And for the first time since meeting, Brandon and Alejo were free.
They were six months into their new life across the lake when things changed. Summer turned to fall, the bristled ends of the junipers by the lake fell bare, and a cold wind settled into the Owyhee valley. The cabin wasn’t perfect, but stepping away from Snakebite was like breathing for the first time. It was a taste of what life could be. It was the good things, like afternoons lying by the lake, nights by the fire with a book, waking each morning to birdsong and rustling leaves. And it was the rest—Post-it Notes about forgotten dishes, blankets hogged on one side of the bed, days where each other’s company was simultaneously too much and not enough.
On a trip into town for eggs and kindling, Brandon heard the first whispers:… left at the church … just a baby, and they left her right on the front step … who was even pregnant?… Pastor Briggs says it was a camper … foster care, probably. What else can they do?
But like everything in Snakebite, the wonder died just as quickly as it came. After a week of talk about the mysterious baby girl dropped on the steps of Snakebite First Baptist Church, gossip shifted its gaze to a group of teens caught smoking pot outside the grocery store. And while Brandon was ready to move on just as quickly, something about the story caught Alejo like a snag on splintered wood.
“We have to see her,” Alejo said. “It’s a sign.”
“A sign of what?” Brandon was generally good at weeding the skepticism from his voice, but not this time. He sat in their half-built kitchen, wedged between the fridge and a cabinet-to-be.
Alejo stepped inside from the back porch, but his gaze lingered on Snakebite’s hazy outline across the shore. “We talk about wanting a family one day and then a baby girl gets randomly dropped at the church. You don’t think that’s destiny?”
“I think it’s sad.”
If Alejo hadn’t been raised Catholic, Brandon might’ve noted that the god he knew didn’t typically act as a stork for small-town gay pariahs. But he had to admit there was a piece of him, small and afraid, that dared to want this: a family. Even a year ago, it had been too impossible to imagine. A year ago, he’d resigned himself to a life alone. But now he could almost picture it when he closed his eyes.
“We could be her family,” Alejo said. “Isn’t that what our little unit is supposed to be? A collection of things other people threw away?”
“You can’t pick up a baby like you’re grabbing scrap metal off the side of the road.” Brandon rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s so much you have to do. Paperwork. Money. I don’t know if we can do it.”
“I’m not asking you to commit right now,” Alejo said. “I’m just asking to see her.”
So they did.
Snakebite First Baptist Church was painted cool by the late-fall sun, but the moment they stepped into the church’s nursery, the cold melted away. Brandon wasn’t religious, and he’d never been fond of chalking things up to destiny or divine purpose, but when they approached the girl’s crib and he saw her for the first time—wide eyes as dark as wood smoke, fingers too little to be real, a single tuft of black hair jutting from the top of her head—it was all over.
Alejo’s breath hitched in his chest. “I would never force you to do anything this important, obviously. And I know it’s a big deal, but—”
Brandon leaned into the crib and pressed his thumb into the girl’s impossibly small hand. Her fingers curled around his knuckle and she looked at him with eyes that unmade him. That unraveled him from the inside. He shook his head, but he didn’t pull his hand away. “She needs us.”
And then their family of two was a family of three.
Brandon had been right. It wasn’t easy. It was months of paperwork, interviews, and nonstop work on the cabin to prove that the girl would have a home worth living in. The search for the girl’s parents came up empty, leaving her nameless and alone. She was a mystery—another stone at the bottom of the lake. But this time, Brandon was on the shore. This time, he could do the saving.