Straight No Chaser

Xigua

Something dies on the northernmost beach. It's there when Aaron takes his daily fishing expedition, a dark and huddled thing obscured by a throng of sandpipers and seagulls. One of Kailani's dolls lies a few yards away, forgotten at playtime, and the juxtaposition makes him sick.

"Fuck off," he tells the birds, poking at them with his handmade pole. They scatter to reveal their lifeless prize.

A piglet.

*

It fills his thoughts for days.

"So what are we gonna tell Kailani?" asks Shannon, skimming Aaron's chest with wet fingertips. She's just had her shower-bath; she's bare and spring-fresh beneath the blanket and his hand, but he barely notices, barely hears her. "About, you know," she elaborates after a second.

"You mean about, well, we'll tell her it's the circle of life," he murmurs, not thinking. "But that's only if we have to tell her anything. Which we really don't."

Shannon giggles. "You don't think she'll notice?"

"I, what?"

She props herself up on one shoulder, letting his hand fall into the valley beneath her ribcage. "I think circle of life is good," she muses. "Better than nothing. You know she's a fucking brilliant kid. Probably already knows, in fact."

His head pounds to the staccato rhythm of her chatter. "She doesn't know. I spent almost an hour cleaning. I got everything up but the sand."

"Wait--"

"Wait--"

They exchange frowns.

"You're talking about this," sighs Aaron, tickling the side of her still-flat stomach.

Her frown deepens, becomes a glare. "And you're still talking about that dead pig. What is with you? Hasn't it been, like, three days? And don't you eat those pigs all the time?"

"Sorry, I just--sorry. Forget it. Baby. We'll just tell her, baby. I'll draw her a picture in the sand, she can watch you get round--she'll get it." He snuggles closer to her, tries to pull her into his arms.

She holds him at bay, searching his face. "No," she says softly. "Explain it to me. About the pig. Tell me what's wrong."

He overrides her stiff elbows, pulls her close and holds. "Baby," he murmurs into the hollow of her clavicle, "do you believe in signs?"

*

Now he's got her thinking about it, too. Seventy-five percent, ha. A liberal estimate, the berries probably have a far lower success rate than that, because some of those babies wouldn't have made it anyway. Just as their own almost didn't, two years and some months ago.

The piglet would have been enough. He didn't have to tell her about the yolk. About what Kai did to it with her innocent little fingers, how mercilessly she tore the yolk into little strands of slime.

She doesn't believe in signs, no. She believes in intuition, in conditioning and experience. She believes that this pregnancy will be easier than the last; that a handful of complication-free weeks bodes well for the coming months. She believes that last time was the last time Aaron would ever have to play doctor. She believes that a dead pig is what it is, a dead pig; that yes, it's a little weird that this one was so young, because the babies usually stay hidden in the thickest part of the woods, but that no, there's no significance, it's not an omen, not a symbol for their own, their healthy, their tiny, their precious.

He seems to feel better, now, having told her. He sleeps well beside her, sated at the end of each full night.

She's the one lying awake, now.

*

"Ahoy!" shrieks Kailani, pouncing on a just-awake Aaron. "Look, Daddy!"

He pulls himself into a sitting position and looks. Shannon stands in the doorway, holding a big piece of waterstained tagboard, on which she seems to have created a sketch in charcoal. "Tell him what it is, Kai," she directs, setting it on the ground beside their blankets.

"A baby," she answers, and dissolves into giggles.

"And where is it? Show Daddy where it is."

Kai thinks for a minute, lifts her pale pink dress and points to the tight little drum of her own belly.

He laughs.

*****

a xigua is a variety of watermelon, apparently. don't expect to be any more impressed by the next entry title, either. yellow watermelon, most likely.