December 10, 2024
The Scullery 15 Dalson Road, by Frank Taylor Lockwood
My Baby in the Sink
The sounds began the day I lost the baby.
It was our third try. I was the furthest along I had ever gotten. Five months. I thought I would get lucky. I thought my body could sustain her, allow her to live and grow. The doctors insisted each time that it wasn't that my body couldn’t. It’s a matter of chance, they would say. Chance? What part of this is left to chance?
It went the same way it had the times before, only I could sense it before it happened. The cramping, waves of pain and heat. In the hospital, my eyes glazed over as some young, sympathetic twenty-something explained what had happened to the baby. It was all the same. The same words I’d heard so often before left her lips and circled the room as I clutched my abdomen, hoping my hand would be enough to shelter it from them.
I returned from the hospital to an empty house. The same ticking clock, the same whir of the air conditioning unit outside, the same leaky faucet, the same shut door of Lou’s office. The kitchen night light is my only welcome. I took my shoes off, wet from the rain, and fallen leaves stuck to the bottom. I’d clean those up later. I put my keys in the bowl, locked the front door, and headed for the bathroom. Driven by the need to rinse the loss away. It was in the bathroom that I first heard it. It was small at first. A tiny trickle, like the beginning of rain outside, or something else entirely? I almost missed it. I stopped and tilted an ear to listen. It happened again, only louder as if the sound knew I was listening. I searched around the kitchen, looking in the cabinets, assuming it was perhaps a mouse or some other creature. We hadn’t seen any more droppings since Lou put the traps out last year. I made a note to myself to get new ones soon. Before I could look in the sink, it happened again. A rolling sound. A song. A moment of recognition. There was something in the sink, deep in its pipes, and it was trying to call me to it.
This couldn’t have been real, could it? Had I become the idiot in the horror movie who looks for the noise instead of running from it? My mind went to the worst-case scenario. Sharp nails of rats scraping through the pipes, some long serpent creature ready to lurch out and bite. I soon came to learn it wasn’t cruel or malicious. It didn’t want anything from me, it just wanted me near. Needed me close. I took a flashlight from a nearby drawer and aimed it directly down the drain, attempting to catch the image of something. I saw toes and little legs. Small hands balled up and the top of a head as it moved, reacting to the light. A baby, I thought. I knew it instantly. It was my baby. She wasn’t gone at all. Smart girl. She cowered away from the light. She didn’t like it. I turned the flashlight off, knowing that I didn’t need to see her to know she was there. I would see what she looked like soon enough.
Relief washed over me. I hadn’t lost her after all. The thought of coming home without her was impossible to bear. She had to have known that.
I spent the next two months nursing this child, never leaving to get food or supplies for her, only ordering to the house. The furthest I got away from her was the end of the porch before I heard a rattling in the pipes as if she was throwing a tantrum. I counted the days. Every morning I marked the calendar, excitedly awaiting her arrival. I kept busy. I wanted to fix the faucet leak, but it seemed as though she needed the water. When I brought the wrench to the neck of the faucet she made a sound I hadn’t heard before. Not quite a growl, but close. She was growing and already so sure of herself, so opinionated, outspoken about so many things. To pass the time some days I would describe the outside world through the window above the sink. By this time the trees were long past bare and the snow was beginning to let up. I described passing neighbors with their dogs, planes, and shapes in the clouds. She would hum, purr, and burble. I shared my thoughts in hopes they would soon become hers.
For a small little thing, she sure did have an appetite. I started small with cans of baby food, and helpings of milk. But as she grew, she craved heartier meals. If she were still growing inside of me, she’d eat everything I ate, right? I did just that. I was cooking for two, feeding two. Steak, fish, potatoes, rice, and ice cream every blue moon. She’d suck, slurp, and gurgle in there, enjoying every bite. In the beginning, we would eat similar portions, but she soon began to eat more than I did. I would bring the food to the sink and shovel food in little by little. Eventually, because she was eating so quickly, I would simply scrape the plate in. She needed it. The puckering sounds of her chewing grew louder the hungrier she became. I could hear her practically scarfing down some meals, which was how I knew she was enjoying them. She was growing big and strong. It was everything I could have ever wanted for my baby.
I hadn’t told my family what happened. As far as they knew I hadn’t lost the baby at all– in the end, I didn’t. They didn’t need to know about the change. It would all be the same in the end. I didn’t want to deal with what they were going to try and offer as a form of comfort. The news of losing her for that small amount of time surely would’ve sent them over the edge. My mother would’ve moved in out of pity, my sisters would have told me the classic You have other choices that I never wanted to hear. I couldn’t bring myself to explain the situation for fear they wouldn’t understand. I knew as soon as they met her everything would be perfect. They didn’t need to know where she came from, she would still be mine, and in turn, theirs. I didn’t want them to think I was crazy. This was an extraordinary experience, it was mine to have alone.
