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us any more, but I suppose I can live with it for a couple of days. Just don’t assume I’ll babysit.”
    “Of course not,” I said numbly as I tried to remember how I’d handled the situation sixteen years ago. I’d resumed my graduate assistant duties after three months of maternity leave. Carlton never changed a diaper, much less dealt with strained prunes and rubber duckies. I dealt with it all, although I gave up hope of writing a dissertation on an obscure English novelist who would continue to rest in anonymity until some predatory graduate student stumbled across the body. The college had a philosophically enlightened day-care center where the babies and toddlers had been encouraged to express themselves via finger painting and pudding fights. Caron had thrived.
    “So what are you going to do?” asked Inez.
    “I’m not going to do anything tonight,” I said. “Skyler’s mother will undoubtedly call me tomorrow and make arrangements to collect him after she resolves her problems.”
    Caron stared at me. “So you think you can care for this baby?”
    “I’ve been there, done that,” I answered. “The stork did not keep you in a nest until you were potty-trained and capable of uttering a complete sentence.”
    “But, Mother—” she said, then stopped and shrugged.
    I wasn’t pleased with the scenario, but I most certainly wasn’t about to call social services and allow my temporary ward to be whisked away in the night. I hadn’t conceived him, much less carried him for nine months and gone through the ordeal of birth, but I had, by damn, been the first person he’d encountered and the one who’d wrapped him in a towel, kissed his forehead, and handed him to his biological mother. I’d severed the umbilical cord, but not my involvement.
    “Two cans of formula?” I said. “How many diapers? Any clothes?”
    “I’ll check.” Inez skittered down the hall with more alacrity than necessary.
    Caron sat on the far end of the sofa. “I don’t see how you can handle this, Mother. Unless you want to call me in sick, I have to go to school. You have a business to run.” She looked at Skyler, who was sucking on his fist. “You can’t just hand him a bottle and leave him in your office all day. Babies do all sorts of disgusting things, and I’m not talking about burping and spitting up.”
    “Oh, yes, I know very well. What do you suggest I do?”
    “Maybe Luanne can take him.”
    I reached out to touch her arm, but she shrank away. I sat back and said, “And Luanne can give him to her first customer of the day, who can pass him on to some guy at the car wash, who can—”
    “Where’s he going to sleep?”
    “At the moment, he seems content with his basket. This is only for a day or two, Caron. If we don’t hear from his mother and the time comes when you and he need bunk beds, I’ll call social services.”
    “You’re joking, I assume.”
    “I don’t think we can persuade Miss Parchester to drop a line and haul him up. What is it you think I should do?”
    Inez came back. “Two cans of formula, three diapers, a cotton nightie with drawstrings, and a pair of tiny socks. I went through all the side pockets in the diaper bag in case I could find a clue, but there wasn’t so much as a scrap of paper.”
    Skyler was fast asleep, at least for the time being. He was tiny, no more than nine or ten pounds. I had enough essentials to last until morning, when I could, if necessary, buy a box of disposable diapers and a few more cans of formula. His mother would return with apologies and excuses, and swoop him away. All I was doing was baby-sitting. No big deal.
    Caron glared at me. “This is ridiculous, Mother.”
    “That’s a harsh word,” I said. “This young girl must have been desperate in order to leave her baby with a stranger. I don’t know anything about her family situation, but it’s obvious she has no one else she can trust. Try to imagine how you’d feel if that were your