, Vernon Kelly, he’s Irish too. As Irish as a leprechaun. As Irish as a drunken brawl. Ain’t no way two Irish palefaces like you and Vernon have an Indian baby.”

“Well, then, I guess Vernina’s a miracle baby.”

“A miracle baby?”

“These things happen, you know. I bet you Mary’s husband, Joseph, was awful surprised when baby Jesus was born and didn’t look a thing like him but was the spittin’ image of God.”

“That’s because God was his father, Clora.”

Clora did not respond. She just glared at Myrtle with the same defiant look she always had when her mother caught her in a big lie. But Clora could not maintain the false façade for long, and when it crumbled, a wave of panic swept over her like flood water over a failed levee. “Oh, don’t tell Vernon, Mama,” Clora pleaded. “Please, don’t tell him.” She lifted a corner of the pink felt blanket so that Myrtle could see her granddaughter’s sweet face. “For her sake, Mama, don’t tell Vernon.”

“I ain’t going tell him nothing. It’s not my place. You going be the one to tell him.”

“But I can’t, Mama,” she whined, tossing the blanket back over the baby’s face. “Don’t you understand? It would break his heart. I can’t do that to my sweet Vernon.”

“No? But you can cheat on your sweet Vernon and lie to him about who that baby’s daddy is?”

“Oh, you can make anything sound bad.”

The conversation between Clora and her mother continued for several more minutes. Naturally, Myrtle was curious to know who Vernina’s actual father might be. She wasn’t exactly relieved to learn that it was Ramón Jimenez, a former foreman on the family’s cucumber farm in Homestead. 

But she had always wondered why he simply vanished one day, and at least now she had an explanation. Clora spoke dreamily about the first time she saw Ramón. He was standing arms akimbo in front of his ’47 Ford pickup truck with the jail-bar grille, and he was so rugged and so manly and, well, so not Vernon that, of course, she was attracted to him, and what began as an innocent flirtation soon blossomed into a romance.

“But you don’t speak no Mexican,” Myrtle interjected.

“And he don’t speak no American,” Clora riposted. “So, we’s even.”

Then she told her mother that she was trying to decide whether to leave Vernon for Ramón when she learned that she was pregnant. Obviously, she had to know who the baby’s father was before making up her mind.

“Obviously,” her mother said.

So, being a God-fearing woman, she prayed for a sign. Whose baby was she carrying? Clora thought she had an answer when Ramón vanished after she told him that she was pregnant.

“How did you tell him that?” Myrtle queried. An understandable question, given that neither of them spoke a word of the other’s language.

Clora explained that she pointed at her belly and then pretended like she was cradling a baby in her arms and rocking it back and forth. Ramón instantly understood. “¡Santa mierda, estos gringos me van a matar!” was what he said, and then he was gone. He simply vanished, as if spirited up into heaven by a whirlwind.

“Like the prophet Elijah?” Myrtle wondered aloud.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Clora said with surprise, as if Myrtle had read her mind.

Obviously, this was a sign.

“Obviously,” her mother said.

Clora knew that God would not have snatched up Ramón if the baby had been his. But now, well, she didn’t know what God was up to with her having an Indian baby.

“So, you reckon what happened to Ramón is that God snatched him up into heaven?” Myrtle asked, bewildered by her daughter’s theology.

“Maybe?” Clora responded, but in a tone of voice suggesting that even she was having difficulty swallowing this explanation. “These things happen, you know. I bet you Elisha was sure surprised when he saw Elijah get sucked up into heaven by that whirlwind.”

“I bet you he was,” her mother concurred. “And don’t forget about that fiery chariot Elijah rode up on. I bet you that was quite a sight too.”

The two theologians stared silently at one another for a spell, nodding their heads in agreement.

Then Clora’s expression suddenly changed. Looking past Myrtle toward the doorway, she grinned guiltily and, without moving her lips, growled at her mother, “Don’t tell Wernon nothing. You romised.”

“I can’t understand you, dear, when you don’t move your lips,” Myrtle snarled back. “But I didn’t romise nothing.” Then she turned around in her chair to see who her daughter was grinning at on the opposite side of the room.

