Menagerie. Rachel Vincent

      Twenty-five years ago...

      The heat rippling over the surface of Charity Marlow’s blacktop driveway was one hundred twelve degrees. It was nearly one hundred nine in the shade from the scrub brush that passed for trees in her front yard.

      She sat on a white iron bench in her backyard, picking at the paint flaking off the arm scrolls. A glass of sweet tea stood on the empty plant stand to her right, thinner on top, where the ice cubes melted, thicker on bottom, where the sugar settled.

      Inside, the baby was crying.

      She’d been going for close to three hours this time, and Charity’s arms ached from holding her. Her head throbbed and her feet were sore from standing. From pacing and rocking in place. Her throat was raw from crooning, her nerves shot from exhaustion, and her patience long worn thin.

      She’d decided to go inside again when the last ice cube had melted into her tea, and not a minute later.

      Not a minute earlier either, even though the top of her head felt close to combusting from the heat of the sun.

      She stared at the cracked earth beneath her feet, at the hands in her lap, watching her own fingers shake from exhaustion. Then she stared at her tea as the ice cubes shrank before her eyes, and still the baby screamed.

      Then, the last ice cube melted.

      Despair swallowed Charity like the whale swallowed Jonah, but she held no hope of being spit back out. Her arms felt like they were made of iron as she lifted her tea.

      She closed her eyes while the top of her skull burned in the blazing sunlight. “Lord,” she whispered, condensation dripping over her fingers from the outside of her cold glass, “won’t you take this angry child and give me a quieter, happier one in her place?”

      As soon as she’d said the words, she regretted them. Words spoken in pain and exhaustion are rarely meant, and Charity Marlow’s were no exception.

      But there was no taking them back.

      The moment the last word fell from her lips, the baby stopped crying.

      Setting her glass down, she listened harder but heard only silence.

      She stood and rounded the bench, headed for the kitchen door. By the time she got to the house, she was running. The screen door slammed behind her and her sandals slapped the floor, competing with the thunder of her own heartbeat in her ears as she raced down the hall.

      She stopped in the nursery threshold, one hand clenched around the glossy white door frame, breathing too fast. Too hard. Her chest felt like it was constricting around her heart, as if her ribs were laced up too tight.

      “I didn’t mean it. Please, I didn’t mean it.”

      The baby was dead. Charity was sure of it. She’d committed the worst sin a mother could commit, and now she was being punished.

      But there was no answer from above, so she had to take that next step forward. And the one after that.

      By her third step into