Outlawed Hope

By Na'ama Yehuda

Abandoned as an infant, adopted, and then forgotten until seventeen, Aimee was raised for an unknown future. Outlawed Hope is her story, the story of the Outlaws who birthed her, the Society that raised her, and the infant she finds. 
Aimee needs to save the infant from a future she knows too well. Through dangerous close calls, Aimee discovers that she isn't who she thought she was, and nor are those around her. Why was she abandoned? Who found her?
For the truth, Aimee must face stunning revelations. She is trained to comply, but cannot—it would doom her and the baby she struggles to protect. Can she find another way, and at what cost?
Outlawed Hope is a story of loss, unexpected empathy, brutality, and heartfelt resilience.

"A story of escape and capture, the power of hope, and the heroics necessary to ensure a child's future."  Meredith Blevins, The Hummingbird Wizard (The Mystic Café)

"Reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaiden's Tale, Outlawed Hope is a compelling, fast-paced novel set in a less-than-utopian society. We feel the race of Aimee's pulse as we follow the twists and turns of her journey, meeting various characters who help, hinder, sabotage, and heal both her past and future. In this first novel by Na'ama Yehuda, change is given the ride of its life and hope is anything but outlawed." Adele Ryan McDowell, Balancing Act: Reflections, meditations and Coping Strategies for Today's Fact Paced Whirl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Na'ama Yehuda
• Release date: Dec 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497776579

Na'ama Yehuda

Na'ama Yehuda lived on three continents and currently resides in New York City. A Speech Language Pathologist and Audiologist with over 25 years experience, she works with children of all ages, teaches internationally, consults, trains professionals from multiple fields, and loves it all. Writing is in her soul and children are her passion, as she aims to spotlight connection, communication, and attachment in development. She enjoys a good story, a good laugh, and a goodly bit of playfulness. Blessed with an amazing family, she is one of seven sisters, and is an aunt (and grand-aunt) to many nieces and nephews. Goats and beaches never fail to make her happy, and she adores life, words, and the grace of connection. Author of both fiction and professional titles, she is always working on at least two things simultaneously. A novel for younger readers and a sequel to “Outlawed Hope” are currently in the works, as are other percolating projects. Visit her at: http://naamayehuda.com

Book preview

Chapter 1

Something was kicking on my front porch. All I could hear was the rap-tap-tap-tap of the screen door, but I knew it was kicking, and I knew what it was.

I tried convincing myself it was the wind. This incessant wind everyone hoped would die one day and give us all a bit of rest. Not that rest was highly thought of. Not if Training was considered, it wasn’t.

Maybe if I ignored it, the noise would go away. I could pretend it was one of the dented garbage can lids that tumble down the street after the sanitation truck passes by.

It wasn’t garbage day. No use pretending it could be that.

I pulled the covers over my ears and burrowed into the pillows on my bed.

The door rattled again.

The pillows weren’t helping. Burying my ears only made me strain to hear if the rapping was still there. I wished for it to leave yet somehow hoped it hadn’t.

I wanted to pretend ignorance, but I knew what it was. Had dreamt about for as many nights as I dared or cared remembering, dreamt the same sequence that always woke me in cold sweat and on the verge of screaming.

Best not think of that dream. What if the scream broke out? No good could come of neighbors gossiping or alerting Society that something went wrong with me. Also, the cry might never stop. It might crack the very inside of me and puddle me away like a broken fountain to where Outlaws and stray dogs would find me. Better push away the dream.

Rap-tap-tap-tap; rap-tap-tap.

It called for me, tugging at my core. A call so deep, it had no name and so painful, it had me doubled over. I didn’t want this knowing to become reality. Didn’t want what it would force me to revisit, re-know, and remember. What it would make me do. I could not tolerate becoming a cog in what had made me into who I was.

Can’t this kicking just be another nightmare?

I closed my eyes. Opened them again only to find myself still very much awake and in my room. The same room with the peeling paint at the corners of the ceiling where the gutters always flooded. With the faded roses on the wallpaper, their pattern so faint, they seemed more blotches than flowers. Like me—not quite seen, not quite right, fading, best ignored.

My training should have made me capable of withstanding all-things-awful, but the rapping barely got to thirty seconds before I could bear it no longer. It was a brief countdown to overwhelm.

Throwing off my covers, I started down the stairs to the front door. Maybe now that I got up for it, the noise would disappear and there’d be nothing there ... Still it took holding on to the railing to not flee back up the stairs and dive under the covers to pretend all this away.

Breathe, I heard myself think, felt the strain in my neck where the pulse was getting so tight that it hurt. Breathe now, Child. You knew it’ll come, and knew it will be soon when nights became so crisp with nightmares even you could no longer ignore their nearness. Wherever inside me these words came, I didn’t know, but there was a soothing lilt to them and softness was rare. It helped.