There, in the shadow of the doorway, wearing a pair of black leather shoes that seemed too big for his feet, and a pair of black wool pants that seemed too short for his legs, and a white, tieless, short-sleeved cotton shirt which, buttoned chokingly at the collar, seemed too tight for his neck, stood a young man, pale and thin, that was in all ways so unlike Ramón Jimenez that the only basis of comparison between them was that they belonged to the same species. “Walked up…three flights…of stairs,” he said, breathlessly. Then he held an asthma inhaler up to his mouth and puffed twice.

The next morning, Vernon Kelly was sitting, inhaler in hand, in a leather upholstered chair across from Doctor Thaddeus O’Brien who sat, cigar in mouth, in a swivel chair at his desk. Vernon had called O’Brien to arrange this meeting as soon as he had arrived home after visiting Clora in the hospital and seeing their daughter, Vernina, for the first time. It was O’Brien—the Kelly’s family doctor for longer than anyone could remember—who delivered the baby, and Vernon had a few questions for the old doctor.

“I was wondering…” Vernon said but then fell silent.

O’Brien adjusted the position of the wire-rimmed glasses on his nose. He adjusted the tug of the bowtie around his neck. He adjusted the pull of the suspenders on his shoulders. “Wondering about anything in particular, son?”

Vernon cleared his throat and began again. “I was wondering whether you got a good look at Vernina in the delivery room?”

“Vernina? Your baby girl? No, son,” O’Brien said, shaking his head. “No, you got to understand. A delivery room, well, it’s like a murder scene. What with all that screaming and blood everywhere. And it’s not just a baby that comes out of a woman, you know, but that godawful placenta. And the baby and the placenta, they’s tied together by a squiggly umbilical cord and oh my god—”

“All right,” Vernon interrupted, waving his hands, “I get the picture.” He paused, trying to get the picture he just got out of his mind. “And Clora, I don’t know whether she got a good look at the baby either. She keeps her covered up all the time with that pink blanket. I barely got a glimpse of her myself yesterday.”

“I reckon she’s worried the little thing might catch a cold.”

“I reckon. But she should let the little thing come up for air now and then.” He held his inhaler up to his mouth and puffed twice. “But wouldn’t Clora have gotten a good look at the baby in the delivery room?”

“Maybe,” O’Brien opined. “Can’t say.” He held his cigar up to his mouth and puffed twice.

“But she wouldn’t remember even if she did.” He leaned back in his swivel chair and took a deep breath. “This is the 1960s,” he sighed, “not the dark ages, and we got this miracle drug called ‘twilight sleep’.”

“Twilight sleep?”

“Yep, twilight sleep. Don’t take away the pain of child birthing but it does make a woman forget all about it.”

“I see.”

“That’s why women are screaming and thrashing around in all that blood and clawing themselves—”

“I got it.”

“—and have to be strapped down and oh my god—”

“I got it. I got it.”

“But they do forget all about it,” O’Brien said, after pausing to compose himself. “So, it’s like it never happened.”

“Sounds like a real miracle drug.” Vernon removed his browline glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, trying to force out of his mind the image the doctor had just forced into it. After a moment, he slipped his glasses back on and mustered up the courage to share with the good doctor his concerns about Vernina. “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” he said as an overture. “It’s about Vernina.”

“Is there something wrong with her?”

“No, she’s a keeper. She’s awful pretty an’ all. Got all her fingers and toes. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I only seen her for like a second before Clora threw that pink blanket back over her.” He paused to consider how he wanted to phrase what he was going to say next. “The thing is, she don’t look a thing like me.”

“No? Well, son, sometimes babies take after their mothers, that’s all.”

“But she don’t look nothing like Clora neither.”

“No? Then who does she look like?”

“Well, it’s not really a question of ‘who’ but ‘what’?"

“All right, what does she look like?

“Mexican.”

“Mexican?”

“Mexican.”

“How the hell could she look Mexican? You and Clora’s the whitest two people I ever seen.”

“That’s what I’m thinking!” Vernon exclaimed triumphantly. “How the heck could Vernina look Mexican if me and Clora are her parents?”

The good doctor stared in bewilderment at Vernon. “Mexican?” he said with amazement. He leaned back in his swivel chair and gazed up at the ceiling fan that swirled cyclonically above him.

