The Heavy Sleeper

“The baby is crying… again.” I roll onto my stomach so I can reach my husband, jostling his shoulder groggily. He doesn’t move. I’m not sure what specific biological adaptation all men seem to have developed for being heavy sleepers, but from talking with my fellow mothers it appears to be an epidemic.

I press my toes, which I’m hoping are freezing cold, into his legs, still, nothing gives. “Dan!” I hiss. The crying continues.

Sighing dramatically for no one but myself to hear, I pull myself up and out of bed and towards my son’s room. We only recently moved him to his own room, at the other end of the house. At my husband’s suggestion, he thought that it might help us sleep better. So far all it’s done is increase the amount of time I’m awake trudging back and forth between both rooms.

I slip out my bedroom door quietly, pulling it gently shut behind me. That’s when I realize this crying sounds different, perhaps not even crying at all. A brief flash of hope surges through me, no crying means I can go back to bed. But what is that noise? It’s low and wailing, as though each breath requires great effort, or is dying out on the last bit of a battery’s life source.

My toes are definitely cold now, I walk across the tile floor towards the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. They catch sight of something across the kitchen, and my breath catches in my throat.

The back door is open. Not swung open haphazardly but cracked open. Like whoever had opened it had tried to shut it quietly, and the door never latched. The wailing is an old alarm system, one of which I’ve never heard go off before.

Dan bought it when we first got the house. ‘Just in case’ he had said, ‘Nothing ever happens in this neighborhood’ I had countered. It was one of the reasons we had bought the house after all. Since then, Dan has religiously set the alarm each night. He might be a heavy sleeper, but he is rather dependable in his awake state.

My mind tries to rationalize quickly- maybe I forgot to lock the door and the wind blew it open- but something doesn’t feel right. Tiny goosebumps run up my neck, any sleepiness I felt moments ago is now gone.

The baby.

I don’t think, I just run. I race up the stairs and across the house, flinging open the nursery door. Any mother’s worst fear is realized as I stare at the empty crib. No, no, no.

My cheeks feel hot, my hands are shaking, I think I might vomit. Ragged breaths rake my body. This can’t be happening. This doesn’t happen. Not in this neighborhood, not in this house, not to me.

His room is empty, there is nothing in his crib. I know I placed him to sleep with a baby blue blanket with little bears dancing on it. Where is his blanket, where is my baby?

Dan, I have to get Dan.

I turn to leave my son’s room when something catches my eye. Above his dresser, in delicate cursive a shade of sage that took me two months to pick out, is my son’s name: Oliver. Next to his name hang shelves of precariously selected baby books, with the picture-perfect covers for a Pinterest worthy nursery.

But that is not what has grabbed my attention, no, someone has written over his name in an ugly, angry scribble.

Noah.

I have no idea what it means, or who Noah is, the last Noah I knew was my English Lit professor from Brown over ten years ago. I feel like it’s a safe bet to assume this isn’t about him.

A shadow dances across the open door frame snapping me back into reality. I hold my breath, but surely whoever is in the house can hear my heart beating. It feels like it might explode through my chest at any moment, the pounding banging in my ears. I wait for it to give away my position, but nothing happens.

My eyes dart around the room, looking for some type of weapon. Inconveniently, most baby nurseries aren’t well stocked as arsenals. Unfortunately, Oliver’s is no exception.

The floors creak on the other end of the house, still upstairs. I’m left with two options, go get Dan or follow the noise.

Slowly, I move down the hall, running my hand along the wall. My eyes have adjusted to the dim lighting, but I feel unsteady on my feet. I hear her before I see her.

Her delicate voice carries on the wind, cooing and hushing and singing.  

I’m not sure what I was expecting, a man dressed in all black demanding a ransom is one of the first thoughts that comes to mind. But she is far from that. Across the room, the doors to the back balcony are swung open, the moonlight pouring into the room.

A young, rail thin woman wearing a nearly opaque nightgown softly sways back and forth on the balcony. Her back is to me, she has a long black braid that ends at her hips. In her arms she cradles a baby blue blanket, wrapped around a tiny sleeping Oliver.

I misstep, the floorboards groan underneath my weight. Her head snaps around so fast for a moment I think her neck might’ve broken.

Hollow, dark eyes stare into me, her lips curled up in a snarl. She appears more animal than human.

“Give me back my baby.” My voice comes out more choked then I meant. “Give him to me now.”

“Your baby?” she sputters, her eyes aflame.

“Please, just give him to me, please don’t hurt him. You can take anything in the house, I will give you all our money.” Instinctively my hands pull at my pajama pockets but come out empty handed.

“I don’t want your money!”

“Then what do you want?” Oliver’s eyes are still shut tight, but I can see his bottom lip quivering, and a little whimper escapes his mouth, our voices beginning to wake him.

“Isn’t it obvious? I want my baby back. I never agreed to this. This was not the plan.”

