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Perfect.”
    “ ’Cause I like it,” Emma Jean sassed, rubbing the baby’s silky-smooth, featherlike hair, “and because the name tells people exactly what she is.”
    “Okay, but, like I said, I ain’t never heard o’ nobody named Perfect before.”
    “Of course you ain’t. My baby’s special.”
    Gus mouthed the name repeatedly, hoping the awkwardness might subside, but it didn’t.
    “Hand me that towel over there,” Emma Jean asked.
    Gus rose and passed her the towel resting on the back of a chair. When he saw her breast, he turned away quickly and returned to the floor. Emma Jean almost screamed, finding it ridiculous that an exposed breast disturbed a father of seven, but then she reminded herself that Gus hadn’t often seen her naked. Months ago, when they used to touch, it always happened in the dark, she recalled, so maybe Gus didn’t connect the sight of breasts with the joy he once got from them.
    Perfect drifted back to sleep and Emma Jean rolled to the edge of the bed again.
    “A girl needs thangs boys ain’t gotta have, you know,” she said as though introducing Gus to the concept of calculus.
    “That’s why I didn’t want one.”
    “Well, we got one now, and raisin’ a girl is different from raisin’ dem knucklehead boys. She gotta have pretty ribbons for her hair”—Emma Jean smiled—“and dresses to match.”
    “You know we can’t afford no expensive stuff like that. We barely eatin’ as it is!”
    “. . . and cute li’l pocketbooks for Easter Sunday morning. Course it ain’t got to be nothin’ too fancy, but then again ain’t nothin’ too good fu my baby girl!”
    “Stop it, Emma Jean. Just stop it. You know we can’t buy none o’ dat stuff. This is ’xactly why I didn’t want no mo’ chillen. Boy or girl.”
    “Well, fine, we won’t have any more, but we can’t act like Perfect ain’t here ’cause she is, and li’l girls gotta have thangs li’l boys don’t.”
    “We ain’t got no money fu dat shit you talkin’ ’bout, Emma Jean! We can’t even keep dese boys’ feets covered in de winter, and now you talkin’ ’bout buyin’ needless stuff like hair ribbons?” Gus slammed his right fist into his left palm. “I knowed this was gon’ happen. I knowed it.”
    “Well, yes, it’s done happened now,” Emma Jean commented casually, “and you ain’t gon’ have my li’l girl runnin’ ’round here lookin’ like no black pickaninny!”
    “She gon’ look like whatever she look like,” Gus said. “And she ain’t gon’ git no mo’ than what these boys gits. I know a girl wear dresses and all, but she can’t be walkin’ ’round lookin’ like a princess while de boys lookin’ like slaves!”
    “All I’m sayin’ is that Perfect is a girl, and girls need thangs boys don’t. And she gon’ have whatever she need.”
    “She’ll get whatever we can give her,” Gus said matter-of-factly.
    Emma Jean cackled. “That’s fine. I’ll have Authorly paint the bedroom yellow. Girls usually like yellow.”
    Gus was silent.
    “It’s gotta look like a girl’s room.”
    “I don’t care what color you paint it.”
    “Fine. Then yellow it is. She’ll love it. You’ll see.”
     
    In the living room, Mister whispered in the dark, “Can Perfect swim wit’ us in de pond when she get bigger?”
    “No, fool!” Authorly said. “Girls don’t swim naked wit’ boys.”
    “Why not?”
    “ ’Cause they girls! Boys ain’t s’pose to be seein’ no naked girls ’til they get married.”
    “Why not?”
    “ ’Cause Momma say it ain’t right. She say it’s a sin to see a naked girl before she become yo’ wife.”
    “But Perfect ain’t gon’ neva be my wife! She my sister!”
    “Don’t make no difference. She still a girl, and if you see her naked, yougoin’ to hell. Remember what Momma said: we can’t even change her diapers.”
    “Oh yeah,” Mister moaned. “But she can sleep wit’ me, right? I don’t mind at all. Not even a