“Mexican?” he mumbled quietly to himself. He rocked back and forth and puffed on his cigar.

“Mexican?” he whispered inaudibly. Then he looked back at Vernon. “It’s a mystery,” he said. “A big mystery.”

“It’s a mystery all right,” replied Vernon. The two sleuths stared silently at one another for a spell, nodding their heads in agreement. “But I think I got this mystery solved.” He cleared his throat before proffering his theory. “How could me and Clora have a Mexican baby? It don’t make no sense.”

“No, you’re right, son,” the good doctor reluctantly agreed. “It don’t make no sense.”

“So, Vernina can’t be my baby. You see where I’m going with this?”

“Yes, I do,” O’Brien replied, gazing sympathetically at Vernon.

Vernon suddenly threw up his hands as if tossing confetti in the air. “My baby must have been switched with a Mexican baby!”

O’Brien was caught off guard. “You can’t be the fa—what?”

“That has to be it,” Vernon said, convinced that he had considered every possible explanation and settled on this one. “You didn’t get a good look at the baby in the delivery room, and Clora sure didn’t, and then, I figure, some nurse got some nametags mixed up in the nursery and, lo and behold, my baby got switched with a Mexican baby.”

“Well…I suppose…that’s possible?” O’Brien said in a tone of voice which questioned rather than affirmed this possibility.

“These things happen, you know.”

“I suppose they do,” O’Brien replied with some hesitation. “I suppose they do.” He leaned back in his swivel chair and puffed on his cigar. “It occurs to me, though,” he said, after two or three puffs, “there might be another explanation for why you have a Mexican baby.” He looked over at Vernon before proffering his theory. Vernon looked back at O’Brien with the achingly innocent expression of a twelve-year-old boy about to learn the facts of life. “But,” the good doctor said, feeling a heaviness in his chest, “I reckon a baby switch is the best explanation.”

“These things happen,” said Vernon.

“These things happen,” said O’Brien.

Did Vernon check with the hospital’s nursery to see whether the nametags of two babies might have been accidentally switched? No, he did not. Did he at least discuss his concerns about a possible switch with hospital officials or at least with his wife? No, he did not. Instead, he devised a plan that made sense to him.

Vernon got the idea from a homemade cardboard sign he saw mounted on a telephone pole. He had left O’Brien’s office and was walking to a bus stop when the sign caught his attention. LOST WHITE POODLE If found call FRanklin 4-9488 $ REWARD $ Ask for Wanda. When he arrived home, he went to his garage where he found a box of crayons and several cardboard boxes which he disassembled and cut into poster-size sections. He thought he would never find his Spanish-English dictionary, but eventually he did—on a shelf in the bedroom closet underneath a stack of boardgames—and when he did, he returned to the kitchen, sat at the table, and scribbled in crayon on a napkin: LOST WHITE BABY If found call CHerry 7-9688 $ MANY DOLLARS $ Ask for Vernon. He thought for a moment, tapping the crayon on the tabletop, and added: No speak Spanish. Next, he opened his Spanish-English dictionary and meticulously translated what he had written into Spanish: PERDIDO BLANCA BEBÉ Si la encuentra grite CHerry 7-9688 $ MUCHOS PESOS $ Ask-o for Vernon. No hablo Español. “This’ll do the trick,” he said to himself, confidently admiring his work.

The next day, after visiting Clora in the hospital and getting another brief glimpse of the pink-blanketed Vernina, Vernon rode on a bus to the Mexican section of Homestead where he nailed a dozen crudely crafted signs to as many telephone poles. Expecting an immediate response, he hopped on a homebound bus and was soon sitting at his kitchen table and waiting for the telephone to ring. He waited for an hour or so, staring at the telephone and drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Then he decided to make himself a sandwich and watch television. He ate a Swiss cheese and cucumber sandwich and watched Hogan’s Heroes and Petticoat Junction. Then he took two puffs on his inhaler and went to bed.

How long was this going to take? he wondered as he lay in bed. Clora was scheduled to come home from the hospital on the following Monday. That gave Vernon only one more day to locate the perdida blanca bebé if he was going to arrange a swap before Clora returned home and got a real good look at Vernina.

