More like the victim in a horror movie, Josh considered responding.
“I don’t see the point in ordering further tests. Her behavior is within the normal range.” The doctor had to shout to be heard, which undercut the intended calm of his diagnosis. “This pattern will stop eventually.”
“When?” Cheryl asked. “At four months? Five? Next year? And are you sure there isn’t something wrong with her? Something terribly wrong?”
The doctor offered a measured response, ending with a quick, shouted summary: “She’ll be fine.” As they compared notes afterward, Cheryl recalled him saying, “I predict she’ll be better in no time.” The way Josh heard it was: “I can’t predict. These things take time.”
—
Nights continued to exhaust them. They had moved Lydia’s crib back to their own bedroom to monitor her better. When it was “Josh’s night,” he’d scoop her up, with the blanket bundle and a rattle toy, and would take her downstairs to a rocking chair he’d moved to a corner of the kitchen.
He’d tested that spot as the farthest from their bedroom, hoping the sound would diminish over distance. He’d be a zombie at work tomorrow, but at least Cheryl might get some sleep that night.
He had the pacifier, too, but Lydia turned her head if he attempted to push the rubber tip into her mouth. He took a bottle of her formula from the refrigerator, then tried to feed her, but again no effect.
As often happened, Josh blamed himself. He wasn’t inventive enough, or he lacked simple fatherly skills that came so naturally to others.
He realized he didn’t often describe his daughter with love: compliment the shape of her nose, the way her cheeks puffed up when she smiled. The wispy golden silk of her hair, now just beginning to curl. That kind of praise, expressed with a father’s genuine pride, might be what was needed.
“You’re so pretty.” He gently poked at her stomach, made a tickle sound. “You’re my pretty girl.”
Even as Lydia’s face scrunched tight, mouth open, eyes flashing with rage and cheeks blister-red.
It’s like she just wanted to cry.
Josh lifted the corner of the blanket. Soft cotton, a pretty pattern of pink and white stripes. He crumpled the corner into a ball, judged the size of his daughter’s open mouth.
A gag, only. He’d remove it if she had trouble breathing.
He was so tired. What if he pushed the blanket into her mouth, pressed his hand over it to further muffle the sound, and what if he accidently covered her nose as well? And what if he fell asleep?
Josh, what are you doing?
Cheryl, in her nightdress, stood in the kitchen doorway. Her voice carried loud and clear. He was afraid to look in his lap.
She misses her grandfather. Are you taking her to him?
Josh heard himself say, “Yes, Yes, that’s what I’m doing. Would that be so bad, really? Our daughter favors him over us. We get proof of that every day, every night…”
Then Lydia’s scream came back, full force.
It had never faded. Josh looked at the wailing baby in his lap, then back to the doorway where he thought he’d seen his wife. Her voice had been too clear. He never could have heard her over Lydia’s cries.
A political prisoner suffered similar distress: sleep deprivation, continual loud noises to interrupt rational thought. His will was broken; hallucinations prompted him to consider the unthinkable.
But what if…? What if that vision of his wife had proposed the best solution?
Josh didn’t know why the idea hadn’t occurred to him earlier. Take Lydia to her grandfather. She misses him.
Or rather, Bring Lewis here. Through mimicry.
—
He’d never brought home his imitation of Lewis’s mechanical voice. His wife, certainly, wouldn’t have seen the humor in it. And now that his father-in-law had passed on, the idea seemed to be in especially poor taste.
But now he was alone with his inconsolable daughter. Her grandfather had been the only one who could comfort her. His strange voice, at least.
Could he still do the imitation? And what should he say?
Josh cupped one hand behind his daughter’s head, and he brought his mouth close to her ear.
“Hush, little girl,” he said in a slow monotone. “Quiet, little Lydia.”
Josh couldn’t hear himself very well, but he knew the voice didn’t quite come out right. Lydia kept crying, but a hint of interest crept into her eyes.
“Recognize me?” Josh buzzed and droned. “Who does Daddy sound like?”
Lydia seemed fascinated, but she didn’t stop crying.
