Cowbird

TRIGGER WARNING: This story contains sexual content and suicidal ideation.

There’s a dried patch of oatmeal in a small oblong shape, crusted to my shirt above my left breast. I pull the fabric away from my body and see its surface stretch and crack and try to scrape it off but there’s still a stain embedded in the stitching. Even with all the crumbs brushed away, the fibers are darker where the food had set and swelled and waited to be noticed.

Turning towards the sink, I look down at the piled plates and sippy cups and the tiny Spider-Man fork and a silver dining spoon coated in peanut butter that has been sitting, unrinsed, for god knows how long, becoming increasingly and unbearably sticky. I hate sticky things. Even as a child, I couldn’t stand eating citrus. My mother was always feeding me and my brother oranges. With each bite, the sugary juice would coat my fingers, adhering the skin together, until I would spread them wide enough apart, as though stretching webbed phalanges. It’s amazing how sticky a small child can be, what various substances they manage to find to cover their hands and turn them into lint traps, never mind the fluids that they excrete from their own little bodies that then coagulate into an opaque sort of resin.

Reaching for the faucet handle, I twist the knob all the way to the left and listen to the rush of water hiss against the bottom of the sink until steam rises up and I run the spoon under the scalding tap and watch the thick pale brown film slowly melt away, leaving behind a thin sheen of grease. I recall my husband emerging from behind the closed door of his home office a few hours ago for a snack—a banana and peanut butter—before retreating into his quiet haven of uninterrupted work where he listens to podcasts on reducing one’s biological age.

Why is it so fucking hard to rinse a spoon?

From the kitchen table, I hear an email notification from my laptop. It rings against the muted sounds of cartoons from the adjoining room and I lower myself into the dining chair and preview the message.

From: John Murray

Date: February 17, 2025 at 1:23:12 PM EDT

To: Cara Doherty

Subject: Re: Essay

Cara,

I have to say, I’m impressed. This certainly wasn’t what I was expecting after such a long hiatus. Great work. Really brilliant. I hope you don’t mind, but I shared it with a colleague and he’s equally intrigued. He’s hoping to meet with you soon, Monday if you can manage. Not to put pressure or anything, but he’s the top of his field. It could mean great things.

Let me know how I can help.

-John

I stare at the screen and read the message over three times. Then a fourth. Though a kind man, my academic advisor has never been forthcoming with praise. When I fell pregnant halfway through my doctoral program, I could sense his disapproval behind his feigned excitement for a life that deviated from his plans for me.

I shared it with a colleague…top of his field…could mean great things. Great things.

A shrill cry cuts through the air and I stand up so quickly I nearly topple over my chair. My body moves without thought, my bare feet quietly thudding against the hardwood floors into the living room. Avery’s bulbous head is leaned up against the brick edging of the unlit fireplace at an odd angle and his expression is one of shock, terror, and confusion.

“Jesus,” I gasp and scoop him from the floor and press his soft little body against my chest with one hand cupping the back of his round skull.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?” I hear myself repeating this over and over, swaying my hips in a figure eight motion that is intended for him but seems more soothing for me. He isn’t crying and I can feel him breathing, his lungs expanding against my chest, with little hot bursts of air against my neck.

When I pull away to examine him, searching for injuries or dilated pupils, he places a hand on either side of my face and gurgles and presses his wet mouth to my chin.

“You scared Mommy,” I croon while still rocking my body side to side. “Don’t scare Mommy like that again.”

He finds that funny and lets out a bubbly laugh as snot trails down from his nose and into his mouth. There are two round teeth jutting from the top of his shiny wet gums. Two more are cutting through on the bottom. I’ve been giving him frozen things to chew on to soothe the soreness, and coating his mouth with a numbing salve in the evenings, but it does little to improve his sleep. Most nights, I sit on the floor of his nursery and lean against his crib with my hand between the bars to rub his belly. The only thing that truly calms him is when he has my breast in his mouth.

Placing a kiss on both cheeks, I set him back on the floor and he instantly starts to cry. I walk back into the kitchen and read the email again and try to think of a response but the room is full of sharp wailing sounds that seem to pierce through my concentration and I squeeze my hands into fists so that my fingernails press into the skin of my palms. Sometimes it feels as though I might explode.

A door opens down the hall and footsteps approach and I hear Sean’s voice in the other room speaking softly and sweetly to Avery who, in this moment, couldn’t care less about his father and his cries get louder.

Pressing down on the mousepad, I open a new browser and compare hotel prices. I wonder who the colleague that wants to meet about my essay could be. It’s a two hour drive to the university. If I leave Sunday evening I could have extra time to prepare. I’ve never spent a night away from Avery and the idea is thrilling, almost as if there’s a slight hum beneath my skin, a break from changing diapers and cleaning up spills and forgetting to shower and wearing two-day-old stained clothes.