When no one called on Sunday, Vernon gave up hope of arranging a quick swap. On Monday, when Clora returned home with the pink-blanketed Vernina, Vernon began to have second thoughts about the possibility of ever arranging a swap without arousing suspicion. What if no one called for days or even weeks? Surely, Clora would have gotten a good look at Vernina by then. How could he wrap a brand-new baby in the pink felt blanket without Clora noticing that something was different?

After three months had passed, and still no word, Vernon had abandoned hope of ever finding the perdida blanca bebé. Maybe his signs had been torn down. Or maybe they blew away. Or maybe muchos pesos was not enough of a reward. Whatever the explanation, the signs were not doing the “trick” they were supposed to be doing, and Vernon was out of ideas. Vernon’s desperation was compounded by the fact that he had not had more than an hour’s sleep any night since Clora had returned home from the hospital with Vernina. Clora, bless her heart, needed to rest after having a baby. So, Clora’s mother, Myrtle, stepped in and took care of Vernina at the cucumber farm during the mornings and afternoons while Vernon was at work, and Vernon spent sleepless nights bottle feeding the baby and changing her diapers. This gave Clora plenty of time to rest, and when not resting, to paint her fingernails and do her hair and makeup and try to squeeze into the dresses and pantsuits she wore before she was pregnant. Clora always tried to look her best for her sweet Vernon.

Then, one Friday afternoon, just after Vernon had arrived home from work, he inadvertently received some startling information. Vernina was napping (a rare event, to be sure, but not the startling information Vernon received) and Myrtle and Clora were having a conversation at the kitchen table.

“That’s what they’re calling it,” Myrtle was saying to her daughter. “A miracle baby.”

This caught Vernon’s attention. “What’s this about a miracle baby?”

“Oh, I was telling Clora about some talk on the cucumber farm,” she said, turning around in her chair to face her son-in-law. “One of the farmhands, his name is Carlos, his wife had a baby girl a while back, about three months ago, about the same time you and Clora had Vernina. And they’s both Mexican, I mean really Mexican, and this baby they had, she’s white, I mean really white.”

Vernon’s knees buckled. He grabbed the back of Myrtle’s chair to steady himself. “A white baby, you say?”

“Well, I didn’t see the baby myself. I’m just going by what they say. I speak Mexican, you know. Anyway, they say the baby’s skin is white as nieve. That’s Mexican for ‘snow’. And her hair is rubísimo. That means really blond.”

“Sounds like a miracle baby to me,” Clora chimed in. “You see, Mama, these things can happen,” she said, recalling the first conversation she had with Myrtle about her own miracle baby.

It suddenly occurred to Clora that she now had in her possession a weaponizable argument concerning the things that can happen. If Mexican people can have white babies, why can’t white people have Mexican babies?

“Well, the local women is sure enough acting like it’s a miracle baby,” Myrtle said to Clora.

“Every Saturday morning there’s a long line of them at Carlos’s casa. That’s Mexican for ‘house’. And they’s carrying candles and flowers and whatnot, waiting to catch a glimpse of the baby. It’s a girl by the way. Did I say it’s a girl? Anyway, that’s fine with Carlos, because he set up this tip jar on the front porch and it’s filling up with nickels.”

The following morning, Vernon was on a bus bound for Little Mexico. Cradled in his arms, wrapped in her signature pink felt blanket, was little Vernina. Maybe it was because of the gentle rocking of the bus, or because of the August heat, or because of the monoxide fumes, but Vernina wasn’t crying. She was awake but not crying. This almost never happened. The rule was: either Vernina was asleep (which she almost never was) or she was crying. But now she was awake and peeping at Vernon with two little eyes the color of Indian Head pennies. Vernon gazed down at her. She was smiling. He had never seen her smile before. He softly combed her fine black hair with his fingers. With one small, soft hand she clasped his pinky and held on to it like a rattle. Vernon felt a heaviness in his chest.

“¡Ay, qué linda!” Vernon was startled to hear. There was a tawny woman sitting in the seat across from him, wearing a flowery dress and looking down at the pink-blanketed bundle in his arms.

“No,” Vernon said, correcting the woman, “her name’s not Linda. Its Vernina.”

“¿Cómo?”

“Her name’s Vernina, not Linda.”

