The Wolf Came on Christmas

Chapter 5

The next priority was the little girl. Once I had done everything I could for her father, I went back to her and carefully lifted her off the couch. She didn’t seem to reject me; instead, she watched me with eyes just as big and blue as her brother’s. I don’t know whether she was studying me or afraid of me, but I was grateful that she didn’t cry. It filled me with dread to realize that the skin on her face was cold and that she didn’t exactly smell like roses, either; the boy had only removed the wet blanket she had been wearing before and replaced it with mine. I carried her to the laundry room, and Andre followed me.

I suspect he didn’t much like a stranger handling his baby sister, but neither of them had any other options.

“Will you wait for me a moment while I take care of her? I promise we’ll eat once your sister is clean,” I said to him, in a conciliatory tone.

He nodded and leaned against the edge of the washing machine, where I had placed the baby on top of a towel so I could work. As I untied the knot of rags the little girl was wrapped in, I realized they were remnants of a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt. Judging by the size, adult clothing. A shiver ran through my body, and once again I wondered what had happened to them. What kind of situation must a father be in to be forced to use a T-shirt as a diaper for his daughter? I couldn’t imagine it. Just as I also couldn’t imagine that wolf-man changing a diaper. When I removed all the rags from the baby, aside from the mess the little creature had made (which left me in no doubt that she was, at least, being fed with relative abundance), I noticed that the skin on her bottom was irritated—so much so that the baby began to cry the moment I touched her with a damp cloth.

Beside me, Andre whimpered in his canine language and stretched his arm toward her.

I swallowed when I saw little Sasha’s chubby hand clutching those thin fingers covered in yellowish fur.

The contrast between the two of them left me breathless, disoriented; but the gesture helped calm her, because she slowly stopped crying. After washing her as best I could in a basin of warm water, I tried to apply a bit of menthol ointment to the irritated area (she kicked her little legs with incredible energy, she was uncomfortable and made that very clear—obviously she didn’t want me to keep touching where it hurt), and then the next problem arose: I had no diapers to put on her. I needed to solve that if I planned to keep her in the house for at least a few more hours. I had no other choice but to sacrifice an old towel; after all, I wasn’t going to miss it. I ended up wrapping the baby completely in another towel and then in the colorful blanket.

The little one didn’t reject me either when I settled her in my arms, close to my chest, or when I touched her cheek now free of all dirt. In fact, she tucked her face against one of my breasts, perhaps seeking my warmth. An impossible warmth ran up my spine and tugged at a muscle in my face that made me smile, unconsciously. She might not yet smell as nice as any ordinary baby, but her new situation was an obvious improvement for the girl: if she was clean, then she would remain healthy. She didn’t seem sick or malnourished. I didn’t know much about babies back then, but I believed myself capable enough of taking care of her and her brother for a couple of hours; that certainty filled me with pride and also with fear.

I watched Sasha’s face for a moment; she, in turn, looked at me, though perhaps she was too small and couldn’t distinguish me as anything more than a blur in front of her eyes. But I’m sure she knew I was there and felt safe, maybe that was why she accepted me calmly instead of bursting into full-throated cries. My ears and my exhaustion were grateful that she was calm.

Then Andre’s stomach growled again, and I decided we had postponed his needs long enough.

Once I threw all the dirty rags into the trash, we went back to the kitchen and I turned on the stove. I took out the ingredients, left the baby for a moment in her brother’s arms to take care of everything, and while the pan was heating up, I peeked into the living room again. I confirmed that the wolf-man was asleep, and once more I felt relief when I saw that he was.

I bit my lower lip, unsure, and went into the living room, circling the couch. I don’t know what I was looking for there, but I didn’t feel at all inclined to get too close to him, even though asleep he seemed almost harmless. I still couldn’t believe he was there, that such a creature existed. When he spasmodically moved a paw, perhaps in a dream, I jumped, and although I didn’t scream, I stumbled over the armchair and fell seated. My foot struck that bundle made of a knotted shirt. I noticed the clinking of objects inside and slowly leaned down to undo the knot, nervous, without taking my eyes off the sleeping figure of the wolf-man.

Inside the bundle there was a clean baby bottle, some coins, a box of painkillers with a few pills left, a bag with a yellowish powder that smelled like milk, an almost empty pack of wet wipes, and a broken rattle. The rattle had no repair; I could only salvage the painkillers and the bottle, perhaps even the milk…

I didn’t realize how much my hands were shaking until I found myself back in the laundry room, after throwing the bundle with everything disposable into the trash. I stayed there for a moment, with the coins clenched in my fist. They amounted to no more than four dollars. Once again, all kinds of doubts assailed me. Where had he planned to go on foot, injured, with the children, at the beginning of winter and with only a few coins? Or with that thick layer of fur and that unusual snout planted on his face. I couldn’t make sense of it. And it frightened me, but I was so tired that I didn’t quite know what to think.

Nor did I notice that Andre was watching me, until I heard him say:

“…Are you alright, Mrs. Johanna?”

I turned to look at him; the boy was standing in the doorway, his sister sucking on her fist again. They were both hungry, and there I was, fooling around.

“…yes, yes; I’m fine,” I replied, clearing my throat. I smoothed my hair with a careless gesture; my braid had already come undone and my appearance was surely not the most presentable at that hour, but it wasn’t the priority. “Nothing’s wrong. It seems your dad is sleeping and will stay that way for quite a while. Come on, let’s make breakfast.”

While the bacon and eggs fried, I warmed a bit of water in the microwave and dissolved a couple of spoonfuls of the formula from the little bag to prepare the baby’s bottle. I didn’t know how much to give her, so I only prepared a quarter of the bottle and figured that if she got hungry again soon, I could feed her again. I also didn’t want to give her too much at once or cause a stomachache that would make her cry nonstop. I calculated that the little formula in the bag would last me to prepare one more quarter of a bottle, and that would be it. I had apples in the fridge, I could make a bit of fruit purée for her, but I wasn’t sure of anything.

I wasn’t prepared to have a baby in the house, nor those strange beings either.

The main inconvenience was that I still didn’t have a clear idea of the true magnitude of the problem I was getting myself into.