Night, Forgotten: Draft 1

Chapter 4: Now

Thomas makes a small choking noise and I abruptly come back to the present, alarmed. He's just regurgitated a thin trickle of formula, which pools in the corner of his little mouth and runs down the side of his chin. The burst of relief I feel when I see that my baby is safe surprises me. Of course there's no risk of him being mauled by a wild animal, or whatever biological fear lurched my consciousness back to his crib side upon hearing him in distress. But my gut reaction is, apparently, to protect him; that's more than I've been expecting from myself lately.

The baby's eyelids flutter as he lets out an audible sigh, about to give in to sleep. The parlor has grown dark and still around us while I've been standing here at his crib side, fantasizing about a time before he existed.

Voices seep through the fireplace in the stumbling rhythm of a slightly uncomfortable conversation. It sounds like Owen has invited our neighbors Carmen and Marcus to sit down and socialize.

How much time has passed since they arrived?

They must be wondering where I am. I'll just clean Thomas up and then I'll go out there. I have to face them sometime.

I scan the room for something to wipe the spit-up from Thomas's face and neck. My eyes land on the rocking chair, where Owen has left a muslin burp cloth adorned with elephant babies frolicking alongside their happy mothers.

At some point before Thomas and I came home from the hospital, Owen must have dragged the davenport out of the way to make room for the new rocking chair, which now occupies the warmest spot, in front of the fire. He put the crib, where Thomas now spends about half of his daytime hours napping, against the interior wall shared with the entryway. And I don't remember when it happened, but the davenport has been shoved back against the same wall as the hearth.

It used to be our favorite place to dream and conspire in front of the flames, like they do in Christmas carols. It's now the coldest spot in the room. I would know, because it's often where I find myself huddled beneath an afghan, keeping Owen silent company as he presses a bottle to Thomas's eager mouth every two to three hours.

I can't keep my son alive on my own.

Upon closer inspection of the discarded burp cloth, I find that the elephant babies and their mothers are already soaked in one baby fluid or another. I reach down and use the hollow of my hand to collect the grey, goopy fluid from the side of my son's face, deciding that I'll just have to stop by the bathroom to wash up before joining Owen and our visitors in the kitchen.

My hand touches his cheek.

He screams.

I jerk my hand back so quickly that it collides with the railing of the crib. "Ow!" I yelp, clutching the injured hand against my chest and taking a couple of steps backward toward the davenport in the corner.

Thomas screams again, a sound that crashes through the stillness of the room and shatters against the walls. His eyelids, which just a moment ago quivered peacefully toward the restful, warm sleep that only infants remember how to conjure, now disappear into tightly wrinkled creases. His entire little body seems to extend away from itself as if someone has dipped him in ice water.

Thomas gasps and sucks in air to scream anew, but Owen's silhouette appears in the doorway and strides confidently to the crib side.

"Hey, shhh." Owen places his hand gently on Thomas's chest and the baby stops screaming as suddenly as he started.

I can't believe it.

"I don't know what happened," I offer weakly. "He got so upset..."

"Just a nightmare," Owen whispers as much to Thomas as to me. "Shhh. Just a nightmare, right, Little Guy?"