She nodded her head, as if she understood. She didn’t. “Tu esposa, ¿ella es mexicana?” she asked, as if he would understand.

Vernon nodded, as if he understood. He didn’t. Then he looked down at Vernina. Her eyes were now closed, and she appeared to be sleeping, but held tightly in one small, soft hand was Vernon’s pinky.

Soon Vernon was walking toward a little pink house where a dozen or so women had gathered. They were wearing Puebla dresses with floral embroidery and standing single file on a series of cement stepping stones that led from the sidewalk to the front porch of the house. Cradling the pink-blanketed Vernina in his arms, Vernon joined the queue. Some of the women gathered in front of him were holding flowers or lighted candles. Smelling the rich sweet scent, Vernon instinctively reached into his shirt pocket for his inhaler and puffed twice.

There was a man, which Vernon surmised was Carlos, standing arms akimbo on the porch. At his feet was an old pickle jar containing what must have been hundreds of nickels. The man noticed that Vernon had joined the queue and eyed him suspiciously. Presently, the screen door opened and a woman clad like the others in a colorful Puebla dress emerged from inside the house. “Ay, Dios mío,” she said under her breath, crossing herself. She peered upward into the heavens “¡Milagro de Dios!” she cried with outstretched arms. Then she dropped a nickel in the pickle jar and stepped off the porch.

“¡La siguiente!” the man called out, and the next women in line stepped forward to adore the miracle baby.

Vernon rocked the sleeping Vernina slowly back and forth in his arms. Another devotee had joined the queue and was standing directly behind him. “¡Ay, qué linda!” she said, smiling and leaning over beside Vernon to catch a glimpse of the sleeping angel.

“No,” Vernon said, “her name’s not Linda. It's Vernina.”

“¿Cómo?”

“Her name’s Vernina, not Linda.”

“Sí, Vernina,” she said. “Tu esposa, ¿ella es mexicana?”

Vernon politely but uncomprehendingly nodded his head.

After several minutes, Vernon stood at the front of the line. He continued to rock the sleeping Vernina in his arms, and the man on the porch continued to study him with suspicion. Presently the screen door creaked open and another colorfully clad woman stepped out onto the porch and dropped a nickel into the pickle jar. “Le toca a usted,” the man said to Vernon, motioning with his hand toward the screen door.

Vernon swallowed audibly. It was now his turn to adore the miracle baby.

As soon as the screen door swung shut behind him, Vernon was overwhelmed by the smell of flowers and melting wax. He reached into his shirt pocket for his inhaler and puffed twice. Then, awkwardly holding Vernina in the crook of one arm, he removed his browline glasses and cleaned the smudged lenses as best he could with the felt blanket. He wanted to get a good look at his prospective daughter. Then he replaced his glasses and after his eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, he saw a young woman, Madonna-like, gently swaying back and forth in a rocking chair and cradling in her arms a pink-blanketed bundle much like his own. Surrounding her on the wooden floor, rising cylindrically from the floral offerings, candles in sainted jars glowed, making it seem as though the room was lit by fireflies. In one corner of the room, a small dog was asleep on a rug. “Dang, that would be some coincidence, wouldn’t it?” Vernon said to himself, noticing that the sleeping dog was a white poodle.

He took two or three short steps and stood directly in front of the Madonna. Then he looked down and saw in her arms the miracle baby that Myrtle had so accurately described. Her skin was indeed as white as snow (or, Vernon recognized, as white as the skin was on his torso and legs), and her hair was indeed really blond (or, Vernon remembered, as blond as his hair was when he was a boy). This had to be her, he thought, the perdida blanca bebé. But looking down at her, he didn’t feel the relief he had expected. Instead, he felt a heaviness in his chest, the same heaviness he felt on the bus when Vernina clasped his pinky, but now the weight was crushing him. He struggled to breathe.

Then a miracle happened. The baby opened her eyes.

“Her eyes,” Vernon gasped. “Her eyes are pink!”

“¿Cómo?” said the woman.

“She’s not a gringo. She’s an albino!” he exclaimed.

“¿Cómo?”

“Albino-o,” he replied, attempting to translate “albino” into Spanish.

“¡Carlos!” she shouted. “¡Este gringo está loco!”

