Five Roses Read Online Free

closet, the old house she kept tidy, the easy company of the kids who said her bread was the greatest. She thought about buying a chair for her room. She stroked the cat, who lay on her blanket and purred. She scratched around its ears and under its chin.
    One morning she came home through rain pelting down. Her shoes squished as she ran. She leaped onto the front steps and opened the door to the staccato howl of crying. A girl in a long, wet skirt sat against the wall in the front room. A baby had slid from the slack crook of her arm to her lap. Its face was crimson with rage and bawling, its legs and torso bundled in a filthy blanket.
    A boy scuffed into the room, holding a mug of tea. “God, I’m glad you’re here,” he told Thérèse. “I found her in the park. She’s got nowhere to go.”
    The girl clutched the mug with both hands, letting the baby slide farther between her legs to the floor. Its cry grew thinner, more choked.
    Thérèse couldn’t bear to see the baby so neglected. She hurried across the room to lift it from the girl who made no move to stop her. Through the blanket Thérèse felt the sodden diaper and tiny limbs. The smell of concentrated urine made her blink. She strode to the stairs and behind her heard the boy urging the girl to come, too. Why? The girl was useless.
    In her room Thérèse lay the baby on her mattress. She peeled away the dirty blanket, her fingers careful with the safety pins wedged in the saturated diaper. The baby heaved for breath to cry. A girl, Thérèse saw. She tugged free a corner of her bedsheet to cover the child’s scrawny nakedness. How could she bathe her? There were no stoppers for the sinks in the bathrooms.
    The girl who was the mother stood by the wall with the boy. Two other kids leaned in the doorway. “Here,” Thérèse said. “Someone watch the baby.” When no one moved, she said more sharply, “Here!”
    The boy took a step closer. Thérèse said, “Don’t touch her, just make sure she stays there.” She bounded down the stairs to the kitchen and grabbed her large bread bowl and soap. She gushed the water hard, testing it for warmth.
    As she walked down the hallway with the bowl filled with water, she could hear the baby still crying, but more weakly, exhausted. The girl sat sprawled against the wall.
    â€œGet her out,” Thérèse told the boy. “Give her a bath. And dry clothes.”
    The girl raised her head with its tangled, bushy hair. “She’s hungry.”
    â€œThen why didn’t you feed her?” Thérèse snatched a towel from her closet, gently wrapped the baby, and carried her to the girl, who fumbled with her T-shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts, plumped against her stomach, leaked milk. She let Thérèse place the baby in her arms. She didn’t move to help and Thérèse — disgusted by the girl’s lack of shame — had to nudge the baby’s chin toward the nipple. The baby batted her fists in protest until a dribble of milk touched her tongue. She latched on now and began sucking greedily.
    Thérèse had no choice but to wait. The kids stood watching the girl with the baby. Then the boy began telling them how he’d found the girl. Thérèse saw the cat at the window, its tail lifted like a disapproving finger at the crowd in the room.
    Excitement bubbled among the kids at this discovery of a girl like themselves with a baby . The girl watched them with vacant eyes, head leaned against the wall, breasts exposed, tears dried and sticky on her pale cheeks. Thérèse bent to take the baby, who’d fallen asleep. An instinct or a memory made her hold the baby upright and pat her back.
    â€œGo,” she said. “Into the bath.” She’d several times dipped her fingers in the water in the bread bowl to make sure it was still warm. She supported the