§

And there it was—just as in my dreams, the stories—an infant in a basket. Wrapped like a tight hug with one leg that somehow wriggled free kicking the side of the basket against the screen door, Rap-tap-tap, rap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Oh, I breathed, surprised in spite of everything and momentarily empty of all I had anticipated would be there when a child got left for me to bring to Training. A baby left by someone who did not care or somehow justified the sorrow of desertion.

Pawnee Baby, I had called this one-day-arriving-infant in my mind. A remnant from a time when I was too young to think up proper names and instead blended a distorted repetition of other people’s term for spawn babies with a foggy memory of crooning.

I never doubted the baby would be left, or that she’d be a girl child. What I did not consider was the avalanche of remembering that flooded on the heels of the evaporated numbness.

My dream me was purpose-filled and efficient, clear and calculated. With the baby actually present, I was frozen stupefied, drowning in a flash flood.

The child hung big eyes on me, her staring not yet eroded by years of persistent and rigid instruction. In spite of those years of instruction I found myself staring back and drinking in the mahogany-brown eyes spiked with green and a dash of honey, eyes alive with query. Did she see anything in mine besides a deer-in-headlights fright?

We stared. Then the baby gurgled and thrashed her feet, one high into the air and the other still wrapped in the blanket. Her tiny foot tapped against the basket, and it rapped against the door just like before, breaking the spell.

I bent protectively over the basket and looked around me furtively. It was reflexive skittishness born of vigilance and fear of my parents. Not my birthing parents but the only ones I knew and who became so under the Parents-In-Need-Of-Children Law.

Like any child distributed through Society, I was expected to cleave onto them and live up to the teachings of the Hope Chest House without dwelling on life spent in it. The only life to matter, to be grateful for, began when I was brought into this house so many years ago.

There would, of course, be no remembering of anything prior to the Hope Chest House—no one was expected to have any memories and you were not to talk about any even if you had them. It was unmentionable. One couldn’t risk the punishment it would have certainly brought on.

Sometimes I’d wondered if my faint recollections explained my adoptive parents’ harshness. Did they sense I was not wholly theirs in how I still held on to life before Society? At other times I’d wondered if my need to hold on was a product of their cruelty. That I needed to believe there could have been someone who cared.

Reflexive skittishness or not, there was little probability someone would see me and the baby in the basket in mid-morning. One old and nosy neighbor, maybe, but she rarely came onto her porch till later in the day and lived a ways down the street besides. Most streets stayed quite empty till late afternoon while people worked.

My parents in years prior should’ve also been at their work by midmornings, but this hadn’t stopped them from occasionally staying on to hide and startle me. They’d wait and anticipate my eventual emergence to chase garbage lids or collect the mail so we not get taxed for setting the town to disarray. I was always wary. I’d listen for the quiet to ensure they’d left before I dared to venture out. Still they’d managed to jump at me.

Their attacks would send my heart boomeranging from throat to feet and leave me frozen, transported to an earlier helplessness, and flooded by things best left forgotten. My heart would thunder in my ears and my knees go knocking.

My parents would be out of breath as well, but with mirth and victory. They’d slap their palms on thighs in roiling laughter at my terror-rounded eyes: Gotcha right again! You scaredy-cat! You’d think they’d toughen her up in that spawn house, but they didn’t do a good job of it. Sorry excuse for a trainee, she is. ... Hehehehe! Did you see how high she jumped? We sure got cheated from where they sent her to us, right from the reject pile. Oh my, Aimee-shamee, didn’t we getcha good this time?!

I shook the memory away. Pushed it to a recess of my mind and tightened and bundled it off still further ... back to the abyss that burped it up. I then whisked the basket with the child in it into the house and closed the door behind us. My legs trembled so badly I feared I’d drop the baby, so I lowered myself till I sat against the wall. I remained there, looking at the infant.

No more than a few months old, she seemed—the smallest, most tender, youngest thing. She’s here, I thought, awed, with me.

I could not, would not add, even in a thought ... for now.

Hey, baby, I cooed, finding my voice after months when I said nothing because no one was there to talk to and the few times I could have talked to others there was nothing I would say they wanted to hear anyway.

Hey, Pawnee Baby ... strange name, yes, but somehow sweet-sounding. Pawnee is a bit like Bonny. ... I like ‘Bonny.’ Think I’ll call you that—Bonny-baby child. ... I tasted the words, and with them rose wishes and things so long gone from my farthest hoping it was hard to believe they were still in there to be found: Hello, sweet face, little princess. Hello, fairy-child. ... Words held so deep they hurt coming out and surprised me for resurfacing and for being the only ones I could somehow think of saying.

The baby stared back, eyes glued to the out-of-practice lips croaking softness at her. She seemed at ease with cooing and her eyes slowly closed like petals of a flower ... lulled somehow—by me?—lulled to sleep.