Fear and doubt begin to seep into my thoughts. Oliver is my baby, I am sure about that, aren’t I? Because while I have held him, rocked him to sleep, bathed him, know which are his favorite toys and songs, there is one truth I can’t deny. I didn’t carry him inside my belly for nine months.

I’m not even sure where he came from, the adoption agency had said the less we knew the better. Easier transition, less to explain away down the road if we weren’t planning on ever telling him. Which I wasn’t.

Dan had found them, said that his colleague at work recommended them. ‘That’s where the Clemmenson’s got Brittany from’, ‘I didn’t know Brittany was adopted’ I had replied. ‘That’s how good they are. Match you with a mother who looks like you, everything completely confidential’.

I twist my hand through my own long black hair, studying the woman. I can see some similarities, if I hadn’t eaten in a few months and picked up a drug habit perhaps. The same high cheekbones, pointed nose, brown eyes.

“Please, perhaps we could just go downstairs, I could get my husband, I’m sure we could sort this all out.” This woman is clearly unhinged.

A broken, sad laugh breaks out of the woman. “Sort this out? What is there to sort out? I take it back; this isn’t what I agreed to, and I am taking Noah back.”

“His name is Oliver. I’m sorry but his name is Oliver, and he is my son. I don’t know who you think you are, but that is my son you are holding, and you need to give him back to me. Now.”

The woman is sobbing now, ugly cries racking her tiny frame. Oliver is awake now too and has decided to join in the noise.

“Please, I’m sorry, you’re scaring him. Please can you just put him down and we can talk about it. I can get you help.”

“This wasn’t how it was meant to be. He said he would come for me. He said we would be a family.” She gulps in air between each word, her voice shaking.

“Who? The adoption agency? Please, I promise you that is my-”

“No.” she spits out, her eyes reignited. Her grip on Oliver is dangerously tight, I can see the little crescent moons forming in his soft baby skin from her nails.

“HE PROMISED!”

“Who is he?”

“Dan!”

Bile rises in the back of my throat. What is this insane woman talking about? She has no idea what she is talking about. Why does she know my husband’s name?

“He promised me, Noah would just go away for a little while, so I could get better. He said when I got better, we would be a family. He would come and get me, and we would be a family. He said that it was only temporary. He promised, he promised!”

I look at this skeleton of a woman, standing on my balcony holding my child, it’s like looking in a not so fun, funhouse mirror. A sickening thought occurs to me, does my husband have a type?

I never even wanted to be a mother. It was Dan who pushed the subject. I told him I had no interest in punishing my body in that way, that I was content with him and my work. ‘Adoption is our best option’ he had gleefully exclaimed one night over dinner.

It had all come together so quickly, one minute we were meeting with lawyers, and what felt like the next, I had a pink and squirming baby boy in my arms. Dan had promised me, ‘It will be love at first sight. This is what’s best for us’, I hadn’t been convinced.

But he was right. From the moment I held Oliver for the first time and smelled his milky scent on the top of his head, heard his little wails, I was hooked. He was mine, and I was his. 

I can’t stand to lose him now.

“Please… I don’t know what you’re saying, but please I beg you, just hand me-”

The woman lunges at me, shoving me hard into the wall, Oliver on her opposite hip. My breath rushes out of me, and I collapse to the ground. Gasping, I grab for her ankles, scraping her skin with my nails.

She jumps away, running down the hall towards the stairs.

“No!” I scream, and right on cue, Dan appears from the opposite end of the hall, exiting Oliver’s room, a bewildered, sleepy look on his face. The color drains from his face when he sees the woman, but he quickly composes himself, his expression hardening.

Dan steps in the path of the woman, and she falters when she sees him.

“Dan…” she whispers so quietly; I can almost convince myself it could’ve been the wind.

“Shhhh it’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.” Dan slowly extracts Oliver from her clutches, she tightens her grip but then relents, leaning into Dan’s torso. Little tears stain Oliver’s cheeks, snot dripping out of his nose.

I breath a short sigh of relief when Dan has a complete hold of Oliver. The woman seems calmer in his presence. He reaches up to stroke her face and she rests her cheek in his palm, eyes closed.

“There, there.” He sighs, defeated.

Then he draws his hand back, and pushes her with all his force, down the stairs.

I gasp. Her head makes an awful, loud cracking sound when it connects with the tile floor. Blood begins to pool instantly around her shoulders, her limbs bent at unnatural angles. Her mouth twitches, a terrible moan comes out before she is silent and still.

I look to my husband, he closes the gap between us and pulls me into an embrace, burying his head in my hair. “Thank God you’re okay, I don’t know what I would do without you both. I wonder who the hell that even was. We’re safe now, don’t worry.” His fingers entangle in my hair, massaging the base of my skull.

I hug him back, gingerly, my palms sweating. I try not to allow my body to reveal how tense I truly feel. My heart is racing, I can’t stop staring at the broken body of the woman at the bottom of the stairs. One prominent thought at the front of my head: Who the fuck is my husband?

Downstairs, the low wailing of the alarm fades out, its battery dead.