When Ceese got to Du Ray, Raymo was nowhere to be seen. No surprise there. Ceese took the left on Du Ray, then the next left on Sanchez. It wasn't far. And when he got to the front door, Mama was there, holding it open behind the screen.

"Just tell me that what you got ain't yours," she said coldly.

"Don't know whose it is," said Ceese.

"You mean you don't know if you're the daddy?" There was real menace in her voice.

"I mean I found it. I don't know who the mama is. And I sure know I ain't no baby's daddy.

Less it can happen by looking at pictures."

Mama gasped. So did Ceese. He'd never talked like that to his mama in his life. Which, he was sure, was the only reason he was still alive. And from Mama's face, that was about to come to a quick end.

At that moment, the baby cried softly. Which was about the only thing that could have changed the subject from how Ceese had just said his last words.

"Inside a Lucky's bag and covered with ants," said Ceese. "It's a boy. He's alive."

"Seeing how I'm not blind and stupid, I already knew that."

"Sorry, Mama." He said it fervently enough that it might cover for what he said before.

"Before you ask, no, you can't keep it."

"It's real little, Mama."

"They get bigger."

"I don't want to keep it, Mama, I just don't want it to die."

"I know that," said Mama. "I'm thinking. Okay, I've thought. Take it over to Miz Smitcher. She's a nurse."

"Don't you want to take it?" said Ceese.

"No, I don't," said Mama. "That baby was conceived in sin and left to die in shame. Don't want no sin or shame in my house."

Ceese wanted to yell at her that the baby didn't commit any sins and the baby had nothing to be ashamed of, and what about "Even as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren" and "suffer little children to come unto me"? But he wasn't so stupid as to throw Bible verses into Mama's face.