Merry Mary by Ashley Farley

Author:Ashley Farley [Farley, Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ashley Farley
Published: 2015-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

10

Mary woke from her afternoon nap with a fever. “You’re burning up, little girl. Can you tell me what hurts?” As Scottie lifted her from the crib, the baby threw up all over her cashmere sweater. Not your typical baby spit-up after a bottle feeding but the rancid vomit of the truly ill.

Mary began to cry, a pitiful moaning sound Scottie had not heard from her before.

The hairs stood up on Scottie’s neck. She had yet to get to the chapter on childhood illnesses in her baby research. She didn’t have any children’s Tylenol or Motrin, not that she would know how to administer it. She snapped her fingers, remembering the fancy baby thermometer one of her mother’s friends had given her at the shower. She found it in her supplies, ripped open the package, and inserted the thermometer in Mary’s ear. When the thermometer beeped, its digital display read 102 degrees.

“Think, Scottie,” she said out loud to herself.

She went to the bathroom and dampened a washcloth with cold water. She laid Mary on the changing table and rubbed her body all over with the wet cloth. She rinsed the washcloth and repeated the process several times. She picked the baby up and sank to the nearby rocker in despair. She wouldn’t be able to leave town tonight. Taking a sick baby on the road was simply too dangerous.

Nothing seemed to relieve Mary’s discomfort. She vomited three more times during the next hour and her fever spiked to one hundred and three degrees. Scottie tried rocking her and walking her around the house. She didn’t think feeding her formula was a good idea, so she tried water in the bottle instead, which pacified Mary long enough for Scottie to watch the five o’clock news.

Wally Warner—the old man newscaster with a fake tan and gray hair glued to his head with hairspray—led off with the story Scottie had been dreading. “In the case of the twenty-one-year-old homeless woman discovered in Monroe Park on Thursday, the medical examiner has released the shocking autopsy report just minutes ago. Joyce Jackson has been following this story all day, and is standing by in Monroe Park.” Joyce appeared the screen. “What can you tell us, Joyce?”

“Well, Wally, according to the medical examiner, the autopsy showed that the young woman, one Melissa Sabin, had recently given birth and was still nursing the baby at the time of her death.” The camera panned to the scene behind her where police were questioning a group of bystanders. Scottie recognized Buck and Miss Cecil. “Sources tell police that Melissa Sabin was seen with the baby the evening before she died from hypothermia.”

Great. Scottie turned off the television. Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse. If even one of those homeless people broke their pledge, her Christmas goose was cooked. Scottie’s phone vibrated on the coffee table with texts from Brad insisting she turn on the television, and from Will: Please tell me the baby on the news isn’t the one in your living room.

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