Trade You a Pearl

CW: Extreme violence, gore, trauma, abuse and mental health

A frog clung to my rain-slicked window, its gut bulging between its front legs. Lightning cracked. It inhaled and screamed.

Kaarock! Kaarock!

The mucus under its webbed feet pulled free, it reeled backward toward the clouds. I leaped, ready to catch it. I had a vision of its body splattering over the road below, intestines blown to pieces. In the same moment I thought it might tumble from my apartment window, my fingers barely grazing its slimy body, it threw its tongue toward the glass and pulled itself upright.

Its stomach grew again and it opened its mouth to croak as if its life was never at risk. I laughed uneasily and watched it repeat the same pattern over again.

“You’re a strange little thing,” I said. I didn’t expect an answer, but it fixed me with it’s beady black eye and hopped away toward the neighbor’s window in response. I was forced to stop procrastinating. The frog left my house freely, and I would too.

The floor creaked and I froze while tying my boots. There was a single knock on the door, and my chest seized.

“Son?” I called, though I knew he was not there.

Apprehension pounded my eardrums and bile flooded over my tongue.

Another floorboard creaked before a door banged down the hall. The neighbors must have been hauling furniture again. They always had some sort of sale going on with new shit squeezed in their shoebox the day after.

The rain-soaked air settled my mind as I walked away from the claustrophobic building. A bus screamed around the corner, splashing mud toward a couple that bumped their way past me. Pigeons scattered about the sidewalk like city confetti. Faces of women, and men, blurred past. They looked like boys really. Or, one particular little boy that liked to scoop up handfuls of storm water and drip it down other children's coats.

I noticed pieces of him in each face I passed; a sharp nose there, angled brows over brown eyes there. I clutched my purse a little tighter to my side until I found a seat on the fountain bench.

My son would be the death of me. I knew it the moment he was born. His nails scraped the skin of my womb, his gums gnashed the cord that tied us together. I waddled into the hallway of L&D and screamed that he would kill me if they didn’t get him out.

They laughed until they realized there was no time for an epidural. The doctor pulled him out from between my legs, all screaming flesh and coated in blood, and the day of his birth has brought violence since.

It was his birthday, sure. But it was my birthday, too. I was allowed to have a good day. I had moved away from our last apartment without leaving a forwarding address. There was no way he would show up. Our birthday did not have to be a bad day, I could make it tolerable, for once.

Water gurgled at my back, drowning out the chatter and constant buzz of traffic. I moved to pull the latest book club pick from my bag, and a small jewelry box toppled to the ground.

I lunged for it, but I was too late.

Tattooed knuckles wrapped around the white leather, and a spasm of pain shot through my back.

His fingers gripped my arm to help me up while he flicked the box open in his other hand, revealing a rough pearl on a rusted chain.

“Oh, Ma, you shouldn’t have,” he said, smiling down at me. His gums had blackened since I saw him last, and his nail beds were chewed and cracked through with dried blood.

Blood has been a recurrent theme between us, my baby and me.

He flung a spoon when he was two years old, trying to feed himself. He was in the middle of one of his tantrums, arms flailing, screams higher than a church ceiling. I kneeled to pick it up, and his Papa reached in close to comfort our little tyke.

Then Papa let out the worst scream I had ever heard.

The EMT’s called it a freak accident.

The police questioned me.

“How is it possible that you didn’t see what happened?”

“You chose to stand by while he died?”

It was my fault, really. I shouldn’t have left a knife on the table like that. It was so close to the high chair. We’d been awake for so many nights in a row that I just couldn’t think clearly. I called nine-one-one as soon as I recovered from the shock of seeing a knife sticking out of papa’s neck. The only fingerprints on it were mine and my baby's. It was just a freak accident. Or, at least, that’s what the EMT said must have happened.

“Mama?”

I stared up into his eyes, deep brown like his papa’s with lashes clumped together from the rain.

“Hi, baby.” The words were shards of glass sliding up my throat.

“You get this for me?” he asked with a grin, holding up the little box with the pearl necklace.

“You know I didn’t,” I said.

He frowned. “Did you get me another gift? I’m low on funds.”

I hesitated before shaking my head.

His head cocked to the side, the same way it did when he was thinking up a plan as a toddler.