I resorted to washing dishes in the tub to avoid disturbing her while she was sleeping. I made my showers quick and would skip the occasional one if she got too fussy. She could sense when I was near and would protest if I was too far away. I stopped sleeping in my bedroom the night I found her in the drain. I moved my bed into the kitchen and have been sleeping there ever since. She enjoyed the quality time, as did I. At night I would read to her, sing songs, and tell her stories of old memories, and things about her father. I would sit by her sink until I heard the soft rhythm of her breath when she slept. I died to know what she looked like, but it was far too dark and deep. I didn’t try to catch her with a light when she was sleeping, for fear of disturbing her. It was a fine price to pay knowing she was down there growing, happy, and healthy.
I remember when Lou found out I was pregnant. I had forgotten and left the wrapper of a pregnancy test in the trash. I was terrified to tell him, terrified of the possibility that I could lose another baby, afraid of what he would think, that he would give up on me. He walked into the kitchen while I was cooking dinner with the wrapper in his hand. When he asked me, with my back to him, I dropped the knife I was using, nearly piercing my foot. I was paralyzed with fear. I didn’t want him to be as scared as I was, yet I could completely understand if he was. I held my breath until I finally turned around to face him. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t scared. His eyes were bright and sparkling with tears. His lips quivered into a smile and his cheeks were a burning hot red. He held me and we cried. He whispered in my ear, this is the one. I promise you.
For weeks after that, we prepared the nursery and pulled out the old crib we had bought so many years ago, along with the mobile his mother had made. We had left all the baby supplies away in storage after the second—or was it the third—time we had taken them out and then had to put them away again empty. It was too hard to look at them, too sad to leave a furnished nursery awaiting no one. This time, the preparation was a new start for a new life.
The collision happened when Lou was out picking up the golden yellow paint we had ordered the day after we found out she was a girl. I was tending to the garden in the backyard when I heard the phone ringing. I almost missed the call, sweat dripping off my face from the heat. It was all too sudden and it paralyzed me.
He had no family left aside from me so I was the one to receive his ashes. My shaking kept me from holding the urn so the man who hand-delivered it had to place it on the mantle for me. At times when I watch it glimmer in the sun my eyes begin to burn.
A knock at the door while I was in the middle of knitting a blanket for the baby. I hadn’t seen anyone up close for months, let alone spoken to someone. I tried to ignore the knocks until they grew frantic. I looked through the peephole. My mother. I opened the door just as she was raising her hand to knock, her gloved fist coming down on the air and almost hitting me. Her face appeared shocked, her nose a bright red from the cold, and she looked as if she was seeing a memory of someone else entirely. She could only say my name at first, the sound was foreign, far away. Eventually, she was able to explain how worried she was about me. She said I looked tired and asked if I was eating. She told me that she knew I needed time to process Lou’s death, but that she didn’t want me to shut myself in the house all alone. It wasn’t good for the baby. As she said the last sentence she looked at my belly through my sweater, searching, and when she didn’t find what she was looking for her face dropped. She assumed the worst, I know she did. Assumed that I had lost this one again. She brought her hand to my belly but I backed away before it could touch. It’s not what you think, I said, I’m just smaller. She’s still here. A lie was easier than explaining the miracle.
She carried in three tubs of leftovers from her car saying she figured I would be too tired to cook. When she saw the state of the kitchen she stopped in her tracks. I had so much ready, all that was left were a few finishing touches. The kitchen became my room and her nursery, assuming the baby would want to stay near the sink before eventually moving into her own room. I wouldn’t move her until she was ready to and I wanted to sleep beside her. My mother looked confused. She began to ask a question but before she could I cut her off with a lie. I told her I was having someone come in to paint the nursery and my bedroom and I needed to move the furniture out to do so. I assured her it was only temporary. She didn’t believe me, but she nodded anyway. She knew better than to question me. We talked about Lou and how I was handling his death, we talked about my plans for the birth, all with no noise from the baby. I didn’t cry while I recalled his memory, but I also didn’t look at him on the mantel. She noticed my eyes flicking over to the sink every once in a while, flinching at the slightest noise of the house. The baby must have been sleeping, I assured myself. Maybe she was confused by a stranger’s presence. She continued to turn the conversation back to Lou and asked me my plans for his funeral. I told her I didn’t plan one. I wanted to move on, and since I was the one left to mourn him, I wanted to do it in my way. My mother nodded again, asking what that process was. I paused. I hadn’t thought about it. I closed my eyes, took a breath, and finally answered. To keep living, I said, for me and her. My mother assured me she and my sisters would be there to help when the baby arrived. Anything you need. We’re here. Please remember you can call me for anything, she told me as she left, insisting she would be back to bring leftovers. I asked that she let me know when she was coming over. I wanted time to make it seem like I wasn’t home. I wouldn’t be ready to see her until the baby was here.
