Edward crawled into the puddle it
formed and scooped small handsful of the liquid into his mouth between
howls.
And then, it stopped. His mother stopped rocking, stopped shaking. The
stream trailed off into a trickle. Alan stopped crying, and soon the
smaller kids followed suit, even Edward. The echoes continued for a
moment, and then they, too, stopped. The silence was as startling -- and
nearly as unbearable -- as the cacophony had been.
With a trembling hand, Alan opened his mother's door and extracted
little Frederick. The baby was small and cyanotic blue. Alan tipped the
baby over and shook him gently, and the baby vomited up a fantastic
quantity of wash water, a prodigious stream that soaked the front of
Alan's school trousers and his worn brown loafers. Finally it ended, and
the baby let out a healthy yowl. Alan shifted the infant to one arm and
gingerly reconnected the exhaust hose and set the baby down alongside of
its end. The baby wouldn't suck, though.
Across the cave, from his soggy seat in the puddle of waste water,
Edward watched the new baby with curious eyes. He crawled across the
floor and nuzzled his brother with his high forehead. Frederick squirmed
and fussed, and Edward shoved him to one side and sucked. His little
diaper dripped as the liquid passed directly through him.
Alan patiently picked dripping Edward up and put him over one shoulder,
and gave Frederick the tube to suck.
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