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The nurse lifted the infant fro the baby, the nun turned with it to Celestina, folding back a thin blanket to present her with a good look at the tiny girl

Breath held, Celestina confirliery Its skin was cafe au lait with a warenerations and at least to the extent of second cousins, no one on either side of Celestina’s faht color They ithout exception any, many shades darker than this infant

Phimie’s rapt must have been a white ht know He lived in or around Spruce Hills, because Phimie had considered him still to be a threat

Celestina had no illusions about playing detective She would never be able to track down the bastard, and she had no sto that scared her was not thewas the decision that she had o, in the unused hospital room on the seventh floor

Her entire future was at stake if she acted as she had decided to act

Here, in the presence of the baby, within the next e herlife than any she had envisioned only thisout her arms

Without hesitation, the nun transferred the infant to Celestina

The baby felt too light to be real She weighed five pounds fourteen ounces, but she seeht float up and out of her aunt’s ar herself to the anger and hatred hich she had regarded this child in the operating roo that Celestina had felt earlier, they would never allow her here in the creche, never trust her with this newborn

This spawn of violence This killer of her sister

She searched the child’s unfocused eyes for son of the hateful father’s wickedness

The little hands, so weak now but soery, as were the father’s hands? Misbegotten offspring This seed of a demonic man whom Phi nohat pain ht she coh Celestina searched intently, she could not glimpse the father’s evil in the child

Instead, she saw Phiered Somewhere out there was a rapt capable of extreme cruelty and violence, a man ould--if Phimie was correct--react unpredictably if ever he learned of his daughter’s existence Angel, if that’s what she were eventually to be named, lived under a threat as surely as had all the children of Bethlehe Herod The baby curled one sile, she nonetheless gripped with surprising tenacity

Do whatthe newborn to the nun, Celestina asked for the use of a phone, and for privacy

The social worker’s office once htly at the here Dr Lipsco as he tried to avoid confronting the life-changing revelation that Phie of the once-dead, had shown hiain She shook uncontrollably, but her voice was steady

Her mother and father used different extensions, both on the line with her

"I want you to adopt the baby" Before they could react, she hurried on: "I won’t be twenty-one for four ive h I’le But if you adopt her, I’ll raise her I promise I will I’ll take full responsibility You don’t have to worry that I’ll regret it or that I’ll ever want to drop her in your laps and escape the responsibility She’ll have to be the center of my life from here on I understand that I accept it I eue with her, and though she knew that she was committed to her decision, she was afraid to have that commitment tested just yet

Instead, her father asked, "Is this e, Celie, or is this brain as ht it through, Daddy More than anything in h"

"What aren’t you telling us?" her er story, if not the a nature of it

Celestina told thee Phi resuscitated "Phi special about her baby, too"

"Remember the father," Grace cautioned

And the reverend added, "Yes, remember If blood tells-"

"We don’t believe it does, do we, Daddy? We don’t believe blood tells We believe we’re born to hope, under a mantle of mercy, don’t we?"

"Yes," he said softly "We do

A siren in the city wailed toward St Mary’s An a with hope, always this la

Celestina looked up fro-white sky beyond the , from reality to the promise

She told theel "At the time, I assumed she wasn’t able to think clearly because of the stroke

If the baby was going to be adopted out, the adoptive parents would name it But I think she understood--or someho-that I would want to do this That I would have to do this"

"Celie," her mother said, "I’ this But how is it possible to carry on with your studies, your work, and take care of a baby?"

Celestina’s parents weren’t well-off Her father’s church was sed to worry up tuition for art school, but Celestina worked as a waitress to pay for her studio apartraduate in the spring of next year I can take fewer classes, graduate the spring after That’s no big deal"

"Oh, Celie--"

She rushed on: "I’m one of the best waitresses they have, so if I ask for dinner shifts only, I’ll get the the one shift, four and a half to five hours, I’ll have a regular schedule"

"Then who’ll be with the baby?"

"Sitters Friends, relatives of friends People I can trust I can afford sitters if I’ only dinner tips"

"Better we should raise her, your father and me"

"No, Mom That won’t work You knoon’t"

The reverend said, "I’m sure you underestimate my parishioners, Celestina They won’t be scandalized They’ll open their hearts"

"It isn’t that, Daddy You reether the day before yesterday, how afraid Phimie was of this man Not just for herselffor the baby"

I won’t have the baby here If he realizes he made a baby with me, it’ll

make him crazier I knoill

"He won’t harm a little child," her mother said "He wouldn’t have any reason"