I’d attempt to conjure the image of my baby in my mind. Who would she look like? I prayed she would hold Lou in her eyes, his nose, his chin, his smile. I wanted to remember him in her face. I thought back to the moment I knew I wanted to have his children. He was asleep in bed, mouth hanging open, soft and vulnerable. I remember looking at the hills of his features. Small strands below his jawline, pieces of hair he had missed while shaving. His pores, spots of oil in the corner of his nose. How long his eyelashes were. He was right there, and I knew I wanted him by my side forever. I wouldn’t forget what he looked like. I knew I would see it in her every day.
I sat by the sink and asked her what she would like her name to be. I listed all the names I had in mind, all the names that Lou and I talked about. Rose, Ruby, Olive. She practically sang when I said it: Olive. Of course. Lou’s favorite name. Baby Olive. My fingers began to buzz with anticipation. I couldn’t wait to meet her.
Baby Olive emerged from the drain on a cloudy day right after the New Year. It was sooner than expected, to say the least, but I assumed she must have grown quickly from all the food I had given her. My heart leaped the moment I realized it was happening. It started with her usual sounds, the ones she made to let me know she was content, only they grew louder. I rushed to the sink, and looked down, my hands ready to pull her out if she needed help. I always wondered how she would emerge from the drain. Would it expand? Dilate like I would have? Would it hurt her? Would she fit? My thoughts began to calm themselves like Lou would have. She wouldn’t have grown in there if she didn’t have a way out, I heard his voice say. He was right. I needed to trust that. Her noises grew louder and louder until they finally sounded like cries, real human cries. The sink began to undulate. Sounds of metal churning and the pipes popping, like a heater coming to life after a season of dormancy bouncing around the room. The mouth of the sink began to spread, creak, and open. I looked closely, ready and waiting, when I saw the top of her head.
She wriggled out slowly, then all at once as if the sink spat her out and returned to its normal size. She squirmed at the base of the sink, eyes squeezed shut, wrinkly and gray. Her skin was slicked as if covered in grease. Her hands were balled up and didn’t quite look like mine or Lou’s. They were different but beautiful. Long fingers, wide palms for her size, sharp, pale nails. She had grown a lot down there. More than I had expected. She was perfect.
I stood speechless, tears rolling down my cheeks, my mouth agape. Pride and pure joy crashed over me like a wave and rolled me underneath it. I grabbed a blanket from her crib and attempted to swaddle her in it, picking her up slowly and carefully. She flinched and cried some more, my touch frightening her a little. Did she know it was me? I began to speak, soothing her. As soon as she heard my voice she melted, letting me scoop her up and wrap her tightly. I used the blanket to wipe off whatever creamy substance was on her skin, blocking her eyes. I admired her features. She was green, wasn’t she? Almost the exact shade of her name. She was a tender olive with smooth skin, almost hairless. No, it was hairless. She didn’t have eyebrows yet and her nose looked like a sharp little button. Her cheekbones were pronounced and sharp. She had plump lips in a small pout, like Lou’s. She has a little chin, rounded, with a small dimple in the center like mine. She was captivating. She was warm, she was healthy, she was everything I could have hoped for, but different in the most tantalizing way. Everything about her pulled me in closer. I wondered how I got so lucky.
I began to rock her gently, shushing and beginning to wipe away more of the afterbirth, when she finally opened her eyes. They stopped me still. Deep amber, with flecks of bright yellow, almost red. She looked at me with such knowing, such depth, as if she had known me for a million lifetimes. I began to smile, tears trailing from my cheeks, down my neck. I could feel Lou in the room with me, his arms around me, and finally, with the child we always wanted. Olive and I looked at each other. She nuzzled her head against my breast. I was meant to be your mother, I thought. She knew it, too.
I wondered if she would feel inclined to breastfeed. I wasn’t producing milk to my knowledge, but stranger things have happened. I pulled her away for a moment to lift my shirt, exposing my nipple to her lips. She opened her mouth to expose rows of sharp teeth behind one another and a long black tongue that came to a point. For a moment my stomach dropped and I locked into place. In a flash all of the doubts I had managed to escape while preparing for her flooded in. What if this was all wrong? What if this wasn’t a gift at all? My thoughts went a mile a minute, confusion, concern, fear. All-consuming fear. But at that moment I felt Lou again. His warmth soothed me. Let her, he said. I had to trust my gut. I had to trust him.
She pursed her lips and began to suckle, I felt the graze of her teeth and the point of her tongue. My eyes were squeezed shut, waiting to feel if it took. Soon I was able to look down and watch her. Her eyes hadn’t left my face once. She was tender. Nothing was coming out of my breast. She looked at me with wisdom, with curiosity, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. I took my hand and caressed her head, soothing her, and giving her permission. She opened her mouth slowly and her jaw unhinged like a snake. I felt no fear, only warmth in my belly. I would give her any part of me she needed. She latched onto my breast, teeth digging in, and began to feed. Starving.
Jules Rivera is a Brooklyn-based writer, actor, and producer of herbal supplements, a monthly reading series.