Short Story: Between

by Shawne Steiger

Things that happen fast:

Micah. His first steps.  First word: Pretty.

Turning three.

Screaming, kicking, hitting while you try to breathe, try not to want to kill him, wonder what you are doing wrong.

Outgrowing the sneakers you bought on last July’s garage sale shopping spree.

You: Crying harder than him when you leave him in the day care. The emptiness when he walks away, all lit up about the finger painting and doesn’t cling and doesn’t want his fuzzy Elmo, even though it’s only the second week and you aren’t ready for him to be done missing you.

Heated battles over whether you will listen to NPR or Raffi on the car stereo.

The fiftieth time you wash poop off his hands, clothes, and the bathroom wall.

Reading Goodnight Moon three times in a row and drifting next to him on the little twin bed.  The absolute perfect sweet baby shampooed smell of the top of his head when you wake up and kiss him later.

Spilling coffee when you glance out the window just in time to see your husband back his truck out of the driveway and not notice that Micah is following the cat across the end of the driveway. 

Spilling coffee and not noticing that you have burnt your hand and soaked your new, pale blue sundress for taking Micah to the park in.

Spilling coffee and not noticing that you are not screaming even though your mouth is open.

Spilling coffee, running out the door, and staring into your husband’s white shocked face.

The cat crouched under a bush, stalking something.

Ambulance sirens, the blip of ICU machines, ambulance sirens, blank rooms,  cloying nurses, no chairs to sit in, his little chest up and down and up and down with a whooshing sound, the caved in side of his face, other parents at various stages of terrified and hopeful carrying their boxes of stuff out of empty rooms with made beds, silence, silence, beeps, whooshes, sudden frantic activity.

Words like brain swelling, shunt, coma, paralysis, steroids, permanent.

The only thing worse than the whooshing sound, the possibility that it might stop.

Putting Fuzzy Elmo on his pillow, next to the good side of his head. 

Reading Goodnight Moon over and over and over, drowning in the antiseptic hospital smell. 

No trips to the Day Care.  No messy potty story conversations with other mothers on the park bench while kids fight over the slide.  No Peanut butter sandwiches and little apple juices in his Sesame Street lunch box.

Throwing away the sundress. 

Your parents staying at the house.

Your parents leaving.

Your husband’s parents staying.

Your husband’s parents leaving.

The beeps and whooshes stopping.

The sudden rage that punches your stomach the first time your husband touches you again. 

Things that happen slowly:

Drag the sheets off his bed corner by corner, don’t wash them, fold them and put them in your bed under the blanket where you can smell them at night.  Unplug the Bob the Builder nightlight.  Take down the Thomas the Train set. Dump the Legos in a cardboard box.

 Turn on the computer to search for rentals and decide to play a game of Free Cell instead.  Notice his game links.  Play five different Sponge Bob Square Pants games.

Stash the Thomas the Train, Elmo, plastic hot dogs, potatoes and corn on the cob in the box with the Legos.  Haul the box into the attic so the realtor can show the house. 

Develop the habit of leaving the room when your husband walks in. 

Sleep on the couch. 

Drink coffee again. 

Turn frozen and wordless every time you see a child tilt his head up to look at his mother in the grocery store.

 Lock yourself in the bathroom with a bottle of baby shampoo and a bottle of Xanax one more time before you flush the baby shampoo. 

Learn to avoid your husband’s eyes.

When you accidentally ambush your husband in the kitchen: the utter silence.  Your despair reflected in his eyes before you remember to turn away and stare at the barren white refrigerator.

Sleeping at your parents’ house.

Moving most of the stuff in your closet to your parents’ house.

Bringing Elmo to your parents’ house.

Signing the papers from your husband’s lawyer.

Reading Goodnight Moon over and over on the little single bed underneath the poster with the family on the beach and the “Living is Loving” caption that you hung when you were sixteen.

Letting yourself cry.