"I Cugini, as ordered," he said. Could she really be this calm?

"Mmmm," she said. "I'm gonna shower now, By. Let's eat when I get out."

She didn't remember. She had no idea that any of this had happened.

"You were real sweet, baby," she said.

She thinks we made love, thought Byron.

Well, if a woman can give birth, fall asleep, and wake up five minutes later thinking all she had was great sex, that was some kind of hypnotism, that's for sure.

If it happened at all.

I've got the bloody sheet in this bag, he told himself impatiently.

He opened the garbage bag again just to be sure. Bloody all right. And wet. And slimy. A mess.

He heard the shower start. He tied the bag again and carried it out of the room and through the kitchen, on his way to the city garbage can in the garage.

"Dad," said Andrea, the oldest. "Is Mom okay?"

"She's fine," said Byron. "Just a little sick to her stomach, but she's feeling better now."

"Did she puke?" asked seven-year-old Danielle. "I always feel better if I'm sick and then I puke.

Not during the puke, after."

"I don't know if she puked," said Byron. "She's in the bathroom with the door closed."

"Puking's nasty," said Danielle.

"Not as nasty as licking it up afterward," said Word.

Byron didn't tell him off. The girls were saying Gross, Disgusting, You're as funny as a dead slug: the koine of intersibling conversation. Byron only wanted to get to the garbage can and jam this bag of bloody sheet and mattress pad as far down into it as possible.

What was the old man going to do with that dead baby? What was this all about? Why did this witch doctor or whatever he was pick us?

He came back in and washed his hands with antibacterial soap three times and he still didn't feel dean.

"Not the salads."

Andrea rolled her eyes. He could hear her muttering as she heated up the warm dishes. "Think you have to tell me not to nuke a salad, I'm not retarded, I think I know lettuce sucks when it's hot."