Sally
Day one: Friday, September 7
Sally knew she wasn’t supposed to shake a baby. She saw the message everywhere—on pamphlets, brochures, in baby books, on posters prominently displayed at the doctor’s office. Who could miss it? This was a problem for social services. They’d come and take Morgan away. They’d tell her she was a bad mother.
But you’d see doting fathers playfully tossing their babies around, flipping them over their shoulders, swinging them in circles—around and around, the babies dizzy with glee. That was no crime. Even Charles played rough with Morgan. He’d saunter down the hall, holding Morgan upside down by his ankles, letting him swing like a pendulum—“Where’d Morgie go? Have you seen him?”—while Morgan exploded into a fit of giggles.
Had she crossed the line?
Morgan lay in his crib now, curled on his side, snug in his Winnie- the-Pooh sleep sack, his thumb resting between lax lips. Fast asleep, although his breathing sounded labored. Didn’t it? Was that a sign? Or could he just be congested?
She wanted to shake him awake, to make sure he was all right, to make him laugh.
But maybe it was too late. Maybe she caused damage—brain damage. Like she’d read in the newspaper the other day, that dad who attacked his toddler with a baseball bat. She couldn’t understand how any parent could do that, how anyone could hurt their baby. And yet, here lay little Morgan, her sweet boy, in pain. She knew he was hurting.
It had started with another screaming fit, Morgan wailing nonstop for no apparent reason. She tried everything. She gave him his favorite ball. His Elmo. She turned on “Wheels on the Bus” and sang along. She squatted and quacked like a duck, jumped like a wild chimpanzee, crawled on all fours, and barked like a dog. He stared at her and continued to howl for hours. Hours!
Then she snapped.
“Shut up!”
He paused, taking in a sharp inhale, his face red and splotchy and
dripping with tears. Then he tilted his head back, opened his mouth wide, and let loose another ear-splitting shriek.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” Sally repeated, her voice rising higher and higher.
She needed him to be quiet for just one second. She’d only gotten around three hours of sleep last night. Head buzzing, she furiously rubbed her eyes, trying to think straight.
The cat meowed and pawed and licked at the dirty stack of dishes. The washing machine whirled and clanked from down the hall. A cockroach scuttled across the carpet. The TV blasted “If You’re Happy and You Know it.” Her phone rang and vibrated like it was having a seizure on the counter.
In one quick swoop, Morgan was in her arms. “Shhh, please stop crying. I need you to stop.” It was just a little shake, a warning: Please stop. Please let mommy have a break. Please let mommy think. Please please please pleasepleasepleaseplease.
But Morgan didn’t stop. He screamed even louder, snot sputtering into his open, wailing mouth. Her heart pounded, sweat pooled under her arms, her legs weakened.
She thought of carrying him downstairs, exiling him to the basement again. Last time she’d left him down there for several hours, alone in his playpen with only a bottle of milk and his Elmo. She hadn’t known what to do during that time. She’d sat on the couch, stared at the wall, then studied the checkered blue and white squares on her socks. It had been quiet. Unusual, eerie. But quiet. Really quiet.
And when she’d finally gone to retrieve him, he was quiet. Morgan was quiet. Red-faced, teary-eyed, exhausted quiet. Had he screamed and cried and protested in the dank, musty basement? Sally had no idea. She didn’t set up a baby monitor, she didn’t even leave the door cracked open.
Charles recently asked about the playpen in the basement. Simple answer: She was storing it there. He shrugged his acceptance. He didn’t investigate. He didn’t ask why it remained set up, with a sheet inside.
Something about the playpen made her feel guilty. Later, after he’d mentioned it, she wrestled it into the basement’s storage closet, shoving it against the caked bottles of cleaning supplies and moldy mops, leaning her body into the door until it latched shut. Out of sight, out of mind.
She even contemplated getting rid of it, hauling it over to Goodwill. But in the end, she couldn’t. Because every time Morgan had one of his animalistic episodes, she needed a way out. A moment of peace.
But today, with Morgan’s face inches from her own, she hadn’t made it to the basement. Instead, she grasped her baby firmly under his armpits, his legs kicking and arms waving in fury. Just a little over one year on this planet and he already had that much vigor and defiance in his lungs, in his limbs, in his soul.
“I said stop. Stop. Stop! STOP!” Sally screamed so loud her throat hurt and her ears rang. She squeezed her eyes shut and when she opened them, Morgan was completely silent, his head hanging limply to one side, his eyelids fluttering to stillness. She hadn’t even realized she’d been shaking him. And now he was quiet.
But not the good kind of quiet.
“Oh God,” she gasped. “Oh my God. My baby.” She needed to call 911. Should she do mouth-to-mouth?
She pressed her ear to his chest and held her breath. She heard a ragged, gasping sound—he was breathing! She exhaled, then quickly carried him down the hall to his room, changed his soggy diaper, stroked his forehead, zipped him into his soft sleep sack. She clutched him to her chest, his head nestled in the crook of her neck. She paced, waiting, wondering what to do next. She longed for him to howl again. Her stomach twisted.
She’d hurt Morgan. What would she tell Charles? What would they do with her?
He just needs sleep, she told herself. Sleep will make everything better. She placed him in his crib, tucking his tattered Elmo under his arm. His breathing was raspy, but steady. She watched him for several minutes, her knuckles gripping the edge of the crib, before forcing herself away.
She stumbled down the basement stairs, tripping over an old tennis racket and Charles’s bowling bag. She yanked open the door to the storage closet. Morgan’s playpen filled almost every inch of the space. She should’ve brought him down here, let him scream his heart out, and then he’d be exhausted, angrily exhausted—but still conscious.
After crawling into the creaky playpen, she tugged the door shut. It was tight, but she fit, curled into a ball. It was dark and still and quiet.
So very quiet.
Her own sobs finally broke the silence as she cried herself to sleep.