I don’t know how long I sat there at the entryway, the baby sleeping in the basket in my lap. My eyes couldn’t get enough of her smallness, her perfectly calm face, the curled fist by her cheek, the little foot she earlier banged against the basket now restful, her soft leg bent comfortably over the covering that still cocooned her.

My fingers mindlessly smoothed the fabric of the blanket, and I almost doubled over with sudden deja vu and splintered images: a striped green-gray blanket, a tattered stuffed bunny with its ears clasped tight, a piece of sky so blue it sparkled, a humming song, a smile that filled the space above my face, a dappled light on brown and endless bark, a swaying movement—safe and warm—that soothed me into tender sleep.

And other images, less welcome, and a seeping cold emptiness inside which would not be assuaged: A crib among a sea of cribs, white metal, white threadbare sheets, thin flannel blankets that ever smelled of pee or spit-up or bleach. Endless cries followed by scary silences. The white uniforms of Matron-Nurses with their cold hands even in their thin white gloves ... the nights of gnawing loneliness. ...

The baby’s eyelids fluttered and I startled into motion. She’d need things: food, a change of diaper, clothing, all kinds of things. I obviously could not nurse her and I had no baby bottles. What could I do? What exactly did a baby that age get fed—milk, of course, but do you have to boil it? How much milk? How often? If she cried, how would I know if she was hungry or in pain?

I panicked. How would I take care of a baby and not end up harming her? My parents would’ve guffawed at the very notion that this simpleton of an adopted Hope Chest House girl could be an even remotely passable caretaker. They forever said how I was good for nothing and could not do a thing without messing it up or breaking it up or somehow spoiling it for others.

For one crazy moment I wanted to leave the foyer and run upstairs to hide beneath my blankets where reality always receded into subdued light. Maybe it would make this responsibility disappear. Maybe hiding would push back the painful knowing, too. Re-smother the awful sorrow suddenly crushing my heart.

I could put the baby in her basket back onto the porch for someone else to take her. Someone was bound to see or hear her at some point. Maybe those who’d brought her would retrieve her or give her to another person. They could take her to the Hope Chest House instead of leaving her for me to do it for them.

Then the crib among a sea of cribs splashed cold inside my mind, and I shuddered with abrupt determination. She cannot be put in one of those! Not now. Not yet. She’s too small and too needing of tenderness. Not alone in a cold crib, scared of shadows in the night, afraid to cry lest the very shadows come to hurt her. The image twisted something in my belly. I could not return her to the porch and to the certain misery it would bring!

The crazed moment passed and was replaced by focus. My parents’ cruelty had changed me, but not so much that I could not find stubbornness enough to deny them satisfaction. They were no longer around yet I could still prove them wrong. ...

I made do with little in the past and cobbled things together from whatever was around. There were probably items in the house that could be repurposed for this baby. She needs me, I said aloud so I could hear the words above my thundering heart. I will not let her down.

§

Unsure it was safe to leave the baby out of my sight, I took her with me to the kitchen. I knew babies can just stop breathing in mid-sleep and die all of a sudden, and plenty of children in the Hope Chest Houses had indeed disappeared. We were told they had unexpectedly died. I didn’t know exactly how one prevents this death from happening, but it seemed a good start to keep watch of the rise and fall of the blanket over her torso.

A mess of dishes in the sink greeted me. A crumpled load of laundry covered the table. I had taken the wash off the line days prior but never bothered to put away, let alone mend, iron, hang or fold it. I pushed the laundry to one side of the table and placed the basket on the cleared space, only to worry that if the baby moved she might fall out and off—a table so high a place for a little one! I rested the basket on a chair instead and turned the other three with backs facing out to form a small enclosure. I could still see her through the gaps between the wooden rungs. Satisfied, I stepped away only to be startled by how the bars resembled other kinds of forced enclosures ... or Hope Chest House cribs. ...

I shuddered, remembering myself as a small one standing on my mattress, the top bar of the crib still higher than my chin and my legs straining to keep standing. I’d despaired for someone to come get me, even as I already knew no one would and that I could not escape the confines of my crib. I’d felt so devastatingly lonely then, so utterly unnoticed and afraid.

Anger flooded me for having considered confining the baby and I moved to disassemble this chair-prison. No child with me will be held captive! Then I came to my senses. Asleep she would not notice the confinement and the chair barrier would keep her safe from falling. I’ll be right there and won’t let her get afraid.

I’ll come get you right away Bonny baby, I promised the sleeping infant, so don’t you worry none, okay?

A quick glance into the pantry brought a sigh of relief—I still had a full container of milk powder. It should make a lot of milk for such a little one. For the first time ever I found myself grateful to have never cared for the taste of reconstituted milk—it meant it kept longer than other provisions the monthly vouchers from the Common Market allowed for.

