The Remedy for Regret Read Online Free PDF

around us the other women are laughing, talking and making their way to the dining room where Yvette has laid out the refreshments.
    “You’re a natural, Tess,” Monica says, winking at me.
    “Oh, not really,” I say nervously. I am anxious to hand the baby over.
    “How long has she been awake?” Monica continues.
    “Oh, the last three or four presents, I’d say,” I answer, minimizing the feat as best I can.
    “See?” Monica says with a smile. “You are a natural. It’s way past the time for her next feeding.”
    As if on cue, the baby thrusts a tiny arm out from underneath the blanket and begins to cry. Her perfect rosebud lips part, revealing a tiny red mouth that is all gums. Monica laughs and I hand her her daughter.
    At that same moment, in my mind, I see myself handing over another crying baby, this one to Jewel, who being the oldest of five, knows what to do.
    “We should have my Momma call the police,” Jewel is saying in my memory, shaking her head but taking the baby anyway. It was nine o’clock in the morning on the Fourth of July. I had been living in Arkansas for just seven months. The three of us—Blair, Jewel and I—had all just recently turned thirteen. Blair had spent the night at my house and we’d come outside with plans to sit in my tree house and paint our toenails. I’d decided to ask Jewel to join us, though Blair hadn’t been too thrilled with this, and the three of us were on our way back to my backyard when we heard the faint mewling sound. We’d followed the sound and to the side door of Jewel’s church. There on the steps was a wooden box stamped with pictures of peaches. Inside, wrapped in a dirty sweatshirt, was a newborn baby. The moist, purple-gray stub of an umbilical cord was still attached to its belly and a row of mosquito bites lined its forehead. There was no one else around. Surprise kept us speechless for several seconds.
    Blair reached down and lifted the sweatshirt, revealing the perfect leg and the imperfect one. The shock turned to pity.
    “I gotta go get my Momma,” Jewel finally said, quietly.
    “No!” Blair said, not much more than whisper.
    Jewel turned her head to look at her. “We can’t just leave it here!”
    “We’re not going to.” Blair grabbed the box and headed back to my tree house with it. Jewel and I trailed after her.
    She had handed the box to me while she climbed, then reached down from the platform to take the box from me as I straddled the third wooden rung.
    “We shouldn’t be doing this,” Jewel muttered as she climbed in.
    When we were all inside the four wooden walls, Blair lifted the baby out of the peach box. It was naked and obviously a boy. That’s when the baby really began to cry. She had handed him over to me. And I had handed him over to Jewel.
    “We need to call the police,” Jewel said, wrapping the baby back in the sweatshirt.
    “Not yet!” Blair replied, with an unmistakable I-want-to-be-a-mother-for-a-day look in her eye.
    I didn’t want to call the police yet either but I said nothing.
    Now beside me, Monica is deftly putting her baby to her breast under the receiving blanket. I watch, remembering.
    “This baby needs to eat,” Jewel had said next.
    “Well then, let’s feed him something,” Blair replied, like all problems everywhere have a simple solution.
    “You can’t just feed a baby something ,” Jewel said. “It needs mother’s milk or formula.” She was rocking the baby back and forth in her arms. Then she stuck the tip of her pinkie in its mouth. It stopped wailing.
    “Well, don’t you have some of that stuff?” Blair said.
    I can still see Jewel’s face as she looked up from the nameless infant in her arms, incredulous.
    “You want me to go to my Momma and see if she don’t mind breastfeedin’ this here baby that we just found on the church steps?” Jewel said.
    Blair narrowed her eyes. “I’m talking about the formula,” she said.
    “We don’t have to buy none of that.