Josh figured out the problem: His imitation lacked authenticity. He was an actor who didn’t believe in the character he portrayed.
Because he’d never believed in this current incarnation of Lewis Hampton: the same man who, while raising his own daughter, insulted her on a daily basis. When Josh courted Cheryl, witnessing the oppressive atmosphere Lewis created in their home, he had always wondered: How can a father treat his own child this way? His own beautiful, innocent daughter? A parent isn’t allowed to think such things, let along speak them aloud, yet Lewis hadn’t seemed to care.
That part of Lewis was missing from Josh’s attempt at mimicry. But he didn’t dare incorporate such awful messages into his imitation.
Then he remembered a joke he and his brother used to play with the family dog. You could say anything to Prince, as long as the tone of your voice remained sweet and loving. Would you like to go back to the pound? We can take you there, and have you put to sleep. And the dog would run to the front door, excited to go outside. How would you like me to cut off your tail, boy? Slice it clean off with a kitchen knife? And that same tail would wag happily.
Josh realized it didn’t matter what he said.
It would be okay to talk to his daughter with Lewis Hampton’s robotic, cancer-ravaged voice, and to evoke the real Lewis with each word choice.
Stop crying now, he buzzed near Lydia’s ear. Or I’ll beat the living daylights out of you.
The baby gave a quick hiccup, then took a sharp intake of breath as if ready to enter a fresh bout of screaming.
You’re ugly and useless, his version of her grandfather said. You’re ruining this family.
Lydia grew instantly calm.
—
The next morning, Josh opened the bedroom curtains and blinds to let some sunlight through. Cheryl was still in bed, waking gently before the rude shock of their alarm clock.
She rolled in bed, blinking, a raised hand blocking the light—obviously surprised to find herself feeling so well rested. A sudden rush of fear washed over her: The night had been silent, too silent. “The baby?”
“Sleeping.” Josh crossed from the window and stood beside the crib. “Last night, your daughter and I came to a kind of agreement.”
As if in answer, Lydia’s shape stirred beneath her pink and white blanket. After a familiar intake of breath, she began her signature wail.
“Oh, here we go again,” his wife said. She winced and began to get out of bed.
“No, no,” Josh said. “Allow me.” He lifted the baby and brought her head close to his mouth.
Josh had one particular advantage over his father-in-law’s voice box. He could lower his volume, practically whisper into his infant daughter’s ear.
The baby would hear him, but his wife would not. Cheryl wouldn’t know that he imitated her father. She wouldn’t know the exact words he spoke.
I wish you’d never been born, he whispered.
The mechanical buzz cut beneath the child’s shrill wail. Lydia stopped crying.
“That’s amazing,” Cheryl said. “What did you do?”
“I guess some of your father finally rubbed off on me,” Josh said. He set the calmed baby back down, then gave a token shake to the butterfly mobile above her crib.
Josh took comfort in the fact that his infant daughter couldn’t comprehend his words.
But someday, s
he would.
The Situations
Joyce Carol Oates
I.
Kittens
Daddy was driving us home. Three of us in the backseat and Lula, who was his favorite, in the passenger’s seat.
Lula cried, Oh, Daddy!—look.
At the side of the road, in broken grasses, was something small and furry-white, which appeared to be alive.
Oh, Daddy, please.
Daddy laughed. Daddy braked the car to a stop. Lula jumped out of the car. We ran back with her, to discover in the broken grasses three small kittens—white, with black and russet markings.
We picked up the kittens! They were so tiny, fitting in the palms of our hands, weighing only a few ounces! Each was mewing, its eyes scarcely open. Oh, oh!—we’d never seen anything so wonderful in our lives! We ran back to the car, where Daddy was waiting, to beg Daddy to take them home with us.
At first, Daddy said no. Daddy said the kittens would make messes in the car.
Lula said, Oh, Daddy, please. We all promised to clean up any messes the kittens made.
So Daddy gave in. Daddy loved Lula best, but we were happy to be Daddy’s children, too.
In the backseat, we had two of the little kittens. In the front, Lula was holding the whitest kitten.