I reached for an empty jar, measured enough powder to make a quart of milk, added water, covered the jar, and shook it vigorously until all the lumps were gone. I then grabbed a pot from the overflowing sink and scrubbed it three times till it shone before using a fresh towel to dry it. Only then did I pour the milk into it. Babies had to have things especially clean. That much I knew.

I placed the pot above the burner. It needed to boil to be safe for a baby yet I worried I’d burn and spoil it. I stood guard by the stove, my eyes alternating between the pot and the gentle movement of the blanket, monitoring both.

When the milk bubbled, I let it simmer—better to kill whatever may make a baby sick—then removed the pot from the heat onto a clean towel and covered it. It needed to cool so I could remove the film. No nasty sliminess for this baby. ... My skin crawled at the memory of being force-fed the best part of the milk in early years, and ordered to consume it later as something we won’t be throwing away when we have you to feed.

Looking around I saw the kitchen as if through the eyes of someone else—even this baby—and was suddenly acutely aware of the filthiness. I didn’t do much around the house now that I no longer had my parents nagging me. Didn’t do in general, really, veritably living up to the nothing person I was promised I’d become.

Resentment threatened to flood me with self-pity. The very sorry-me emotion that had me laze in bed for days on end and justify the grimy life I’d settled into. As if by living up to my parents’ disappointment I somehow punished them ... when in actuality I was only punishing myself. ...

The little one sneezed and the crooked chair I never got to fixing rocked on its misaligned leg. I started to grab her, terrified she’d fall, but her sneezing only had her foot rise momentarily to kick the blanket. She was still sleeping. The commotion registered only with me.

Don’t worry, little one, I mumbled, shamefaced at the condition of the kitchen, the chair, the house, myself, my life. I’ll make it nice and clean for you, I’ll make it like it needs to be.

While the baby slept, I attacked the dishes in the sink and wiped clean the counters. I swept the floor and mopped around the chairs and table—careful not to wake her. The laundry got folded but I left it on the table because I didn’t dare leave the baby to go upstairs to put it in my room and linen closet. I pulled an old sheet out of the folded linen with the intention of tearing it into smaller squares for diapers, but the ripping noise was so loud I worried it would startle her awake. I left the sheet alone and placed a stack of old dish rags next to it, to use as diaper padding. All that done, I dug a crusty ketchup bottle from the back of the refrigerator and scoured it with soap and water, sticking an old toothbrush through the neck to scrub the corners clean. I scoured and then heated a pot of water on the stove and let it bubble with the sparkly glass bottle submerged in it. This was not exactly a baby bottle, but it would have to do. I chose the cleanest pair of socks I had and put it near the sheet and diapering towels. A sock was the best I could come up with for a makeshift nipple. I hoped it would work. ...

I looked around again. The kitchen was, if not inviting, at least half-decent. For the first time in a long time I noticed the peeling paint on the cabinets. That cannot be good for a baby, I said and smiled at realizing I had been talking aloud to myself the whole time. Then smiled wider at how much I enjoyed the sound of my voice now that there was a purpose for it. Speaking wasn’t something I did very much of, only in my head.

Chattering was discouraged in the Hope Chest Houses. You were to talk only when talked to, and respond only as much as was asked about. Excess words were tallied for punishment, especially if they were said unprompted or in an attitude of ungratefulness. Conversation among trainees was also frowned upon. Unsolicited opinions were unwelcome and any solicited ones were essentially rehearsed. Complaints or talking back were cause for scrubbing hours or a strapping with the obedience strap, very often both. We were repeatedly told this was all for our good as our wild nature had to be tamed if we were ever to become acceptable to Society and worthy of parents-in-need-of-children. Taming meant erasing whatever innate wily attitude we had and held to. It meant scrubbing away any reminder of our unacceptable beginnings. Children in the Hope Chest Houses were to be ever grateful for the chance given and the hope provided, as both were more than we were truly deserving of.

The Matron-Nurses’ indoctrination came in endless variations. Even those who spawned you didn’t want you, we were told. And everyone knows their standards are far lower than Society’s. You were given a second chance only because Society is kinder than whoever had abandoned you. You must prove you are worthy of our efforts on your behalf, and if you are ever so fortunate as to be sent to parents-in-need-of-children, you will owe the same gratitude to them for accepting you.

Hope Chest Houses kids—trainees or, derisively, spawns—were forbidden to talk without reason. Not even among ourselves. It didn’t mean we were not talked to, which we certainly were, abundantly. After all, quiet, obediently directed trainees were to attentively listen to the history of the resilience of Society. It was believed we needed to be constantly reminded of the fate we would’ve suffered had Society not stepped in through the kindness of strangers to keep us safe and train us up to standards. We were told how wild dogs and rabid animals might have torn us limb from limb, how hordes of rats and roaches would have fed on us, how Outlaws only slightly worse than our Outlaw spawn parents would have sold us to be badly used. Our very lives were indebted to Society and through it to the Hope Chest Houses, the Matron-Nurses, Medical, and Trustees.

