The Transluscent Statue

I remember my mother, soft and full of water, opening our front door with a Valentine’s Day gift in her arms. I was ten years old, making a fort of pillows and blankets for my little brothers when I saw her step inside. My mother’s arms were covered in a bulky knitted blue sweater, her beige skin flashing through the holes between the stiches. Her left arm like an L to her chest, carrying a small pink thing squished between wool and cotton swaddling. In the crook of her right arm was the baby car seat, the same one used for the last baby just two years prior. The baby seat was full of loose socks and more tiny cotton blankets, white and lined blue, the kind that almost feel like tissue paper. I remember thinking it was funny that the hospital wrapped babies in tissue paper like birthday presents.

As my mother slowly moved through the door, there was a scent of sweet milk following her. She was quiet like this, right after she had a baby. She would move through the house with a glowed presence that only captured her in the first few months after giving birth. She was warm and fluffy, and I wanted her to hold me more than usual. She was hot and sweet, like an apple pie straight from the oven. When she was still mushy, I liked to press on her belly like a yeasty dough, watching her stretched skin bounce off of my little fingertips. She would let me knead her tired body like a baker while keeping the new baby nursing on her chest. I didn’t like to see her nurse, but when she nursed, she didn’t notice me, and I could play with her body.

This new baby was very, very quiet. The last baby was frightened and flashing bright, like a ringtone at night and an alarm clock in the morning. The baby before that was fat and juicy, like something my mother would buy on sale at the grocery store and make leftovers out of. But this baby, this brand-new deep pink baby, was quiet. Her hands and feet were wrapped in mittens. My mother said she came out cold like winter glass, and she needed to get warm. I would look at this baby close to her face, our noses almost touching, and wait for her to open her eyes. My mother would tell me to stop and play with someone else, that my breath could keep her cold.

Yet my mother let me hold the baby when she wanted to go to the bathroom or put her hair in a ponytail. She had long brown hair, waving from her scalp past her shoulders and down to the middle of her back. Her hair smelled like burnt almonds and chalk, filling my nose with a thickness that made me sneeze. I would watch her use her hair to tickle the babies while she held them, swaying her head back and forth, so her strands would sweep their face. She would sing dreamily to them, making them giggle and show gum less smiles. She did this to every baby, and she said she did this to me too. She even did this with the new baby, but the new baby didn’t smile.

When the new baby was sleeping, I would stare at her purply closed lips until one side of her wet mouth curled. I’d get excited for her to wake up and see me, her big sister, ready to make her laugh. Then, she would twitch her eyes and make a jolted sound like a squeaky morning bird and keep sleeping. I didn’t know why she wanted to sleep so much. If I slept that much, my mother would get angry with me for being lazy. I thought my mother was going to yell at the new baby for sleeping so much, but she never did. My mother just held her, stroking the thick hairs between her eyebrows, and keeping her clamped to her breast.

Even when the new baby was awake it was like she was asleep. She would open her eyes and all the kids would gather round, on their bare tiptoes over her bassinet, waiting for her to wail and twist open like a cork from a wine bottle. We would bounce up and down, and she would stay placid in her tissue paper blanket. Her eyes were glossy and clear blue, with huge black pupils taking up most of the white space. She barely had eyelashes, only little blonde flecks of something like dust I’d find behind the couch. Her cheeks had little bumps on the fattest part, like two shaved peaches with razor bumps. We would take turns making sure she wasn’t dead, placing our fingers under her nose. We would feel small puffs of air leave her nostrils and hit our index fingers, relived she was alive. Despite her breathing, she was as still as stone.

Throughout the second half of February, we got used to the new baby and how quiet she was, and how quiet she made us. We learned to keep our faces off of hers, to play with ourselves, to walk softly like my mother. Yet we still waited patiently for her to start screaming for milk and kicking for a clean bum, but she never did. The only thing that changed was her skin, turning from fresh fever pink to speckled marble to pure snow white. I thought she became so white from all the milk my mother gave her, and because she never cried, she never cried the milk away. She was full of milk now, and I thought if I poked her belly button and pulled out the dried stick inside, she would burst open and sap like a milky maple tree. But she was always wrapped in her tissue-paper, kept away from my greedy fingers like a precious artifact. Like a freshly shaped piece of pottery before being baked, she had to be left alone.