Read by Ben Crystal
The baby monitor squeals and my hand jerks to find it, pulling me out of a dreamless, unsteady sleep. Before I know where I am or what’s going on, I’ve clutched the receiver to my head and I’m zeroed in on the source of the noise: May, my baby daughter, is crying in the dark. The sound rings in my head and down my spine; it cramps my stomach and makes my veins clench. She’s calling out because she’s scared or hurting. Something’s wrong and her daddy has to be there for her.
Her room is opposite the master bedroom, and it’s not more than eight steps from the bed to May. So go straight to her and pick her up, before you turn the light on. In the dark, my mind is a pinball machine having a seizure, rattling and pleading, “What’s wrong?” again and again. I’m a good daddy, so it’s my job, my duty, to make sure she’s properly cared for.
There, the first hints of pink light start to brighten the room. I picked out that lamp specially for her. It comes on kind of rosy at first, then slowly gets brighter and whiter, so it’s less harsh on my May’s eyes. Now I can make out shapes: the crib, the songbirds of North America mobile, the baby monitor and that stupid clown mural that Mommy insisted on accepting from her brother, the art school drop-out. I hate those damn clowns, and one more time I wonder why they’re on May’s wall.
But she howls again, and the tearing sound from the baby monitor, which I’m still holding to my ear, shreds the thoughts about murals and clowns and that brother-in-law. I turn the volume low, and set it down. Right, check her diaper. My daughter shouldn’t be spending the night wet. But it’s nothing. Of course she doesn’t need a change now, she usually doesn’t need one until her 5 a.m. feed. So what is it? Hunger? Yeah, try giving her a bottle.
No. She’s not hungry, not at all. Look at how she’s struggling. She’s still working on the coordination, but my little girl knows how to say ‘No’. She’ll turn her head back and away, then put up her hands and start fighting. Just look at her. Turn the head, then swing. ‘No, don’t want it!’
So what then? Is she too hot? May shouldn’t be dressed in those thick pajamas at this time of year. But Mommy knows best, doesn’t she? Mommy decided to bundle you up in those cotton flannel pajamas, just in case. See what Mommy knows now? My poor May could just be roasting like that. So check her temperature; forehead to forehead.
Waiting and watching her like this, sometimes I want to scream too. Why can’t I make this thing right? Any idiot with testicles can become a dad, so what’s wrong with me that I can’t take care of my daughter? Sure, she’s my little miracle, but she’s just a baby; there can’t be that much wrong with her. Then she screams again, and that sick, guilty feeling pulls out the bottom of my stomach one more time. Figure out what’s wrong, nothing else matters. So I lower the binoculars, roll down the driver’s side window and re-focus on her bedroom from across the street.
There, Mommy’s holding you and feeling your forehead again, this time with the inside of her wrist. But it’s not a fever, is it, May? How she’s kicking, it’s too strong for a fever. Even while I’m feeling cored out with the sound of her crying, I see the way she kicks and I want to smile. She pulls up her left leg then the right, before snapping them out in a quick one-two. She caught me in the face with that more than once, back when I was looking after her.
I remember feeling her do that exact same kick before she was even born, thumping my hands from inside Mommy’s stomach. All that time I was wondering what she was doing in there; how was she sitting or what was she feeling, was she comfortable curled up there in the dark? Did she know her Daddy was right there, watching over her?
Then Mommy turns away, and I can see the hall light come on, shining through the window of my old work room, the spare room. The stairway lights come on next, reflected in the front door glass, then finally the light in the kitchen. I focus again, and see my poor May is all red and blotchy with crying. Mommy keeps walking back and forth between the fridge and the table, cooing and trying to figure out what to do next. Her face all is all pooched up and she’s saying, “ooh loo-loo-loo,” and jostling May around, as if that’d actually help. I told her and I told her that what May likes best is to have her head against the centre of your chest while you go “bvvvv, vvrrrr, brrrr,” and make your voice lower each time you change sounds. She likes the buzzing and vibration, rumbling from your body to hers.
But Mommy always says “oh loo-loo-loo” and bounces her around because her mommy always said “oh loo-loo-loo” and bounced her. Mommy always knows best, and Mommy’s mommy always knows best. They got all the answers, don’t they? Except May is still crying, so someone must still be doing something wrong.