We were so excited! So happy with the kittens! Lula said she would call the whitest kitten Snowflake, and we said we would call our little kittens Pumpkin and Cinder because Pumpkin had orange splotches in his white fur and Cinder had black splotches in his white fur.
For some minutes, Daddy drove in silence. We did all the chattering! You could hear tiny mews, if you listened hard.
Then Daddy said, Do I smell a mess?
We cried, No, no!
I think I smell a mess.
No, Daddy!
Three messes. I smell them.
No, Daddy!
(And this was so: None of the kittens had made messes.)
But Daddy braked the car to a stop. At the bridge over the river where there is a steep ramp, outside our town and about two miles from our house, Daddy parked the car and said to Lula, Give me Snowflake, and Daddy squinted at us in the rearview mirror and said, Give me Pumpkin, and give me Cinder.
We began to cry. Lula cried loudest. But Daddy grabbed the little kitten from her and reached into the backseat red-faced and frowning to grab Pumpkin and Cinder from us. We were not strong enough, and we were not brave enough to keep Daddy from taking the kittens from us, in Daddy’s big hand. The kittens were mewing loudly by this time and quivering in terror.
Daddy left the car and with big Daddy strides climbed the ramp to the bridge and threw the kittens over the railing. Three tiny things rising at first against the misty sky, then quickly falling, and gone.
When Daddy returned to the car, Lula cried, Daddy, why?
Daddy said, Because I am Daddy, who decides how things end.
II.
Feral Kiss
In secret, by foot, he traveled to the Mainland. He lived on an island of approximately eight square miles, boot-shaped like Italy. Between the Island and the Mainland was a two-mile floating bridge. His parents had forbidden him to journey to the Mainland; the Mainland was the “easy, slack life”; the Island was the life of discipline, severity, God’s will. His parents had broken off ties with their relatives who lived on the Mainland, who in turn pitied the Islanders as uneducated, superstitious, and impoverished.
On the Island, there were colonies of feral cats, much inbred, ferocious if cornered or trapped, but surpassingly beautiful—one of the colonies was composed predominantly of flamey-orange tiger cats with six toes; another was predominantly midnight-black cats with tawny eyes; another was predominantly white, long-haired cats with glaring green eyes; and another, the largest colony, predominantly tortoiseshell cats with intricate stone-colored, silver, and black markings and golden eyes, seemed to thrive in a rough, rock-strewn area near the floating bridge. It was generally forbidden for Island children to approach the feral cats, or to feed them; it was dangerous for anyone to approach the cats in the hope of petting them, still less capturing one of them and bringing it home; even small kittens were known to scratch and bite furiously. Yet, on his way to the Mainland, as he approached the floating bridge, he couldn’t resist tossing bits of food to the tortoiseshell cats who regarded him from a little distance with flat, hostile eyes—Kitty? Kitty? Such beautiful creatures! One day, brashly, he managed to seize hold of a young tortoiseshell cat scarcely more than a kitten, very thin, with prominent ribs and high, alert ears, and for a moment, he held its quivering life in his fingers like his own heart seized out of his chest—then the cat squirmed frantically, hissed, scratched, and sank its small, sharp teeth into the flesh at the base of his thumb, and he released it with a little cry Damn! and wiped the blood on his pant leg and continued on his journey across the floating bridge.
