Misty sat in her grandmother’s chair, staring quietly at the small crib where the baby once lay. The room was so small, so unforgiving of the shadows covering every hidden corner, but the lamp threw a warm light on the crib and the tiny mattress covered by small sheets. Rabbits and squirrels decorated the sheets, though their movements lay suspended in the light. These weren’t the sheets on which he’d died; the police confiscated those. Of course, they found nothing but a faint stain of blood from his saliva. It was obvious that neither she nor Jason were responsible for the baby’s condition. And so the attitude of those wonderful authority figures turned from suspicion to sympathy, but she hadn’t really noticed at the time; their suspicions failed to penetrate her profound sadness.
She sat in the old chair, hugging a blanket. The room was cold, but she didn’t want to move to adjust the thermostat. She watched the crib and waited, because she knew he would appear again, and if she moved away or became distracted by some other concern he might not appear at all. No, it wasn’t a supernatural event, as Jason suggested months ago; it was only her mind inventing it, as if, through some imaginative engine, she created an impression of him once again in the room. Certainly nothing mystical was involved, though if it was she wouldn’t have made a distinction. Jason said as much when she first told him of seeing their baby in the crib. He was going to throw it away because he insisted it supported her delusion, but she begged him not to, she told him that some essence of the child, some spiritual quality still slept there, still inhabited the small bed, was still present in the room. She could see it, hear it, sense it in the air, but only if she concentrated long enough. Then the baby might appear, because she was his mother, and he’d left her in sorrow.
She’d wanted the chair long before her mother decided to give it to her. You’ll never have children of your own, her mother often told her before Sean’s birth. You weren’t meant to be a mother, you’re too selfish, too self-centered, you’ve always been that way, since you were a child—but what did her mother know about her capacity for love and caring? It wasn’t until the baby was dead that the chair passed into her possession, perhaps to atone for the criticisms her mother offered, the hurtful, ugly criticisms Misty deflected when she’d given birth to her beautiful little boy. She accepted the chair because she’d always wanted it; she’d loved her grandmother, who was a caring woman of liberal beliefs, unlike Misty’s mother who sought to control the world through vitriol and unwavering philosophical convictions. Her allegiance to her grandmother produced endless criticisms because of her mother’s resentment—or was that Misty’s fault? Perhaps she’d been intentionally sympathetic to her grandmother just to punish the woman— Yes, it was all very psychological and foolish, but it meant nothing now. The chair held the spirit of her grandmother, too, and so assisted in the process, she was certain. Why was her mother so dismissive? And why couldn’t she support her now?
She stared intently on the crib, as she had for the last few hours, remembering his face in her imagination, willing him to appear. She’d been sitting and staring listlessly at the crib the first night he materialized, the small hands and feet, the thin tracing of dark hair on his head, the faint blue of his eyes staring back at her. Some delicious fever overwhelmed her, and she seemed to lose all sense of the reality around her, the small, dark room and the sounds of life beyond the apartment—she’d wanted to call to Jason to come see, but she seemed imprisoned in a curious fugue, and could only watch her baby moving and laughing and waving his hands at her. She felt an inexplicable joy beyond understanding. Then, as the spell broke and she became aware of the world, Sean vanished from her and returned to the place from where his spirit found substantiation. She tried explaining the phenomenon to Jason, but he just couldn’t understand. Surely she was hallucinating, he said. But it was a real phenomenon—
He simply couldn’t understand the truth. He could only stand by helplessly when she found Sean’s still blue body waiting for her on the morning of that terrible day. Finally, he wiped the bloody mucous from the baby’s nose and then stood staring at his fingers as if the act might regenerate his son. She’d called the ambulance hoping that there was still a chance to save her baby—but he was dead, long dead from a night without breath, and there was nothing left to do but speak with the police and arrange for the burial. In that moment even her mother was shaken, and cried for the little life taken by sudden death. What kind of condition did a baby suffer for which there was no certain cause? And all the tears and all the words spoken in untenable grief—what good were they, ultimately, when her hands would never hold her son again? She tried explaining this to Jason time and again, but he simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t, understand. He accused her of so many things, just like her mother. And then her mother began questioning her behavior. Why was she still depressed? Why couldn’t she accept the circumstances of his death? Why did she need to flounder in self-pity and delusion? So she stopped speaking to her mother. Shortly after that, Jason moved out of the apartment. He said he just had to get away, to have some time to himself. But the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months; soon, the time he needed to adjust to his grief would become a lifetime. So be it. Misty was only twenty-six, but her youth meant nothing for their future. She’d told him she would never have another baby. Losing another baby would be too painful, it would be the end of her, and she couldn’t live with any more grief. All right, he was gone, her mother once again at a distance from her life, and she was alone in the small apartment in the small room that should have been the ruin of her mind.
