Fiction

Mama, alone is …

“What if I can’t do this?” she’d said, finally giving voice to a fear that had crept in sometime during her second trimester.

She’s unsure what to do next, where the growing up and getting ready prelude to her life will lead.

I present my open palm, full of miniature marvels. I’m attempting to force him into a better mood. Trying to will him into the perfect Ken […] in the dream house of our own making.

One can’t hold onto something that is not theirs to hold for long.

I thought it would feel freer out in the field, outside of the trapped air of the car. I’d hoped that whatever had been crushing me all those nights would rise up and pop like a balloon.

She will smile and nod a yes. She will fill the hollowness with his happiness.

Then the baby comes along, and it’s like she’s that nuclear-fueled car in Back to the Future, yanking me to some alternate universe where I am not just dirty and tired but also insecure and petty.

Those children want Mama back, but their father asks them not to wake her yet. He worries she may not be ready, may never be ready.

Like her own mother, Sara chose her career over endless hours of diapers, games of peekaboo, and mindless chores. Janet, was an exuberant stay-at-home mom, the kind of woman Sara was raised to scorn. 

Lydia was intent on conjuring another child; I was terrified I’d lose the one I had.