Little Girl Gone: The can’t-put-it-down psychological thriller. Alexandra Burt

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СКАЧАТЬ than I had been minutes earlier, as if that were even possible. Two months, that was 60 days and 60 nights.

      ‘You know you’re nuts, don’t you?’ Jack said and slammed the door shut.

      One morning, a Saturday, too early to get up and too late to fall back asleep, I reached beside me and found Jack’s side of the bed abandoned.

      I heard a voice that almost made me panic, a high-pitched babble voice unknown to me. I got up and went to Mia’s room. There was Jack, holding Mia, a five-month-old grouchy bundle of anxieties with fingers moving around like an orchestra conductor, under her armpits.

      ‘Why won’t you sleep?’ Jack said.

      Then he switched over to a whiney, high-pitched voice. I don’t want to. I want to be awake so I can look around.

      ‘How come you can talk?’ Jack pretended to be confused.

      I can do anything, daddy. Jack, mimicking a conversation, impersonating Mia, switching from his regular tone to a squeaky voice.

      ‘Why won’t you settle down, little girl? Something on your mind?’ Jack’s facial expression was sheer concern.

      Mia’s arms were flailing, her legs kicking.

       Nothing wrong with me, daddy.

      ‘I know there’s nothing wrong with you. You’ve been fed, you’ve been changed, you’ve been burped. No need to be fussy.’ Jack then rocked her gently in the cradle of his arm, the crook of his elbow a perfect fit. ‘There you go, princess, that’s better isn’t it?’

       Much better, daddy.

      ‘Just relax, go back to sleep. Mommy doesn’t like it when you cry so much.’

      I’d go one, sometimes two days without closing my eyes. When I did sleep, I crashed. Hard and deep. And I always woke up with a start. I went from comatose to alert, as if someone had grabbed my shoulder and shaken me awake.

      Life was a blur, the bottles, the diapers, the crying. Zombie-like, I shopped for baby clothes, loaded the cart, walked the aisles, and bought multiples of everything: booties, outfits, socks. I purchased everything that promised relief from her crying; rosemary-scented satchels, calming lotion, and alarm clocks with waterfall recordings, white noise boxes, and a bear with recorded womb sounds. Regardless of how much I purchased, I never felt as if I could give her what she needed. I could buy entire stores and yet my attempts didn’t amount to anything. Because deep down inside I was a fake.

      One day, with another collection of bags in hand, I went home. Jack was in his office, talking on the phone, holding Mia in his arms. She looked peaceful and calm, her face relaxed, her lips loose. The moment I reached for her, her face tensed, her lips curled downward as if to say how dare you approach me. I immediately let go of her as if my fingers had touched hot stone.

      ‘Every time I pick her up, she cries. She hates me. What am I doing wrong? It’s me, Jack, it’s all me. I’m the one who is to blame. You are everything to her while I might as well be her nanny.’

      ‘How do you come up with that kind of stuff?’

      ‘But she cries when I hold her. I must be doing something wrong.’

      ‘You’re not doing anything wrong. Relax, she’s just a baby,’ Jack said.

      I told Jack that I constantly worried; of someone hurting her, her suffocating on a pillow or blanket, choking on something. Jack told me to stop imagining the worst.

      ‘Don’t overthink everything,’ he said, ‘and don’t be so tense all the time,’ as if taking it in strides was going to make it better. In his world, everything was fine. In his world, children didn’t die of SIDS, didn’t choke on marbles, didn’t succumb to high fevers, didn’t suffocate on their vomit. Didn’t have mysterious illnesses that went undiagnosed until it was too late.

      There was this animal inside of me, created while she was in my womb, born on the same day Mia was born. At first, it had quivered ever so slightly, then it stirred, agitated at times, but I was able to pacify it by keeping watch. Lately it scrambled and thrashed and I was powerless. I went there. I went there all the time and then I stayed there. The thought of impending doom loomed over me, tethered like a wild animal with a rope, making it impossible for me to get away. And nothing could convince me otherwise. I didn’t want to hold her because as long as she was in Jack’s arms she was his responsibility, as if I could pass my duty like a baton on to him. On his watch, she’d be fine.

      That day in his office, Jack handed Mia to me, one hand under her head, the other supporting her legs, her body wrapped tightly in the blanket.

      ‘I have to go to work, I’ll be back in a few hours.’ He presented the bundle as if she was an offering.

      Suddenly images of a sacrificial goat slaughtered on a mossy stone altar flashed across my mind. I could almost feel the sticky blood between my fingers. I saw a radiant light the size of a baby’s pupil glowing beneath the soft spot on her head. There was a demon trapped beneath that spot, a demon that made her reject me, made her cry and wail every time I touched her. If I could get to that spot, create a tiny hole, the demon could escape, and we could both find peace.

      I remained still, didn’t reach for Mia. Jack looked at me, bewildered. His lips curled into a half-smile as he tried to gain control. I grabbed the scissors from the pencil holder and left his office.

      In the hallway powder room, as the scissors rested on the edge of the sink, I pumped antibacterial foam into my palms. I studied my reflection in the mirror and tried to come up with some sort of courage to tell him about the darkness and the shadows that had become my life. A life reduced to a small pinhole, depicting the entire world misshapen and distorted. Through this tiny hole, I saw blood, I saw the cold stone of an altar, covered with sharp instruments, jagged and spiky and able to drill their way through soft fontanel tissue. A sharp instrument, like a pair of scissors, resting on the edge of the sink.

      The nursery was fecund with smells: powder, oil, lotion, chamomile and rosemary, and dirty diapers. Jack had scolded me many times not to let them pile up.

      The mobile above her crib – a colorful array of butterflies, June bugs, blossoms, and Tinker Bell at its center – moved gently in the breeze of the ceiling fan. The blinds were drawn, the curtains closed. The rocker sat silently next to her crib, covered in white linen, its footstool soiled with black shoe polish streaks from Jack’s shoes.

      I emptied the shopping bags, one by one, placed every item in baskets on the white shelf, convinced that as long as I kept her room in order, I could also keep the chaos at bay. I took out the clothes, and reached for the scissors to cut off the tags.

      The cold metal rested in my hand. Before I even cut off a single tag, Jack walked in, Mia in his arms. She was quiet and her eyes scanned aimlessly about. Then she focused on the ceiling fan. Jack placed Mia’s body against my chest, and kissed her on the forehead.

      ‘I have to go to work, I’m already running late.’

      I needed him to stay home, but I didn’t know how to ask for it, didn’t even know what exactly I needed from him. Was I supposed to admit defeat? Acknowledging I was a fake as a mother was no longer a concern of mine. This was beyond me, I had nothing left inside of me to give.

      Jack СКАЧАТЬ