“Well, I like it a lot. I think I’ll keep it.”

“You’ll do no such thing. You give that back right now!” I demanded, raising my voice higher than I meant to.

“I could get a buck fifty for this at the pawn.”

He turned the box over in his hands before lifting the pearl and scratching it against his tooth. I reached for it, but he towered over me. I had begun to shrink with age.

“You haven’t even wished me ‘happy birthday’, Ma.”

My mind began to race and I swallowed hard before dropping back to the bench. I didn't have the will to fight him this time. I patted the seat next to me, and he stooped, his knees coming to his chest as he curled into my hug.

“Happy birthday, son. How are you?”

He snapped the box shut again and shrugged before stretching out. There was less empty space on his skin, he had shaved his head, his scalp bare to the sky but still pale.

“I was disappointed when you didn’t come home. I waited, and then I got pretty upset. It’s been a hard year without you.”

Guilt twisted in my chest. “But you had me paying for…look at those tattoos! The skulls and lines. And your lifestyle–”

“I’m sick, mama.” His eyes widened, and he lifted his arm to reveal a path of bruises. “You left me, like I don’t mean nothing to you.”

“Of course you do.”

“What if I didn’t find you so we could spend this birthday together?”

I sucked in a breath, reaching up to rub my face. The rain burrowed into the wrinkles on the backs of my hands, and the skin on my cheeks was soft under my fingertips. When did time stretch me so?

“You can help,” he said.

I stayed quiet. I knew what would come next. It was the same, every time.

“I just need a few hundred dollars. I’m about to start over. I found a job, it’s real close, I gotta get uniforms–”

“No.”

“Please, Ma. A hundred? That could get me an Amtrak.”

“I said no, baby. I know you mean well. But the answer is no.”

He scooted closer, his hand reaching for my purse. I tucked his fingers against mine and smiled.

“Then just tell me why you left?” he asked.

I looked around at the people in the park. A hot dog vendor parked on the corner, his hair gray like papas would be. Children ran without a care in the world, their mothers worried sick about them. No one looked in our direction.

Cold anchored around my neck and I gasped as he settled the chain in place. His voice was a command in my ear. “Tell me why you left. I’ll trade you a pearl for it.”

I tipped back, held aloft by the pearl necklace, and choked on the rust and memory.

He was five years old, and I was helping him bathe. This same necklace, polished and gleaming at the time, hung from my breast. I lifted a pitcher of water to rinse soap from his hair and he grabbed for the pearl, yanking me down.

“What is this mommy?”

I laughed. “A gift from papa a long time ago.”

I tried to keep rinsing him, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Can I have it?”

“No. Now let go.”

His little fists gripped harder on the chain and he pulled me toward the bath. “Why not? I want it.”

“It's mine. And time to finish your bath.”

“Mine!”

“Let go!” I was screaming by the time he yanked my face under the water. His hands clenched so hard around the chain, I worried it might cut him, or me, or that he would drown us both trying to get it off my neck. He didn’t like the word ‘no’, so I never wore it again after that day, left it to tarnish in its box.

I gasped against his force but the water on my face was too light to be the bath. It was just rain, I wasn't drowning.

“Ma? Are you okay?” he asked, concern etched into his features.

“Help!” I couldn’t stop the yell that erupted from my throat as I sucked air in.

The pressure relieved from my neck and he stood a few feet away.

“Mama, you’re okay.”

I touched my neck and pulled my fingers away to see blood slicking my palm, and screamed.

Footsteps pounded on pavement and water rushed from my ears, my eyes. Stinging pain scraped through my knees and hands grappled against the sleeves of my coat. The clouded sky spun below me. There was no sense in the world as blood dried over my hand.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” A man in a blue uniform peered over me, and I blinked against his halo of sun.

“No, my son–” I looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The uniform crouched in front of me, lifting a finger in front of one eye, then the other. “I think you may be having a moment of confusion,” he said. He leaned over to pick up my book and set it on the bench next to me, followed by the jewelry box on top. “Do you know where you are? Do you know where home is?”

I nodded, touching the box, startling at the lack of blood on my fingers. The rain had stopped. My skin was dry, then pearl was safe in it's box.

“My son was here. Have you seen him?”

Uniform shook his head and straightened. “I came over because you cried out. You were sitting alone.”

