Baby Talk - Short Story

I wrote this piece for a publication about motherhood. Naturally, I wrote it with a dark twist.

Warning: Some may find this disturbing. Some strong language, however, no violence or sex.

All photos labeled for reuse.

 “No one loves you, you dirty little bitch. The only reason anyone ever cleans you is to keep your damn mouth shut for two seconds.”

 The harsh dialogue spoken in a woman’s warm voice seemed like the work of a sadistic casting director. The woman’s hands rubbed the young, wiggling body with restrained affection. Pudgy arms and pudgier legs squirmed, their wide eyed owner eager to practice using them after months of being confined to an embryonic prison.

 “Yeah, you’re fat and you’ll always be fat. And the other girls will mock you. You’ll end up cutting yourself and…” The woman’s voice ended in a mumble. She was getting too good at this, and that was what was scaring her.

 The infant stared back, cross eyed in wonder before blowing a bubble and giggling uncontrollably.

 “Oh, you think that’s funny? Will you think that’s funny when none of the boys want to touch you? Not even if you were plastered and he was coming out after five years behind bars. Don’t plan on moving in with me. Eighteen and done. The state can’t force me to care for your whiny, needy ass.”


 For a moment the infant’s forehead burrowed. Seconds later the muscles relaxed and the baby shrieked in delight as if it just heard the funniest thing in the world.

 Jackie Whittier turned away. She couldn’t take it anymore. It felt wrong. She was a terrible mom. Of course, she hadn’t planned on being one; at least, not now. That’s what she got for trusting a man all her friends and family tried to tell her was no good.

 No, she had to be stubborn. She wouldn’t; no, couldn’t listen to them. She had been seventeen and figured that was enough life experience to make adult decisions. And that’s what it was; her decision. The guy could have been any guy. But it was the guy everyone else said wasn’t good enough. That alone was good enough for her.

 Yet, he took the first ride out of town once he was done with her. All men could. Sure, they’d be considered dicks and cowards. But a mother abandoning her baby was much worse.

It was taboo.

She looked down at a reflection of what she remembered of her own baby pictures. At least, the baby hadn’t taken much from the father. Still, a foreign feeling followed her, one in which she struggled between wanting to strangle the little body squirming on the changing table and hugging it and making a thousand promises on how her life would turn out better. After all, even if it only had half of her DNA, it would be raised by her.

“Don’t grab her,” the therapist’s words rattled in her head. “Only when you’re Jackie, the loving, caring mother you want to be, can you grab her.”

 Weeks passed since their last session. The state’s program that paid for them was cut. The middle aged woman who bit the ends of her glasses and wore neatly tailored clothes was much different than she imagined when she finally relented and went. The woman was professional, put together, not the typical worn-out government worker juggling dozens of cases at once. Still, there was something about the woman. Despite her credentials and soothing, all-knowing voice, Jackie still kept an emotional arm’s length away from her.

 The emotional disconnect she had with the life she created was present from the third time the drugstore pregnancy test came back positive. The few friends and family members she had left told her it was normal. They assured her that as the baby grew inside her, so would her anticipation of motherhood. They told her she would feel different when the baby came. They told her all the stress and headache and regret would disappear replaced by something instinctive and natural.

 “That’s nonsense,” the cold, stoic voice of the therapist had said when she brought it up one session. “There are no such things as mother’s instincts. It is simply a tall tale told to scared women to make them feel better. There is no basis for it in science.”

 It may not have a basis in science, but Jackie wondered the same thing about the woman’s alternative techniques. She was no scholar, but she felt certain the therapist’s science was a secretive, dark alley type of science. A kind of science was practiced by eager practitioners on patients too frightened or ignorant to object.

“Babies of any species are born with certain defense mechanisms. They can’t walk, talk and feed themselves. What they can do is attract attention and have their needs provided for them. Babies and puppies both have large eyes. They’re cute. There is an evolutionary reason for it. It allows our species to continue.”

 Jackie’s head pounded as the new information tried to enter her brain. It always had when she spoke with the woman. Regardless, she believed the woman. After all, she was a doctor, and who was she, a pregnant teenager without a GED or even a part-time job, to challenge her?

Still, something inside of her told her there was something wrong. Of course, she wasn’t about to say “no.” If she had that power, she wouldn’t be here in the first place.

“The problem you’re experiencing, the way you’re feeling tells me you may be immune to these mechanisms. You never wanted to be a mother. At least, not now. Sure, some mothers are nervous, but not this far along. When is the baby due?”

She was right, she wasn’t supposed to be a mother. How cruel was a god if he made barren so many women desperate for a child’s love, and curse her by making her tortured soul an incubator for new life, she thought.

“October, I think,” Jackie responded.

“Right.”

“What?” Jackie was surprised by the force in her voice. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s just that women who want to be mothers don’t say ‘I think.’ They know down to the weeks how much longer they have.”

Jackie turned from the woman and looked out the window to her left. The older woman followed her gaze.

“It’s okay. You shouldn’t feel guilty. Not everyone feels the same, and we shouldn’t force anything that we don’t feel. It leads to repression, to anger.”

“Then what do I do? It’s too late for an abortion.”

The older woman was silent for a moment. “You will have this baby. In the meantime, I will teach you some techniques. Controversial techniques in the field, I might add, but effective nonetheless.”

For the next few months for one quick hour every Thursday morning, Jackie and the therapist would work on the techniques. The latter promised she would get her through her impending stint into motherhood.

“Now, say it to me again,” the therapist insisted. “Say all those nasty thoughts to me. And don’t forget to smile.”

Jackie repeated what the dark recesses of her mind told her at those times when she was at her weakest.

 “Don’t cry,” the older woman said once she was done. “Babies and puppies can’t talk or express their feelings like you and I, but they’re still very intuitive when it comes to how you feel.”

 “So, I should pretend?”

 “Yes, fake it.” The woman’s eyes were intense, her voice sympathetic, but stern.

Even though they had been working for several weeks, Jackie was put aback. This woman was a licensed therapist. She was a smart, confident woman with power suits and a fancy diploma on her wall. Still, she wasn’t completely convinced by the woman’s teaching method.

“You won’t need to do it forever. Just until those voices in your head become softer and softer and finally inaudible.”

 The session ended in tears. Not tears of failure. Not tears for her unborn daughter. No, they were tears of true fear. Fear that it was too late to change the inevitable.

The baby attempted a feeble roll, and it snapped Jackie back to the present. “Come here” she said. She used the same tone of voice the therapist instructed her to use. Jackie cursed the therapist, yet was able to restrain herself until the anger that boiled inside her first fell to a simmer and then finally there was no movement in her blood.

She considered calling the therapist. The state no longer was willing to pay the bill, and the money she received in aid wouldn’t even begin to cover the expenses.

Still, wouldn’t the woman have wanted her to call? At the very least to let her know that the techniques appeared to be working.

No, the therapist probably had other patients, patients just as screwed up as her. It was her and the fifteen pounds of flesh in front of her now.

 Jackie smiled and cleared her throat for the high, squeaky voice all adult voices turned into when face-to-face with an infant. “Crazy or not, we’re stuck with each other. Now open that fat little mouth of yours, so I cram this crap in you and shut your face.”