Trainees learned quickly it was better to be quiet and assume a posture and facial expression of grateful obedience. If you were quiet enough and consistently grateful-looking enough, you might be able to manage wrapping the quiet around you without the Matron-Nurses knowing you were Silencing.

Because Tuning-out and Silencing were seen as absolute insults to the compassion we were showered with. It was unacceptable for us to not be attentive to the careful instruction we were granted. Worse still, the sneaky nature of Silencing and Tuning-out were manifestations of the lawlessness that spawned us, the very ugliness we were meant to train beyond. Silencing and Tuning-out were even worse than talking back, and being caught (or suspected of) Silencing always earned a strapping with the obedience strap. A striped spawn makes a better trainee, went the saying, and Hope-Chest-Houses were nothing if not thorough trainers.

§

Quiet and outwardly attentive I might have trained to be, but I certainly chattered nonstop since the baby arrived ... It was a running monologue of sorts—some aloud, some in my head. It had been ages since I’d felt a reason to communicate, and even though no one really stopped me from speaking at home anymore, I still kept silent. I wrapped the Silencing and Tuning-out around me well enough. Making voice felt foreign and unnecessary.

Till this little one showed up. ...

And it was as if a floodgate opened. Every thought had words attached and each word pushed forward to be born in vocalization. Speaking felt wonderful and satisfyingly right. I felt alive.

The curtains need a wash, as well ... and would you take a look at those windows! A baby needs a lot of sunlight. I hope I have vinegar to shine them with. ...

The baby let out a squall and I jumped.

What’s wrong, baby? You don’t need to cry. I stopped myself then, worried about repeating what others had told me—about the stupidity of tears, the forbidding of noise, the futility of crying and the wrongness of it. ... Oh, I mean, you can cry if you want, I restated. Crying is okay. You don’t have other ways yet to tell me what you need. But let’s see if I can make you a bit more comfortable, what do you say?

The baby quieted at first, eyes focused on my lips, then scrunched her little face and squalled again, far louder. Her little fists were angry in the basket and she held her feet rigidly forward. Her face reddened and her whole self focused in protest.

I got scared. It was fine if she cried, but I had not quite considered the volume or intensity. Was this normal? Was she sick? Was she angry? Was she hurting? Hungry? Wet? What if something was wrong with her? Had I scared her in the prison of those stupid chairs?

I better calm down, I thought. Whatever this was about, I would have to fix it, and getting all freaked would only make things worse. I tried to think. The first thing was to shut the burner on the stove, then use tongs to pluck the glass bottle from the boiling water. I emptied the bottle and placed it on a towel to cool—if she was hungry, I would need the bottle and there was no way she could use it scalding.

This only took a moment, but by the time I turned to pick the baby up from the basket she was even redder-faced and her cries were louder still. I suddenly felt self-conscious that neighbors would hear the squalling and know me as incompetent with this as I was with everything else. Yet even more than worry what they’d think of me, I was terrified they’d come and take the baby. ...

It was unlikely my next door neighbors were home that time of day, but loud enough screaming might alert Mrs. Gardener. Hers was the last house on the street and several houses down from mine but she all but lived on her front porch and was nosy enough to earn her the moniker Mrs. Guard-dog by townspeople. It fit her perfectly ... not that I would ever dream of saying it aloud.

If Mrs. Gardener heard the baby cry, she’d know right away that someone had left a Spawn Deposit. The only thing she’d like more than knowing it before anyone else would be to know that the deposit was left on this porch, for me, a past-trainee.

I reached for the baby, lifted her with blanket trailing and arms flailing, and held her against my shoulder. I cooed to her. I rocked her, walked her, bounced her, talked and sung and hummed to her. She calmed some and it filled me with something unexplainable, and before I realized I was about to do it, I planted a kiss at the top of her head. It was the first time I kissed someone because I wanted to, rather than offer a peck of obligation, penitence, or politeness. It was the absolute first time I’d kissed a baby. The affection that led me to do this overwhelmed me for a moment, and I rested my cheek against the impossible softness of her hair.

Sensing the heaviness in the blanket, I realized she must be wet. Who knew when she last had her diaper changed? It had to be uncomfortable to be so wet! Ever so gently, I used one hand to spread a towel on the table, then lay the baby on it and unpeeled the blanket. I had not actually noticed what she was wearing until then—the smallest version of a dress I’d ever seen. It looked to be made from fabric that used to be something else—a shirt or an adult’s skirt maybe—carefully cut and sewed to fit her tiny frame. She had a pair of bloomers underneath the dress, and underneath those a piece of plastic that was threaded between her legs and tied around her waist, probably meant to contain wetness in her diaper. I pulled the knots in the plastic and as I lifted her little legs to remove it, I realized she was wet through and through anyway—even the blanket she was lying in was sodden.

