NINETY

After the party had been cleared, Lucy called Luis to speak with him and he asked the problem.

"What was up with that joke? You really hurt them."

"I'm sorry, I have just been stressed out lately, I don't know what came over me."

Lucy sighed then said,"At least Rose was there to help."

"How so?"

"She tried telling Ruby the baby was fearfully and wonderfully made by God."

He had another joke forcing through his mouth like a hernia, but he swallowed it as Lucy asked again,"What were you doing earlier this morning?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were on your laptop, anything I should know about?"

"Nah, it's just work stuff, nothing of importance, by the way we should really go get some gifts for the baby."

"You better not make another mean joke about her though."

"Of course, it was a one time thing, I mean children who look like that only come once every few millennia."He said then began to laugh.

There was a hitting sound and he opened the car door for Lucy and walked to the driver's seat with a black eye.

Rose was speaking to her sister about the saving power of God and for once, she was actually interested, Mack was ironically skeptical.

The baby was sleeping in her crib and Lucille came to check on her, then went to stand by the baby and tickled her.

Braid Rose woke up and giggled, heartily laughing till she turned away.

Lucille knew it was enough, so left, and at that moment, a sharp blade like claw scraped the edge of the windowsill...

There was a loud scream from the baby's bedroom and we all rushed there to see Lucille hyperventilating...the baby was gone...for good.

***

Ruby screamed and ran to her motionless baby, its golden pink glow had made way for pasty white and Mack started hyperventilating.

He tried to perform CPR on the infant, but none of his efforts yielded any results, the baby was dead.

Rose tried to speak to Ruby, but she screamed for us all to get out.

Rose made another effort but Ruby yelled for her to leave, them began to question why God would allow something like this to happen to such a sweet child if he was real, she almost scratched me with her nails when I tried to explain, but Mack held her back and she cried in his arms.

I tried to move forward, but Mack whispered,"Just go, please."

We all decided to leave.

Sitting in the couch, Luis sat, boredom filling his entrails as he fidgeted with a knife in his fingers.

Lucy wondered why he was the only one who didn't seem the least bit hurt, but remembering whom he was, she brushed the thought aside.

Lucille was the most affected by all this though, the baby died on her watch, not to mention the obvious fact that she loved babies.

I just sat by Rose, wondering what went wrong.

Ruby was coming closer to God and we had done nothing wrong, or had we? Luis?

No, God wouldn't hold that against the baby, especially as he doesn't even seem to care.

We all left, one by one, as usual and though Luis was indifferent about the baby's demise, who still showed tremendous concern for Lucille's condition, she could be traumatized for good.

Which was the reason he stayed behind, till midnight.

Entering the baby's bedroom through the window, he took careful steps then immediately stopped when he was in the centre of the room and turned to face the window, then asked,"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough..."Mack said,"...what are you doing back here?"

"I came to investigate on the matter, stem tubers don't just rot so suddenly."

Mack frowned at him then he said,"I don't get it, when I'm mean you complain, when I joke, you groan, what do you want me to do?"

"How about mourn when we mourn? How about be happy when we are? Or maybe actually try to make us feel like we're living beings not insignificant characters in your spy movie."

"It would be kinda cool if I starred in a..."

"You'll never change, why am I wasting my time with you?"

"I dunno, keep trying, you might crack another joke out of me."

"Do what you want, then leave, I don't want you back here again."

Luis groaned then said,"Wait."

Mack took a few more steps before stopping and asked without looking,"What?"

"Look at the baby monitor."

"What about it?"

Luis picked it up and the bottom half immediately cleaved from the top half.

Mack walked closer and before he could ask, Luis switched on a flashlight and beamed it at a corner in the ceiling, showing the open wire where a camera used to hang from, all the cameras were missing.

Luis then picked one of the stuffed animals on display, looking intently at it, he looked at Mack, then said,"This is it."

"What?"

"The murder weapon."

Luis gave it to Mack to sniff it and it had a slight tinge of the baby's skin cream.

Mack looked at Luis, suspicion building up, before he asked,"How could I trust that you didn't do it?"

"...you don't need to, I'm not asking you to."

Mack shook his head and walked away, Luis was hopeless.

Flashes of the baby came back to his mind, it may not have been the prettiest baby, but it surely was the sweetest, purest, most innocent baby he'd ever met, she didn't deserve to be caught in the cross fires, by the evidence, he already knew it was the being standing at the window which did it...