He retreated, and I gripped my fingers to stop the tremor in my hands before turning home. The faces that passed all held his grin, the sharp glint in his eye. My purse was secure under my coat as I hurried home.

I locked my front door, then turned the handle to make sure it was latched. I slid the deadbolt into place. Dropped the chain lock. I circled the space and checked that every window was locked.

The frog was back. His stomach fluttered but no sound came from his throat. He faced out to the skyline. I watched him for a moment, trying to see what he saw. The world outside looked clear, no predators on the horizon. I drew the curtain closed and blocked him out.

I would look back on this and laugh. I knew I would. That time I nearly had a mental breakdown because I skipped my son’s birthday. Perhaps I needed to call the local hospital and commit myself for a seventy-two hour hold. I glanced at the old telephone, with the curling cord that I had cut when I moved in so that he couldn’t call me.

I couldn’t walk there just to be turned away if they were full, or if they didn’t believe that I was going crazy.

A single knock on the door froze me in place, and I breathed out a shallow breath.

“It’s the neighbors,” I whispered to myself.

“Mama?” A voice called from the other side.

I slapped my hand over my mouth as I gasped, backing into the kitchen counter.

“Ma, please, let me in.”

I said nothing. Blood rushed through my ears, my fingers trembled as I searched behind me for a weapon, something.

“Mama, please, let me in!”

His knuckles scraped against the grain of the door, scratching the hot tears out of my eyes.

“I can’t help you, baby. You gotta go somewhere else.”

It was silent for a moment. I clutched the handle of a blade. I didn’t think he’d give up so easily. My heart was aching, turning inside out. I knew if he stayed much longer that I’d let him in. I didn’t want to. I just wanted a good day.

A heartbeat passed. Then another.

“Mama.” His tone had changed. He was angry now. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “If you don’t open this goddamn door right now, I’ll come in there and kill you.”

My blood ran cool at the death in his voice–like the devil had slithered right up his spine.

“What? What did you say?” I whispered.

“Open up and help me, or I’ll kill you, Ma.”

My tongue was heavy, I was unable to move. My knees turned to liquid and my palm slicked with sweat. The strike of his fist against the door shook me hard, and I stumbled back, dropping the knife and turning to run down the hallway.

He continued to pound and scream. I ran to my room, slammed the door, and shoved a chair against it.

The front door fell in with a bang and I curled in on myself next to my bed. His footsteps thundered down the hall, and his voice echoed louder than my racing pulse.

“You can’t run from me anymore, mama. It’s you and me forever.”

He shoved my bedroom door open far too easily, sending the chair flying across the room. “You should have said yes. I know you can help me.”

“Baby,” the word fell from my lips in a whimper, and I cringed as he strode toward me and wrapped a hand around my throat. For the first time, I noticed the black tear under his eye. The cracks in his tongue as he spat his demands at me. Fresh blood trickled from a wound in his arm. He shook me, and though his strength was manufactured, I could not fight back.

“Stop, you’re making a mistake.” My plea fell on deaf ears as he lifted the kitchen knife above my head. Breath evaded me as his grip tightened.

A part of me couldn’t help but think of his papa in his final moments, on this same day thirty-five years ago. I reached for the edge of the blade.

“Trade you a pearl for it.”

I closed my eyes, but it was his words that sliced through me instead.

“You chose this, mama. I just wanted to celebrate with you.”

Silence dripped over the carpet and I pulled myself away from the scene, backing to sit in the armchair. The night air was dead still while I watched my son from outside my body.

He gripped me, one hand around my neck, knuckles white, turning the knife through my chest.

“Please, stop,” I choked out.

“You stop! Stop ignoring me. Stop running from me. Stop choosing yourself over me. It’s me. I need you more than anyone.”

As he wrapped his fingers through my bloodied hair, tears coursed down his face. His lips pressed against my head, and I noticed how my skin sagged under the weight of his grip.

“Stop running from me,” he cried. “It’s our birthday.”

My body crumpled like a discarded pillow as he cried and swore. His knife worked through my flesh.

“It has to be in here. Just help me, one more time.” His hands found my bones, and he curled into me, falling to the floor and wrapping himself in my skin. “That's all I need, then I’ll be better.”

I turned away from him as the frog croaked outside.

Karock!