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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 108 He came often after that. He would hold Cleo for hours, clean, change, dandle, and play with her. When he got her to sleep he would put her down in the crib and go home. Angie thought it strange but appreciated the break. When she handed Cleo off to Patrick, her whole body tingled like a blood-rash through a sleepy limb. Patrick offered to babysit, but Angie found the things she'd enjoyed in her former life to be a greater burden than Cleo, and understood she felt no desire to change back. She preferred to stay in, and one night Patrick lingered after the baby was put down. They quickly ended up in bed, sweaty, and thoroughly spent. At least now, six months after her birth, Cleo was beginning to look more like Angie than Cory. Their basic body structure was the same: lithe arms, stocky necks, long legs, short torsos, high foreheads. They made similar facial expressions when surprised, panicked, overjoyed. Cory had been disgusted with her decision to have the baby, and part of her refused to fault him for it. She hadn't seen him since, nor had she tried to see him. She had told herself that Cory had a choice to make just as she did. He had chosen an abortion; Angie had chosen a baby. As far as she was concerned, Cory had no daughter, and Angie didn't assume the right to ask for child support, or any help whatever, much to her mother's chagrin. The nurses had put a swaddled prune on Angie's chest in the delivery room. Cleo had beady ferret eyes and her skin had looked waterlogged for weeks, purple and wrinkled. She had Cory's floppy ears, miniature porcelain replicas of his feet, the longer second toe and strangely curved pinkie. In fact, all of Cleo's particular body parts were |