Baby, by Lawren Dame

My baby. For some reason yet unknown to myself, I have the habit of referring to those closest to my heart as “baby.” When I pray, I pray to the Baby Jesus. When calming myself down—“Stop it, baby; you’ll be all right. Don’t even worry, baby; you’ll be fine.” My sister is baby. My dog is baby. Even my goldfish was baby, before it was discovered belly-up two days after its purchase—poor baby.

 He has always been my baby, too, in my heart. And I think he always will be.

 It didn’t start out that way. When he was born, I hid under my high chair and refused to come out.

 “When are you taking it back? Now? Okay. Back now.” Persistent pout. Furrowed brow.

 “No, honey, come meet your brother. Your baby brother. He’s here to stay.”

 So baby was here to stay. Fine, then. I’d make do with what I had.

 Having grudgingly accepted his existence, I soon permitted baby to join ranks among the others. I made him into a baby of my own, lining up my dollies all in a row, covering them all in blankets, putting them to sleep. He got the same treatment—even as a big toddler, he could be found swaddled in Grandma’s crocheted blanket, curled up in my lap, while I fed him from a toy bottle. He liked it. He was my baby.

 We became the best of friends, my baby and me. My father was ridiculed by his friends for having a cute little daughter in place of his young son, because no matter what I did, baby followed suit. We played with our Barbie dolls, sticking dollies in our overall pockets, pushing them in strollers. The clacking of my pink plastic heels on the linoleum floor was echoed by his as we sauntered through the kitchen in our dress-up clothes.

 He got too old to be called baby—instead, we made code names for each other. He was Bike-l, I was Onion. He was Leahcim (lick-em), and I was Nerwal. Hours were spent creating languages and words that only the two of us could decipher. My mom would find us huddled alongside each other on the living room floor, giggling hysterically as we babbled on in code, changing the lyrics of songs we knew into ones that left our juvenile eyes streaming with tears. “Lawren, we gotta write this down,”—between gasps of laughter—“these are just too good.”

 I could still sing our songs today, if someone asked me to. I wonder if he could.

 He cried the first day of middle school.

 My mom told me in secret later that day: He didn’t understand how I was able to manage being the oldest, the first to conquer the milestones of life. I yearned to be there for my baby, longing to walk beside him in those wide hallways while he battled with his locker and forgot about which classes were what and where and when.

 He adjusted quickly, however. Suddenly, baby was a big boy. Not only big, but popular. He had swooshy blonde Bieber hair, an arrogant brace-laden sneer. I rarely saw him in the halls of our middle school, but when I did, I’d smile, adjust my glasses, try to free my hands from my armload of books to wave at him. He was always swallowed in a sea of friends. He never waved back.

 He was gone all the time—or so it seemed to me, who had all the time in the world to devote to my books and my studies. Off at bonfires, off at parties. Off. I had never been to a party. Bonfires? Weren’t those dangerous?

 I missed writing songs with him.

 “Mom. I don’t even know him anymore. It’s like a complete stranger is living with me in my house—and we used to be best friends.”

 “He’s growing up, honey. When you were little all you had was each other. Now he’s getting older, making his own friends. You’re just growing apart, and that’s a part of life.” I didn’t notice mom’s fingers gripping the steering wheel; I was too busy staring dully out at the grayness beyond the car window, tears trickling down from my foggy glasses. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see.”

 Baby’s form melded into a shadow—the shadow of a teenage boy who skulked about the house, seeping through doorways, blending into the couch. I prodded the shadow when I could, but shadows don’t smile, let alone talk. The few times we were in the same room together alone, the air hung low with silence—a silence I first tried to fill with mindless chatter about school and work, but soon learned to leave well enough alone.

 On rare instances, we interacted—to fight. 

 “Michael, I’m gonna change the channel. You watch the same shows with the same cake-baking crap all the time, and I’m sick of it.” I shifted on the couch, reaching around for the remote.

 The customary glower darkened his face. “You better not.”

