Free Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

carefully cuts away the outer leaves, removes a thimbleful of hairy bud, and then, sitting down in the old rocking chair, packs his brown glass pipe with it. The greenhouse is the size of Jude’s bedroom—big, the whole third floor of the warehouse—and as he burrows into the sleeping bag at his father’s feet, he wishes he could sleep in here instead.
    “I thought the lights weren’t supposed to be on at night,” Jude says. In the orange light his father’s left cheek is an angry red. “What happened to your face?”
    His father puts two fingers to his cheek. He has a soft, pale, leathery face, with splotches of pink age spots along the roots of his hair, which he parts down the middle. Since he was a teenager he’s worn it long and stringy, to his shoulders. His overgrown beard is the same copper color, the rim of his mustache stained tobacco brown. In the summer he wears cutoff jeans and flip-flops and no shirt, walking around the house scratching the copper curls on his chest. Now he pulls the hood of his parka over his head. “Born that way, champ,” he says.
    Jude puts his hands behind his head, gathering his shoulders into the depths of the sleeping bag, which smells like gasoline and his mother. She used to take it camping at Camel’s Hump with Jude’s father, who now has a piece of pot caught in his beard like a crumb. Jude asks if he can try some, but his father shakes his head.
    “You let me try the eggnog with rum in it.”
    “Reefer is for grown-ups. But some grown-ups are too grown-up for it. Some grown-ups think it’s unfashionable now.” His father takes a smooth hit. “I’m afraid I’m not needed here anymore, champ.” When Jude says nothing, his father asks, “You know why people smoke reefer? It’s a comfort, champ. It restores you, like sleep. It makes you like a baby again, a sleeping baby. Know what I mean?”
    “No. You won’t let me try.”
    “You’re already a baby. You don’t need to become one again. When you’re older, you’ll know.”
    “I’m not a baby. I’m nine today.”
    His father rocks slowly in his chair. “You’re right. You’re not a baby anymore.”
    “Do you know what Mom and Mr. Donahoe were talking about outside?”
    He stops rocking. His gray eyes, which have been rolling around the greenhouse with a liquid dreaminess, fall on Jude’s face, as though he’s just spotted him there, lying at his feet. He looks almost pleased.
    “As a matter of fact, I believe they were talking about moi .”
    “How come?”
    A sheet of snow tumbles off the warming roof.
    “I’m going to tell you something, champ, because I need another man’s opinion. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “Mrs. Donahoe, she’s pregnant. You know, she’s going to have a baby.”
    Jude absorbs this information. As cold as it is outside, he’s hot in his sleeping bag, his forehead sweating under the lights. “Then why were they talking about you?”
    “Well, because I’m the one who made her pregnant. You know how that happens and everything?”
    Jude nods slowly. He knows, more or less. When he asked his mother where babies came from, she drew him a diagram in colored pencils.
    “And what do you think about that?”
    “Is Mom pissed?”
    “Yes, she is. She’s very pissed and doesn’t want to be married to me anymore. And she’ll probably be even more pissed that I told you all this, but you should know the truth. You’re a big guy. You can handle it, right?”
    Jude is lying perfectly still, even though he wants to crawl into his father’s lap and touch the red spot on his cheek. He wonders if it was Mr. Donahoe who hit him, or Jude’s mom.
    “What will happen to the baby?”
    “We find ourselves in a strange position. Do we keep the baby? What happens to the baby?”
    “Where will it go? Does—will it be Mr. and Mrs. Donahoe’s?”
    “It’s a possibility.”
    “But where will the baby go if they don’t?”
    His father takes a quick hit of his pipe, then puts it down