Well, it sure looks like you need a change. ... I’ll have to find something else for you to wear till I wash these, I cooed to her. The diaper—soaked and messy—was wrapped around her in a manner similar to the plastic covering, only it was thicker and looked like a bigger piece of cloth folded into several layers that somehow spread around her body and got tied front and back to keep it in place. It looked like the diaper might make a square if opened—similar to the pieces of sheet I’d planned to prepare.

I removed the diaper and used the least soiled corner of it to wipe the baby’s bottom, then carried her to the sink and rinsed her. The water must have been too cold, and she squirmed and almost slipped from my grasp. Warm water would have felt better, but sometimes it was difficult to mix the water to a reasonable temperature, and I could not stand the thought of scalding her.

Dripping baby in my hands, I realized I’d left the towel on the table, and I giggled as I danced her away from my body and back to the table, leaving a pattern of water droplets on the floor. She was not crying anymore—her big eyes just followed me and I imagined her being part-curious, part-bewildered, part-amused at this strange person who was clearly making a routine into something complicated.

I know, sweetling, I sing-songed and smiled at her as I patted her dry. I thought a moment about what I could do next, then folded one of the old dish towels lengthwise into three and placed the strip underneath her bottom and up between her legs and onto her stomach to serve as padding. The next step stumped me. How was I to both hold on to her so she won’t fall off the table, and use both my hands to tear a piece of sheet for diapering? I stood there for a moment, frozen, then barricaded the table’s edge with the basket and made a quick work of it. The square of fabric came out crooked and farthest from a square, but it had to do. It took several tries before I managed to get the diaper wrapped around her so that it did not fall off or get untied from too loose tying or cut her circulation or limited her breathing in excessive tightness. ... She just lay there patiently, tolerating my inexperienced, clumsy hands, her big eyes never leaving my face.

I didn’t have another plastic covering. Until I washed and dried the one she was brought in, I’d just have to change everything again if she wet. Without another dress to put on her, I pulled an undershirt of mine over her head and wrapped the excess fabric around her, tucking the edges of the shirt to her side where the bunching wouldn’t bother her. It looked ridiculous—the neck opening practically encompassed her shoulders, and the length of the shirt was well below her little feet. But it was clean and dry, and she was covered some. I had to place her back in her basket till I prepared her bottle, so I changed the wet bedding—another blanket, it seemed—for a folded bath towel, then brought her in the basket to the floor near but not too near the stove. She began to cry again, but all I could do was talk to her while I removed the film that settled on the lukewarm milk, and spooned milk into the cleaned ketchup bottle. Halfway into the process I remembered that I could have used a funnel, but I didn’t want to take more time to clean it. I just kept talking to the baby and hoped she could sense that though I wasn’t holding her, I was still doing something for her.

She mewled and offered an ongoing complaint, but wasn’t screaming. Maybe she understood some of what was happening. When the bottle was almost filled, I cut the sock and put the toe part over the bottle, twisting it to make a strange-looking nipple that I secured to the bottle’s lip with a rubber band. It was the best solution I could think of for the moment.

I reached for the baby, lifted her into my arms and sat with her. I held the bottle to her mouth. She mouthed the sock and wrinkled her face.

I know, little one. This is not how it’s usually done. But it is a clean sock, I assure you, I cooed and cajoled.

Either her suckling worked or enough milk filtered into the twisted fabric, because she finally got milk into her mouth—and all around it. ... She choked a bit and I sat her up, feeling helplessly terrified. Thankfully, she seemed to be okay and I returned the bottle to her lips but kept my arm higher and angled the bottle lower.

She mouthed the sock again and somehow we both got the hang of this new contraption. Some milk trickled on her cheek to puddle at the crook of her neck (so much for the clean shirt), but most of it seemed to go into her. A washcloth I belatedly put around her neck kept her and me reasonably dry as she suckled. It was working!

There was just a little left when she turned her head and the sock-nipple fell out of her mouth. Offering it again didn’t help. She scrunched her face.

That’s it?

She cried.

I lifted her up and patted her just to quiet her, and a giant burp that couldn’t possibly have come out of such a little body shook her. I laughed. I should have remembered babies did that.

She finished the milk, then burped again and fell asleep against my shoulder. It felt so sweet I didn’t want to move. I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night prior yet I still felt somehow nourished.

I’d seen people handle babies before—not very often and maybe not quite so young, but I have seen some babies nonetheless. I never was allowed to touch them. Never would have thought to ask. We didn’t handle babies at the Hope Chest House—only the Matron-Nurses did. Later on as the clumsy good for nothing that I was, it would have been unseemly to consider doing so when a rare opportunity arose. Realizing what sweetness I had missed out on had me flush warm with anger and regret.

