Free Power in the Blood by Greg Matthews

rehearsed the words many times, perfecting the tone to her own satisfaction; it sounded less like begging, more like a demand. The Hassenplugs looked at each other, then Mrs. Hassenplug complied, setting down a chunk of dry corn bread.
    Zoe broke off a morsel and nibbled daintily, not wanting to gratify the Hassenplugs with a display of voracious hunger. When the edge was taken from her appetite, she unfolded the blanket from her baby’s face and said, “Her name is Naomi. She’s mine.”
    Mrs. Hassenplug’s confidence in reclaiming her husband had been strengthened by the doctor’s report of a girl, and she was disposed, now that the issue of a male line for the Hassenplugs had been scuttled, to be more amenable to Zoe’s needs. This did not mean she would have been the first to venture upstairs, had Zoe not come down, but now that the baby was before her, she could not help herself; she had to lean forward and inspect the thing that had threatened her marriage.
    “Why, there’s a mark on it.…”
    Hassenplug himself came forward, made curious. The baby was indeed marked; from the outer corner of her left eye there streamed a cloud of inky blue that swept around the side of her head to wrap itself about the ear, itself completely blue, almost purple.
    Whatever universal empathy Mrs. Hassenplug might have allowed herself to feel vanished utterly at the sight of the birthmark. She knew such things were, if not the devil’s work, at the very least indicators of inferior blood. The child would very likely turn out to be an idiot, even if her face was sweetness itself. It was a sign, a definite sign that all was not right with the circumstances of the birth, and should anyone be surprised that it had turned out so? This was no product of love or sanctified marriage. Her husband had forced himself on the girl, and the act was transferred to the face of the child she bore. There it was, for all the world to see, a massive blue tear leaking sideways from that innocent eye.
    Mrs. Hassenplug stepped away, and her husband joined her in that backward step of condemnation. Not only was the child not a boy, it was marked by permanent ugliness. It was no child of his. Zoe must have tricked him into thinking it was from that day when he’d taken her partway to town. The little whore had clearly been lifting her dress for some half-witted farmhand in the area, then led Hassenplug to believe the swelling was due to himself. Such gall! Any child of Hassenplug’s, even a girl, would never have been so disfigured. The entire episode was a trick, but he had no intention of playing the dupe for long.
    Zoe got her trip to town. Mrs. Hassenplug and baby Naomi (already called Omie by her mother) also went along. Hassenplug bought Zoe a new dress and shoes, then she was taken to the station where the Hassenplugs had chosen her almost five years before. A ticket was purchased and placed in her hand. “This’ll take you far as Springfield, Illinois,” she was told, and a five-dollar bill was tucked into the baby’s shawl. “That’s for the things you’ll be needing,” Mrs. Hassenplug advised.
    To Zoe, none of this was surprising. The Hassenplugs had been hinting she might be better off elsewhere, in a big town. In a way, it gave her satisfaction; this was the very plan she’d concocted for the day Hassenplug had raped her. Now it was happening. The difference lay in the ticket, the five dollars, and Omie.
    She said nothing, had said virtually not a word since being informed she would be going to town that day. She was being sent away, mailed by locomotive to a distant place where she could not bother her erstwhile parents.
    They stood on the platform, together yet separate, waiting for the train. Zoe looked at her baby, at other travelers standing about, at the rolling stock in a siding, anywhere but at the people who had taken her in, her betrayers. It was best to be gone from them, and yet she felt a certain inexplicable sadness.