Stolen Lullaby

Gone Baby, Gone

If there was every such a thing as a perfect day, September 5, 2022 would be it. The air still had the lingering warmth of summer but the temperature was mellowing out with the approach of fall. The young family decided to have a picnic at a quiet nearby park. Life was settling down, careers were put on momentary pause, mom and dad wanted to soak up every moment they had during this new phase of their lives. Baby Louise was five months old, an unexpected but much loved surprise after two years of marriage. Physically she was already turning into a perfect replica of her mom with tufts of duck feather blond hair beginning to peek through but she inherited Joe's brilliant dark blue eyes in contrast. Family and friends joked she was just too perfect to be real. Though they chose not to announce her birth out of concern for privacy, they didn't want to hide her from and the world and had begun to gradually introduce her to the spaces outside their home bit by bit.

Rolling out a picnic blanket and unbuckling Louise from her stroller, Taylor carefully placed her on the red and white fabric. Louise's eyes gazed in wonder at the rustling leaves of the willow trees above.

"I always wonder what she's thinking of you know? Sometimes it seems like she's been here before." Joe mused.

They unpacked the food and slowly ate, in no rush to be anywhere for once. Louise rolled over and began crawling across the picnic blanket, the butter cups and daisies in the grass too irresistible to ignore. As her chubby fingers wretched a handful of blossoms from the grass Joe intervened before she could stuff them in her mouth "I don't think so missy, flowers are not on the menu." Louise let out an indignant bellow of protest as he tossed the flowers away.

"Oh my goodness mam this is a little early for such an attitude, whew she is going to be a fun teenager!" Taylor said scooping her up and swinging her up in the air to distract her. Joe lay down on the blanket with her hands behind his head letting out a sigh.

"It's crazy to think she's going to be a teenager one day, I was hoping she'd stay this small forever"

"luckily that day is far away, in the meantime... we will deal with this love bug here." She playfully swooped the baby like and airplane and plopped her on her dad's chest causing her to go into a giggle fit. Maybe it was because of their parental bias but they agreed that their daughter had the best baby giggle, it was so joyous that it shook her whole body. The young family enjoyed their time together musing how life could be so wonderful. They were not naïve to think everyday was going to be perfect, but if days could be half as good as that late summer day was then only heaven would be comparable. If only they could have known, the sunny days were numbered.

The rest of the evening went according to normal routine with dinner and bath time followed by story time. Taylor gave her one last nurse before soothing her off to sleep with soft lullaby. Not any song in particular, just one she dreamed up in her head. After Louise was tucked in her crib, Taylor joined Joe on the couch where they watched a movie together before heading off to sleep themselves.

Taylor woke up in the middle of the night, rolling over to see the clock by the bed read 3:35 am. Everything was quiet, except for Joe. was snoring gently beside her. Though Louise was sleeping through the night nicely now, they still took advantage of any extra sleep they could get. Quietly getting out of bed taking care not to wake Joe, Taylor got up to use the en-suite washroom. As she exited the bathroom something felt off, indeed it was quiet though Louise was generally a pretty sound sleeper Taylor couldn't lose the feeling that something was still wrong. She checked the baby monitor on Joe's night stand, it was switched off, did he turn it off by accident? Pushing her feet into slippers she padded down the hall. As she approached the nursery she could see that the door was wide open. This was also strange as they always made a point to leave her door closed since she was sensitive to noise. Quietly entering the nursery without turning the lights on, Mrs. made her way toward the crib expecting to see her daughter's sleeping form instead what she found caused her to let out a blood curdling scream. Joe  jolted out of bed hearing her screams. He ran down the hall to the baby's room,

"What is wrong?! Calm down and tell me!" he shouted grabbing Taylor's shoulders giving them a shake. The color drained out of Taylor's face and could only softly utter the words

"She's gone"

Louise's crib sat empty, all that remained was her pink bunny blanket.

As soon as the words left her lips her world went dark as her knees gave out and she collapsed to the ground in grief.