It was then—in that moment of flaring anger with the sleeping baby calm and heavy in my arms—that I decided.

That I knew.

This baby was not going anywhere.

No Hope Chest House training, no quiet gratefulness, no spawn-talk or the obedience strap for her! No barred crib and loneliness. She was staying—with me.

§§

Chapter 2

It wasn’t going to be simple. If anyone had seen the baby on the porch earlier, they would be sure to watch for my going to the Transportation Point with her by the next morning at the latest. I’d be expected to get a voucher and board a transport to the closest Hope Chest House a few towns over. It would be unheard of to do otherwise. It was what one had to do with a Spawn Deposit.

Society people traveled often and easily, and as most babies were left on their porches, travel for them was not an issue. Past trainees, however, traveled little. Transportation vouchers required a good reason for traveling and there rarely was a good enough reason for a past trainee to do so. Making a Spawn Delivery to a Hope Chest House was an exception. It was such high-priority that past trainees were assured an immediate travel voucher, along with pocket vouchers for meals and even an Inn voucher if distance or transportation availability required an overnight stay.

All babies left by Outlaws were delivered to Hope Chest Houses for Training. I’d be expected to do exactly that. If neighbors had seen the baby being dropped off or me taking it into the house, they would be watching.

In fairness, this watchfulness wasn’t specifically about me. People took interest no matter who found a spawn to deliver. It was a rare enough thing. I’d hear of it happening in my neighborhood at most twice a year and some years not at all.

Society held a palpable (if often denied) fascination with the Outlaws, which extended to their dropped-off babies. For a full three weeks after the last deposit the neighborhood swarmed with conversational tidbits. People couldn’t get enough of discussing the fabric of the wrappings, the pattern and materials of the basket, and what those did or did not indicate about the possible location of the Outlaws’ lair. Townspeople discussed the weight and heft of the dastardly spawn and even the baby’s facial features and how those were so distinctively non-Society. The gossipers wouldn’t admit actual interest in the progeny of the despised Outlaws. Rather they spoke under thin veils of offhanded remarks like by the way so and so had mentioned and some people are saying that ...

Town elders claimed there used to be more babies left on porches, not only in our town but generally. Some said this was proof that the Outlaws’ numbers were dwindling and their days were numbered. Others argued the exact opposite: Less babies left was proof more Outlaws were finding ways to raise their own children, which meant they were becoming stronger. What everyone seemed to be in agreement about was how Outlaws should be controlled with a firmer hand.

I often wondered what made Outlaws decide which baby to send off and which one to risk raising—did they keep the better babies and send away the weaker or less welcome ones? What kind of childhood did those who were raised by the Outlaws have? Was Outlaw life so awful they chose to abandon many of their own to a Society that thought poorly of them and their children? Did they know what happened to the babies they had left on porches? Did they care? And ... who were these people I was born to? What had made them decide to deposit me on someone’s porch?

If someone had seen me get the baby, it would not matter how I felt about Bonny being taken to a Hope Chest House. It would have to be done. If not by me, then someone else would simply walk in and take her to be delivered. I’d have no say in it and no right to stop them from doing Society’s bidding. In fact they would likely be keen to take over.

People pretended this was a chore they were doing because it was the right thing to do but it seemed most enjoyed the attention they got—a baby in a basket was an obvious telltale sign—for their kindly Society nature. No one I knew ever refused to make the trip or requested to be replaced. Not if they could manage traveling. It was almost as if those who took abandoned spawns to be trainees were somehow morally elevated compared to those who lacked a basket with a mewling Outlaw spawn. Despite disdain toward Outlaws and views of them as lacking a moral code, there was an (unacknowledged) undertone of having being chosen in those who found a baby in a basket on their porch.

I knew some could see it as abhorrent for a past trainee to be selected over them. While townspeople weren’t likely to interfere with my Spawn Delivery to a Hope Chest House, I was certain they wouldn’t hesitate to take over if I did not follow expectations. In fact they’d be doubly justified to do so as this would not only demonstrate their commitment to Society’s kindness but also prove how born-and-bred Society People were indeed morally superior to someone with Outlaw genes, trained or not.

I’d have no way to find out if the baby had been seen until it was too late. So I fretted. The sleeping infant in my arms, I paced from the kitchen to the entryway to the living room and through the entryway to the kitchen again. My feet copied the continuous loop of worries inside my head.

It wasn’t very probable she had been seen. Midmorning was, in fact, a very unusual time for a baby to be left! Deposits seemed planned to minimize the time a baby went unfound. They usually occurred in pre-dawn hours when people would likely hear the babies as they began their day or in the late afternoon, just before people returned from work.