On the Mainland, he saw her: a girl he imagined to be his own age, or a little younger, walking with other children. The coastal wind was shrouded with mist, damply cold, relentless. Droplets of moisture had formed on his eyelashes like tears. Her long hair whipped in the wind. Her perfect face was turned from him in shyness, or in coyness. He’d grown daring, brash; his experience with the tortoiseshell cat hadn’t discouraged but seemed to have encouraged him. He was a boy pretending to be a man here on the Mainland, where he felt to himself older, more confident. And here no one knew his name or the name of his family. He walked with the girl, drawing her away from the other children. He asked to know her name—Mariana. He held her small hand, which resisted his initially as he clutched at it. He kissed her on the lips, lightly yet with much excitement. When she didn’t draw away, he kissed her again, with more force. She turned aside as if to run from him. But he clutched her hand and her arm; he gripped her tight and kissed her so hard he felt the imprint of her teeth against his. It seemed that she was kissing him in return, though less forcefully. She pulled away. She snatched his hand and, laughing, bit him on the inside of the thumb, the soft flesh at the base of the thumb. In astonishment, he stared at the quick-flowing blood. The wound was so small and yet—so much blood! His pant legs were stained. His boots were splattered. He retreated, and the girl ran to catch up with the other children—all of them running together, he saw now, along the wide, rough beach littered with storm debris, their laughter high-pitched and taunting, and not one of them glanced back.
Gripped suddenly by a fear that the bridge had floated away, he returned to the floating bridge. But there it remained, buffeted by coastal winds and looking smaller and more weathered. It was late autumn. He could not recall the season in which he’d started out—had it been summer? Spring? The sea lifted in angry, churning waves. The Island was near invisible behind a shroud of mist. In the waves, he saw the faces of his older, Island kin. Gray-bearded men, frowning women. He was breathless returning to the Island across the rocking, floating bridge. At shore, he paid no heed to the colony of tortoiseshell cats that seemed to be awaiting him with small, taunting mews and sly cat faces, amid the rocks. The wound at the base of his thumb hurt; he was ashamed of his injury, the perceptible marks of small sharp teeth in his flesh. Within a few days, the wound became livid, and with a fishing knife cauterized in flame, he reopened the wound, to let the blood flow hotly again. He wrapped the base of his thumb in a bandage. He explained that he’d injured himself carelessly on a rusted nail or hook. He returned to his life that soon swept over him like waves rising onto the beach, streaming through the rocks. There would be a day when he removed the bandage and saw the tiny serrated scar in the flesh, all but healed. In secret, he would kiss the scar in a swoon of emotion, but in time, he would cease to remember why.
III.
Hope
Daddy was driving us home. Just two of us in the backseat and Esther, who was Daddy’s favorite, in the passenger’s seat.
Esther cried, Oh, Daddy!—look out!
A dark-furry creature was crossing the roa
d in front of Daddy’s car, legs moving rapidly. It might have been a large cat, or a young fox. Daddy did not slacken his speed for an instant—he did not turn the wheel or brake the car to avoid hitting the creature, but he did not appear to press down on the gas pedal to strike it deliberately.
The right front wheel struck it with a small thud.
There was a sharp little cry, then silence.
Oh, Daddy, please. Please stop.
Esther’s voice was thin and plaintive, and though it was a begging sort of voice, it was a voice without hope.
Daddy laughed. Daddy did not brake the car to a stop.
In the back, we knelt on the seat to peer out the rear window—seeing, in the broken grasses at the side of the road, the furry creature writhing in agony.
Daddy—stop! Daddy, please stop, the animal is hurt.
But our voices were thin and plaintive and without hope, and Daddy paid little heed to us but continued driving and humming to himself, and in the front seat Esther was crying in her soft, helpless way, and in the backseat we were very quiet.
One of us whispered to the other, That was a kitty!
The other whispered, That was a fox!
At the bridge over the river where there’s a steep ramp, Daddy braked the car to a stop. Daddy was frowning and irritable, and Daddy said to Esther, Get out of the car. And Daddy turned, grunting to us in the backseat, and Daddy’s eyes were glaring angry as he told us to get out of the car.
We were very frightened. Yet there was no place to hide in the back of Daddy’s car.
Outside, Esther was shivering. A chill wind blew from the mist-shrouded river. We huddled with Esther as Daddy approached.
In Daddy’s face, there was regret and remorse. But it was remorse for something that had not yet happened and could not be avoided. Calmly Daddy struck Esther a blow to the back with his fist that knocked her down like a shot, so breathless she couldn’t scream or cry at first but lay on the ground, quivering. We wanted to run away but dared not, for Daddy’s long legs would catch up with us, we knew.
Dark Screams, Volume 6 Page 7