She’s trying to burp her now. Stupid. It’s been almost ten minutes since she woke up, and she’s still crying. May never cries for this long when I’ve got her. And this isn’t fussing, it’s full bore, wide open crying. I can see her screaming inside, and I can feel it out here, across the street.
She’s crying, and I still don’t know what’s wrong in there.
I tell myself there’s no cause for panic. I’m not one of those parents who run off to the doctor for every little thing. Besides, a parent’s got to cope. You’ve got to be the first and the last resort. Right now she’s crying because something’s not right, figure out what it is and take care of it. Not hunger, not gas, so check her over again. And just as I’m thinking it, Mommy lays May down on the kitchen table and checks again to find ... nothing. What’s wrong?
She’s hurting and this whole thing is cutting me in half. For the hundredth time tonight, I want to break the door down, grab my daughter and take her somewhere else, somewhere clean and quiet and warm and safe. I want to curl my arms around my merry-May-day and fix whatever it is that’s wrong. I want to take her away and keep her safe. That’s what a good father is supposed to do: protect his baby.
Then I realize that I’ve let go of the steering wheel and I’m about to open the car door. The inside lights of the car are always switched off, but opening the door here would probably activate the security lights next door. And even though I’m outside of the judge’s fucking 50 metre limit, Mommy knows she can just call the fucking cops and Daddy gets a trip down to the fucking police station anyway.
But Daddy’s not a bad man, and if he goes to jail, he can’t help May; he can’t even see May. So I take a deep breath, brush the empty cups and wrappers off the dashboard, and put the binoculars down. Even though my guts clench every time I hear her muffled crying over the monitor, I close my eyes, put both hands tight on the wheel, and go over the possibilities again. Not hungry, not her diaper and not a fever. Maybe Mommy’s been mixing the formula wrong and it’s gas. Maybe it’s a spider bite. Or she got one of her fingers pinched in something. It could be anything. Anything.
And then, when I’m trying again to block out that vision of me bursting into the house and grabbing May, I hear it: quiet.
I open my eyes, and grab the binoculars to see into the kitchen window again. I can see Mommy, walking back and forth in front of the sink and jiggling something in front of May’s face. I re-focus and look again. It’s that yellow dish scrubber, one of the shit ones with the hollow handle that Mommy insists on buying. But those stupid bristles are curled back like some kind of worn out flower and it’s caught May’s eyes. She’s waving at it and her face is relaxing, the dark blotches on her cheeks are starting to fade. Whatever it was, it’s over. She’s okay.
I start to relax, and as the sick, hollow feeling passes, I realize I'm hungry. One hand still holding the binoculars, I grope around the car with the other, searching for something to eat. The paper sack from McDonald’s is empty. The cup in the cup-holder is empty too, even that waxy tasting water from the melted ice is gone. I toss them all into the footwell with the other trash. There’s not even a gum or mints or anything in the glove box. So I push the feeling aside and watch my girl, happy again.
Mommy is circling the scrubber above May’s face, swooping it in close then fluttering it away, and May is tracking it with her eyes, smiling that pink gums smile and trying to reach it. She’s missing it, but with each swing she gets a little bit closer to getting the timing right. And I’m thinking that my merry-May will get it in the next pass or two, just watch.
But then Mommy turns away from the window and I can’t see any more. She leans on the switch on her way out and the kitchen goes dark. A few moments later the light from the stairwell goes out, followed by the one in the upstairs hallway, and the empty room next to May’s goes dark. I turn up the sound on the baby monitor and press it to my ear. I can hear Mommy humming and muttering something, and the sound of cloth, maybe blankets moving, before ... nothing. All I’m getting is the sound of blood rushing in my ears because I’ve been holding my breath. Then, slowly, slowly, the light in May’s room turns pink and fades. That soft pink colour gets dimmer and dimmer, just like it’s supposed to. But I’ve been staring through the binoculars so hard I’m seeing those flickers you get from looking at the same thing for too long. From out here, I can’t tell when that warm light over my baby has finally, completely gone out.
___
Raised in the American southwest, Samuel Taradash currently lives in London, where he divides his time between writing, so-called ‘real’ work and an irrational nostalgia for Japan. He’s currently involved in the episodic literary variety night, The Special Relationship, and is working on a novel.
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