Vernon heard the screen door creak. He turned and saw Carlos’s silhouette in the doorway.

“¡Marcharse!” he barked. Vernon didn’t understand what this meant, but from the tone of the man’s voice, he gathered that his turn to adore the miracle baby was now over.

Lowering his head, Vernon cautiously crept past the man in the doorway. After stepping onto the porch, he could not contain his excitement. “Miracle of God!” he cried, peering down tearfully at Vernina. Then, holding her with one arm, he reached with his free hand into a pants pocket and searched blindly for a nickel.

Clora was sitting at the kitchen table, painting her fingernails, when Vernon returned home later that day. It was dinner time and Vernina was crying for her bottle. Clora held up one hand, admiring the shape and color of her fingernails as Vernon held the crying baby and struggled to prepare a bottle of milk for her.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Vernon said to Clora, speaking over his shoulder as he stood at the stove, heating a pan of milk. The baby’s crying sounded remarkably like a cat’s howling.

“I can barely hear you, Vernon,” Clora said, still admiring her fingernails. “I can’t understand what you’re saying when the baby’s crying.”

With one hand, Vernon poured warm milk into a bottle, screwed the cap on, and lowered the nipple into the baby’s mouth. Suddenly it was quiet enough to hear the ticking of the wall clock above the stove. Cradling the baby in his arms, Vernon sat at the table across from Clora. Her fingernails were candy apple red.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, hoping this time to get her attention.

“Yes?” she said distractedly as she placed the palm of one hand flat on the tabletop and continued to paint her fingernails. Clora, bless her heart, always tried to look her best for her sweet Vernon.

“I have a confession to make.”

“Confession?” Clora asked, brushing candy-apple red paint on her pinky nail.

“For a long time now, well, from the first time I seen her, I didn’t…I didn’t—”

“C’mon, spit it out.”

“I didn’t see how Vernina could be my baby.”

That got Clora’s attention. “No?” she said, looking up at Vernon. “And why not?”

Vernon panicked. “It was Doctor O’Brien put the idea in my head. He said he got a good look at Vernina in the delivery room. A real good look. And he said she looked like a Mexican baby.”

“He did, did he?”

“Yeah, a Mexican baby. Imagine that.”

Clora was locked and loaded. “Well,” —she pulled back the hammer— “if Mexican people can have white babies,” —squeezed the trigger— “why can’t white people”—and fired— “have Mexican babies?”

“Jeez, I never thought of that,” Vernon said, dazed by Clora’s copper-tipped logic. “Dang, the ideas that people can put in your head.” He sat for a spell, gazing down at Vernina. She nursed contentedly on the bottle. “I just wanted to tell you,” he continued, now looking up at Clora, “that it wouldn’t matter to me.”

Clora looked at him quizzically. “What wouldn’t?”

“Her being Mexican an’ all.”

“It wouldn’t matter to you?”

“Nah, it wouldn’t matter to me none.” He gazed down adoringly at Vernina. “She’s my miracle baby. And I’m going take care of her.” He glanced back up at Clora. “I’m going take care of her no matter what.”

“No matter what?”

“No matter what.”

That’s all that Clora needed to hear.

The next morning, as Vernon was warming milk on the stove and reading a note that Clora had hastily scribbled on a napkin, Clora was sitting beside Ramón Jeminez in his ’47 Ford pickup truck with the jail-bar grille. Ramón had returned from a sojourn in Mexico arranged by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and now the couple was reunited and fleeing Homestead for Gainesville on Interstate 95. As if anticipating their quick getaway, Ramón had customized his chariot with red, orange, and yellow tongues of fire, licking backwards from the jail-bar grille and curling like intertwining vines across the arched fenders and doors. “That’s quite a sight,” said one passing motorist.

“Ese esposo gringo tuyo sí que es idiota,” said Ramón to Clora.

“I love you too, dear,” said Clora to Ramón, absentmindedly admiring her candy-apple red fingernails.

“¿De verdad cree que ese bebé es suyo?” asked Ramón.

“Yes, it does look like rain,” replied Clora, looking up from her fingernails and noticing slanted streaks of gray on the horizon beneath a seemingly endless expanse of clouds. She leaned forward, squinting to see something that just descended on the road ahead, something like an immense swarm of hornets.