 I snatched the remote up, felt the cold hard plastic. “Yeah, I’m gonna.” Click.

 His face morphed into a snarl of pure unrestrained rage. “When are you going to college? I can’t live with you anymore. I can’t do this.” His voice cracked, like the bone of a baby bird. I stared.

 “Michael…I didn’t even do anything.”

 “Exactly. You never do anything around here. You’re lazy and all you do is sit on your butt and I can’t wait for you to leave. My very own sister”—another crack. Little baby bird fallen from a tree—“and all I want is for you to leave.”

I couldn’t move. Tears streaked down both of our faces. And I watched as my baby stood, still crying, and left the room. My baby. Crying. Because of me.

I went off to college the following autumn. I visited home every few weekends, and tried to keep up with my family as well as manage my new life away at school. Nevertheless, living away from home meant a definite gap in communication, and the contact between my brother and me was still kept to the same bare minimum.

 One day my little sister texted me: “Michael’s in big trouble.”

I immediately called her. “What’s wrong?”

Her words gushed out in a babbled rush. “Dad took Mike’s phone away and saw a text that said ‘I need some more of that stuff, man.’ So Dad asked Mike about it and he confessed. He’s been making alcohol with his friends and selling it at school. They did it whenever no one else was home. They call it apple pie. Dad made him go to all of his friends’ houses and tell their parents about it.”

 I couldn’t breathe. Is this what surgery felt like? Surgeon’s scalpel slicing at my skin. Scouring at the flesh beneath my ribs. Like long, bony, scratching fingers, clawing at the pulsing of my heart. Who was this boy with these secrets doing these things secrets and I didn’t know him didn’t know—where was that baby that I used to hug and feed from bottles now he was stealing bottles from parents’ cabinets stealing mixing selling why so wrong oh why

 I hung up the phone.

I came home that weekend, terrified to see my brother, even though he had no idea that I knew of the trouble he’d gotten into. My sister and mom and I avoided the subject, going about our usual routine. But when my brother walked into the room, again I heard that snapping of fragile bird bones—only this time it was inside me. Caught in my throat. Choking me. I rushed past him, out the door, onto the sidewalk. Barefoot, but it didn’t matter. Hurling ragged sobs into the sleeves of my sweatshirt. I just wanted my baby back.

 The last time I came home to visit, my mom’s face was layered in lines of concern. “I think something’s wrong with Michael.” Her arms were wrapped tight around the family’s puppy, clutching his black fur. “Can you go talk to him? Just make sure he’s okay. He never leaves his room anymore. Never even sees his friends.”

 “Never?” I was skeptical. Sure, I knew that my brother hadn’t gone out much since the apple pie incident. But he never even left his bedroom?

 “All right. I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. But I’ll go see.” I loosened the puppy from her clutches and placed him into mine. For moral support.

 “Mike?” I peered into his doorway. He lay sprawled on his bed, laptop open. “Are you okay?”

 “Yeah.”

Feeling brave, I walked in. Stood over him. “You sure?” Silence. “I brought you the dog.” The puppy wriggled in my arms, and I heard a pop. I stared down at the dog, his black button eyes aimed back questioningly at me. “What the heck? Did you hear that?”

 “Yeah,” my brother snarled. “Can’t you see the way you’re holding him? Put him down!”

 I obliged. Still persistent, I asked, “Well. Can I give you a hug then?” Silence again. I reached out, trying to embrace his form. Stiff. Pure stone. I was growing desperate. “You been working out?”

 His eyes flashed up dully from his screen. “No.”

 “Well. Okay. Remember, I have a phone. So…you can text me sometime. If you want.”

Nothing.

“I love you, Michael.”

Still that interminable silence.

 I crept out of the room.

 My baby brother was born with two holes in his heart. Miraculously, those physical holes healed soon after his birth, closed straight up, as if they had never existed. But I think that maybe, as he’s grown up, and gotten bigger and older, one of those holes might have reappeared. Not in his heart, but mine.

 Rockabye baby

On the tree top,
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall,
And there will be sissy
To break your fall