Frederick gummed at the hose's end,
then fussed some more, whimpering. Edward squirmed in his arms, nearly
plummeting to the hard stone floor.
"Billy," Alan said to the solemn little boy, who nodded. "Can you take
care of Edward for a little while? I need to clean up." Billy nodded
again and held out his pudgy arms. Alan grabbed some clean shop rags and
briskly wiped Frederick down, then laid another across Billy's shoulder
and set Edward down. The baby promptly set to snoring. Danny started
screaming again, with no provocation, and Alan took two swift steps to
bridge the distance between them and smacked the child hard enough to
stun him silent.
Alan grabbed a mop and bucket and sloshed the puddles into the drainage
groove where his mother's waste water usually ran, out the cave mouth
and into a stand of choking mountain-grass that fed greedily and thrived
riotous in the phosphates from the detergent.
Frederick did not eat for thirty days, and during that time he grew so
thin that he appeared to shrivel like a raisin, going hard and folded in
upon himself. Alan spent hours patiently spooning sudsy water into his
little pink mouth, but the baby wouldn't swallow, just spat it out and
whimpered and fussed. Edward liked to twine around Alan's feet like a
cat as he joggled and spooned and fretted over Frederick. It was all
Alan could do not to go completely mad, but he held it together, though
his grades slipped.
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