Earl taped pictures all around the cradle from his national geographics. There was a skinny African monkey and a bumpy whale, and an aquarium worth of expressionless fish floating between each other's brilliant diaphanous fins. Marlene slept with a stuffed lion and a perpetually damp teddy bear. Louise called the part of the room the baby slept in the Noah's Arc corner. The exotic animals guarded the gurgling baby like talismans.