It occurred to me that even if they wanted to, the Outlaws couldn’t have placed the baby on my porch right before dawn. I’d been out on it. All through the early hours, I sat listening to the night and watched the moon slide across the sky. Night-sleep had been evasive for as long as I could remember, as early as in the Hope Chest House. Maybe it was fear and loneliness that kept me up at night or maybe it was something in Outlaws’ internal clock, if the tossing and turning of other trainees was any indication. Sleep came easier to me when light was approaching, and sunrise often found me back in bed. This past night, however, I’d lingered on the porch until well after the sky turned from black to mauve and shadows became trees. The Outlaws wouldn’t have been able to drop the baby off without me seeing them.

Was this why they did not leave her till well into the morning? Could it be they had waited for me to go indoors? By that time they would’ve had to wait for everyone to leave for work, and not till midmorning would the emptied street allow them to emerge unnoticed. Still, the Outlaws had to know I would be home or they wouldn’t have left her. Did they pick my porch because I was among the few who would be home this late into the day?

Somehow it mattered desperately to have it so the Outlaws had planned for me to be the one who found Bonny. I needed to believe they knew on whose porch they were leaving her. That maybe, against all odds, they had picked me.

For all the years I’ve known about Outlaws babies on strangers’ porches, I never gave much thought to whether any of it was planned. Outlaws were considered apathetic toward their spawn—dumping unwanted infants in flimsy baskets for others to take care of and then turning heel and abandoning their rejects for others to find. Some even questioned whether Outlaws knew whose baby they were leaving—that in the moral-less packs they ran in, it was possible people did not care which baby went or stayed. ...

I was taught that Outlaws only cared to evade capture. That they skulked about and dropped their babies off when no one was looking so that they could return to living without a moral compass, littering Society with their presence and cluttering it with their rejected, untrained spawn.

Suddenly, however, I wasn’t sure the Outlaws were so callous. It felt important to believe they cared enough about this helpless infant to ensure she would be fine. That they knew she would be safe with me. I wanted her to matter to them. Because of her sweetness, but also because maybe this meant they’d cared about other babies at other times ... cared about me. ...

It felt intolerable to consider that the Outlaws might’ve thought to leave her elsewhere—this precious heft against my torso sweetly breathing on my shoulder. I surveyed the neighbors in my mind. Certainly they wouldn’t have left her with the Sedgewicks. They wouldn’t stop to change her diaper before carting her directly to the Chest Hope House lest she somehow taint the Society air inside their house. Not with the obsessive Mrs. and Mr. Winters, whose bushes dared not shed leaves outside their harshly trimmed margins. A baby wouldn’t be allowed to breathe, let alone rap her foot against the basket and make noise. Not the Braffner brothers. They were mean to everyone. Who knows how they might scare her? Nor Don and Glendale Slogan, who had found the latest spawn deposit—Outlaws almost never placed babies successively on the same porch. Clearly not with Mr. Broud, who wouldn’t have the slightest clue what to do with an infant. ...

I ticked off the names of others and why they wouldn’t have gotten her. Certainly not, pray goodness, Mrs. Guard-dog Gardener ... or slow-witted Nancy Madge. Neither could make the trip to the nearest Hope Chest House anyway. It didn’t matter that babies had been placed nearby before, even with people who somehow would not pass muster with me but obviously had with the Outlaws.

This baby, I decided, was meant for me.

I paced with Bonny in my arms and visualized the Outlaws waiting for me to go indoors to my backyard-facing bedroom, so they could steal across the empty street and place the basket and the baby on my porch. Did they remain watchful till I finally came to the door? Did they wait to see me take her in?

A mess of feelings tangled in me at the thought. I wondered about the Outlaws watching me as I sat waiting for dawn and maybe also as I came out to stare at the basket. Guilt washed over me for having kept them waiting with an infant they had to ensure stayed silent. Embarrassment for my tatty nightgown and unkempt hair, and anger for being intruded upon and watched during a time considered my own. Pride ... that they took a chance with me. Sorrow that I did not get to see them—who they were and how they saw the world, how they interacted with each other and with this baby ... and with other babies before. ... A painful longing, too: Did they know I came from them? Did it matter? Did they care?

§

The baby whimpered in her sleep. I patted her back gently and hummed, and she settled further into me without waking. My heart squeezed. Her tender vulnerability reminded me of just how impossible a task this was. She was very young. She was bound to fuss and make noise and cry. I would not be able to leave her unobserved for any length of time. What if she hurt herself? Got sick? Stopped breathing? What if something happened and she was found?

Taking her to the Hope Chest House made far more sense. It was certainly what I was meant to do. No hiding or worrying, no wondering whether someone saw or heard her. She’d be taken care of the way all deserted Outlaw babies were. The way children like her were supposed to be raised.

Even more so, it would be beneficial for me to take her. My following Society’s rules could have me be a little less other-like to my neighbors. Maybe even make it possible for me to belong in a way that all the years of living with my parents hadn’t done. All I had to do was complete one piece in a sequence of