The City of Wilmington

Winds blew. The trees leaned like they were reaching for ambition, for poetry, for thought. A whirring sounded faint. The sound grew gradually like the positive volume on a remote control. A white drone looked like a small cloud against the cerulean sky.

It zoomed by the cabin. The flying machine grew close to the door and dropped the box with care. It was with the slightest touch. The green mat that read “Keep going!” in red Helvetica matched the maplewood of the small hut in the woods of Newark, Delaware.

A baby, my baby cried. That’s what stirred me. Her sweet cooing once I picked her up actually calmed me. I shushed her. I looked at my wife, somehow still fast asleep. Okay, I know why she was still not awake. She had gotten Zeta to sleep. And now she wasn’t. But her mother looked so peaceful, so deep in the cocoon of her slumber.

The whirring grew faint again when I looked at it floating away like a balloon. I kissed Zeta and put her down in her carriage. She cried. So, I rocked her in a chair, gently bouncing her on my knee. That abated her grumblings. Slowly, she ceased her yelps and drifted back to sleep.

I returned her to her trundle bed. I got up with the glint of the sun in my eye.

I stepped towards the door avoiding every crevice and creaking floorboard. I took the door handle and opened with confidence knowing that I had greased the door with olive oil earlier in the week. I slipped out into the bone winter. The air was dry. Winds continued to blow. I looked down at my feet at this box. This parcel that had descended from the heavens without my anticipation.

I returned to the cabin. Danina had roused and began two cups of coffee. She looked back at me with those luscious brown eyes. Her ebony skin looked like the cups of coffee. She looked at me and put a first finger up to her smirking lips. She then looked cross with her eyebrows furrowed and her head cocked to one side.

I shrugged. I just held the box in my hand and moved closer to her. She actually took hold of the box. I took the coffees from the espresso machine.

She took a knife and sliced open the white cardboard cube. Danina extracted the contents. I just looked on as I offered her the cup of joe. I sipped.

She looked closer. Documents spilled out like coins from a slot machine. I approached her and she gathered up the papers and backed away towards our bed. Danina’s black skin looked ashen and her face looked drawn.

“What?” I whispered, a corner of my mouth drawing up a bit.

She darkened and shook her head. “No,” Danina finally replied.

I grabbed the papers from her. I began to read.

“I was going to tell you….” Danina started.

“This is what you do to me?” I asked, shaken. Danina wept.

“Why did you do this?” I query.

“I…I… just wanted to make this a family. He’s probably dead now.”

“Zeta…she’s not mine.” I gasped it out in gulps of air.

Danina shook her head no.

I looked outside the window. “Alright. She said this man was dead. If you can just say you’re her father and we can raise her out here in these woods,” Danina began.

I closed my eyes and lifted my hands in front of me. “No,” I looked down at my brown skin and looked at Zeta. She had been fair skinned but I thought that was because of my bloodline. How foolish. I began to pack. Danina tried to stop me but I was too swift. The tiny space permitted me the chance to gather up my things and never look behind me. It started with a drone and now I was ready to embark on a new life in the city of Wilmington.