Needed Cyrus? But Aurora had needed him that way, too, once.

She looked at the baby, Jack. He, too, was crying now, waking Keaton.

Aurora went to her child’s bassinette and stroked the tiny round head. He reached for her, and she lifted him into her arms, sat on the edge of the sofa, and pulled out her breast. Her nipples tingled and the milk let down immediately. Sometimes she wondered who was fed more by the act of nursing.

Keaton—the only one she needed to worry about now. Him and Dog and Yard. And Aurora had to care for herself. She had to care for herself so she could care for them. Keaton patted the sides of her moon-breast with star-hands. He gazed up at the moon of her face with his star-eyes. His expression was one of agitation and fear (Who are these people?), but he also seemed to be trying to comfort her, batting his long eyelashes, gurgling down the milk.

“Pick up your baby,” Aurora told Nephy.

Nephy’s sobs turned to gasps as she gulped for air. She wiped her tears on her T-shirt and took a bottle of milk from her backpack. Then she picked up the baby and carried him over to the bed, holding him out to Aurora. “Take him,” she said. “Please, Izzy.”

Jack’s eyes were not as dark as Aurora had thought—they had undertones of seaweed-green. Like her own eyes and like Cyrus’s. Like Sky’s.

Yard, who had retreated into his shell, now poked out his neck and head to look at Aurora. Instinctively, she reached out for Nephy’s child.

Aurora scooped the baby into her other arm. He was older than Keaton, she knew, but scrawny with a slightly oblong head. The babies weighed about the same. She pulled up her T-shirt and took out her other breast. It was heavy, hot, sticking to the skin above her ribs. Keaton suckled harder, rolled his eyes up at her, patted his hands, and kicked his feet in agitation. What was she doing? The milk started flowing into Jack’s mouth before Aurora could think of any other reason not to feed him.

While she was looking down at the two babies—her child with Ever and Nephy’s child by Cyrus—she did not hear Nephy stand up and slip out the door into the night.

Losing My Religion

Losing My Religion

The next day, Aurora took Keaton and Jack to the blue jacaranda trees at the park. They all lay on a blanket looking up at the sky.

“How will I keep you? How will I raise you?” Aurora asked Jack. “Your mother, my sister, is gone.”

He watched her with butterfly eyes.

“How will I trust you? How will I help you? How is there room in my heart?”

He stared with his butterfly eyes.