Turtle Baby by Abigail Padgett

searching through a brightly woven backpack pulled from beneath a cot. "Here," she said, tossing the backpack on the bed and handing Bo an envelope. "This is my marriage certificate. My husband is an American, which makes my baby one, too. You must return our baby."
    Our baby? "Are you Acito's father?" Bo asked the blond boy, who had picked up a guitar and was tuning it with elaborate care. At the question he turned a key too far, bringing a rising whine from the instrument.
    "No, no, Chris Joe is just a friend," Chac answered, pacing. "Read the marriage papers."
    Chris Joe's pale cheeks flushed crimson as he began to play "Midnight in Moscow" at a furious tempo never intended, Bo was certain, by its Russian composer. His guitar strings, she noticed, were of silk-wrapped steel. Chac's words had hurt him. Bo was beginning to get the picture. The boy was in love with the woman, hiding his feelings in a tremulous display of musical virtuosity. It was transparently clear to Bo that Chris Joe wished he were the father. Chac seemed not to notice.
    Bo unfolded the document in her hands slowly, taking time to memorize the room, the people. A sense of urgency pervaded both. An uneasiness Bo associated with the night before leaving on a long journey. Chac's bag, thrown carelessly on the cot, had spilled makeup, a hairbrush, a plastic coin purse, and a rectangular box onto the blanket. Bo's glance doubled back to the box. Clairol aerosol hair coloring. Black. Why would a healthy young woman whose hair was naturally black need dye?
    "Um, yes, I see." Bo nodded at the marriage certificate. It said that someone named Maria Elena Bolon, a citizen of Guatemala, had married someone named Dewayne L. Singleton, a citizen of the State of Louisiana, United States of America, in a Mexican civil ceremony two and a half years ago. Bo copied the information on a deposit slip torn from her wallet. "And are you Maria Elena Bolon?" she asked.
    "Si," Chac answered, leaning to pull something else from the bag. "Here are my papers."
    Beneath the acorn-colored skin of the woman's inner arm Bo saw fading purplish scars that could only mean one thing. Maybe the reason for the hair dye. Bo had seen heroin addicts whose hair turned prematurely gray, and heroin was the most likely explanation for those collapsed veins. Tracks. The reason most addicts wore long sleeves, even in summer.
    On the deposit slip she noted, "Mo IV drug user; check baby for HIV." AIDS. If Chac had shared needles with other drug users before or during her pregnancy, she could have contracted the virus, which could have infected her baby before his birth. The tracks were old, healed. But Chac might have contracted the virus years in the past. Bo thought of the dark-eyed baby in his hospital crib, and sighed. Life was always, she mused, a complete crap shoot.
    The identification papers of Maria Elena Bolon were in order, and included a photograph of the woman now calling herself Chac.
    "Why did you change your name?" Bo asked, noticing a shelf of labeled jars over a battered table holding a hotplate and Chris Joe's guitar case. The labels named various herbs. And scratched white stenciled lettering on the guitar case spelled "C.J. Gavin, Henderson, KY, GHOST PONY RULES!"
    Chris Joe rolled his eyes at the ceiling tarp, and switched from the Russian song to a plaintive melody that sounded folkloric. He was, Bo realized, creating a musical background for Chac.
    "I'm a singer," the young woman said, nodding to the music. "Singers use special names. Mine is a Maya god. What else do you wish to know?"
    Bo could think of several hundred questions, but settled on the obvious. "Where's Acito's father, this Dewayne Singleton?"
    "I don't know. He left me before Acito was born."
    "Do you have any idea where he might be? We need to contact him. Notification of both parents is standard procedure when a child is in custody."
    "No," Chac answered flatly.
    Chris Joe had placed the guitar in its case and