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But her mind wasn’t ruined, because she knew she would see her baby again. This is what everyone else failed to understand. To see her baby, even through a supernatural curtain, meant more to her than what was left of her life. Of course, he didn’t appear every night, or on any perceivable pattern of days. Perhaps his appearance depended on the strength of her conviction on any given night. Or perhaps the level of her belief in his eternity determined whether or not he materialized. Tonight she sat in her grandmother’s chair staring intently at the crib, studying the warm light of the lamp beside it, praying for him to appear. She moved her body in the chair, a body grown thin and fragile, but no less determined; she never let her vision wander from the little bed. Tonight she would see him, she thought—
And then I’ll reach out to you and feel your little fingers around my fingers, and you’ll smile at me again like you used to whenever I made noises over you, laughing noises that a baby loves, and you’ll call out to me in your little voice and tell me without words how much you love me and miss me and I’ll tell you how much I miss you and wish I could be with you all the time again, and maybe you’ll let me hold you in my arms tonight and sing to you again—you’re coming tonight, I know you’re coming to see me—
But the night grew long again, and she grew weary from staring at the crib for so many hours. That was, perhaps, her failure; that she couldn’t sustain her wakefulness in the night long enough to see him appear; that he would only appear when her mind was balancing on the edge of full coherence. She felt her eyes close then, and opened them with a start. But soon her eyes betrayed her again, and again, and she couldn’t command them to deny their natural inclination. The caffeine pills were useless; soon she’d have to find stronger stimulants. But what if they interfered with the process? What if she introduced some potent drug into her system and found that it only ruined the experience? Perhaps she would try these things, but not now. She didn’t want to think of her failures, or the potential for failure. She didn’t want to think of her husband or her mother. She only wanted to think of that extraordinary moment when, like a dream, Sean’s tiny face found substance in the air. Her eyes fluttered again, with a heaviness that dropped painful tears on her cheeks. The sleep was coming on her, and it was a terrible thing. She lasted another few minutes before the weariness became an irresistible force; then, just before she closed her eyes to sleep in the old chair, she thought she saw a shadow moving in the crib just beyond the blanket of light from the lamp, a small, moving shadow gesticulating with tiny hands, breathing still; and she thought she heard the faintest noise, like the call of a dove, from the place where her beautiful baby had died—
When she woke from a dreamless sleep the sunlight burst upon her from the window and bathed the small room in its purity. She sighed, pulled the blanket from her body, and rose from the chair. Her joints ached terribly, and her muscles; her neck was stiff from sleeping in the familiar position. The sunlight filled the room, and she knew that any potential for seeing her baby would have to wait for another evening. Nothing else mattered to her. She would dress again, and drive to her work again, and labor quietly to pass the day; but she only really cared about the coming night, and the possibility of his arrival. What a strange life. And now she lived it alone, without her mother, without her husband, and without her baby boy. She stepped to the crib and moved her hand along the railing reverently, as if, unseen, a child’s ghost might be offended by careless gestures. She understood that, too. But she was the only one who did—her mother and her husband could only tell her, over and over again, how they couldn’t understand her dedication to her mourning. But it wasn’t so, was it? If they could see what she’d seen so long ago, in the shadow-line between sleeping and waking, they wouldn’t be so determined to dismiss her behavior. She moved her palm over the smooth sheet. Let them go, she thought, and I’ll wait here for you, I’ll give my life to you.
I’m not just being selfish, she thought. How could they say that I am?