“Here’s Mama.”

Avery’s squirming body is thrust into my face as Sean places him in my lap. My cheeks heat with annoyance.

“I’m in the middle of something.” I say.

“Yeah, me too. I’m working on a deadline. You can have a break when I’m finished, okay?”

His voice grows quieter as he retreats down the hall and I hear the door click shut.

The weight of Avery’s head presses against my sternum and he sucks a wad of my shirt into his mouth and I stare at the computer screen. I can’t seem to move. How quickly the excitement of being someone other than a mother, someone with skill and intellect and talent and capable of great things, evaporated into thin air. It’s unbearable, really, to watch yourself dwindle away into the shadows, to feel yourself reduced to this one thing. All the years I spent cultivating and curating this magnificent life filled with dinner parties and interesting conversations and art and music and literature, now sucked away from this vacuum of a void called motherhood that, for some reason, fathers don’t seem to experience.

The side of my face erupts with pain and I hear the sound of Avery’s hand connecting with my cheek and he laughs.

“No!” I yell and firmly grip his chubby wrist. “You do not hit Mommy. Not ever. Do you hear me? Not ever!”

His eyes are wide. I’ve never raised my voice at him before. His lower lip starts to tremble and then his eyes pinch shut and his mouth opens wide to let out a long loud cry. I pull him towards me and pepper his soft head with kisses.

“I’m sorry,” I hear myself say. “I’m so sorry. I’m not angry with you. I’m here. You’re safe.”

Cradling his head in the pit of my elbow, I pull up my shirt and unclasp the strip of cloth that covers my breast and he latches on immediately, his suckles causing my nipple to quiver slightly, and he looks up at me as though I hung the stars. I stroke his hair and make soothing sounds and wonder if slitting one’s wrists would be a less painful death than swallowing an entire bottle of pills. There’s the leftover oxycodone from my cesarean section. I don’t think they’ve expired. People say you just fall asleep and never wake up, but how do they know? No one ever lives to tell what it's really like. I read an article recently about how scientists think that lethal injection is, contrary to popular belief, inhumanly and barbarically painful, like being boiled alive, but the body is so sedated there’s no way of knowing. On the outside everything seems serene while on the inside you’re silently screaming to tear free from your skin, begging for release, for mercy, for it all to finally end. Or, instead, a quick moment of pain as you split open your wrists and then crimson beads rise up from your skin and join together in a stream that runs down your arm and then after a while it’s over.

I observe these thoughts as they slip through my mind and then open a mental door and allow them to leave as swiftly as they came, because that’s all they are, really, just thoughts. An easier yet impossible alternative to actually abandoning this life that I fully participated in dreaming up and constructing and have now somehow managed to find myself trapped within.

Avery’s eyes begin to droop and I carefully remove my nipple from his mouth. Balancing him on my hip I walk down the hall and knock on Sean’s office door. He doesn’t answer so I twist the knob and it opens. He has airpods in his ears but he sees the movement and looks up and takes one out.

“Yeah?”

“I got an email. Someone from the university wants to meet with me about my essay on Monday. I was thinking I’d go Sunday and drive back after the meeting.”

Sean’s eyebrows knit together. “They’re okay with you bringing a baby?”

“No,” I say. “Avery would stay here with you.”

He lets out a laugh like I’ve said something funny. When I don’t say anything his face grows solemn.

“You’re serious?”

“It’s just the one night. I think you’ll survive.”

Sean pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a loud sigh as though he’s dealing with the dumbest person in the world. “Cara, I’m in the middle of a huge coding project. I’m like, three days behind. I can’t drop everything so that you can go on a little trip right now.”

My heart is pounding and I can feel my entire body trembling and Avery takes a fist full of my hair and pulls. Sean rises from his chair and comes over to us and wraps us both in a hug and I wonder when I started hating my husband. Even the smell of him makes my throat constrict.

Last night, while I was folding Avery’s tiny clothes on the edge of the bed, Sean was watching a show on television, his body laid out sideways across the covers. I was only half paying attention. I closed the zipper on a blue onesie and placed it neatly onto a growing pile. The people on the screen started to have sex. I reached down into the laundry basket and pulled out two little socks and tucked them into each other. Then Sean was behind me, brushing the hair off my neck and licking and sucking at my skin. I waited for the ache of pleasure to pulse between my legs but I felt nothing. Even as he inserted himself into my body, over and over, I felt nothing, like I was numb.

“I want you to come for me.” He whispered in my ear, as though he was offering a gift that was really meant for himself. His thrusts became staggered and his breathing labored and then his torso stiffened and he grunted loudly. When he finally rolled off of me, I got up and went into the bathroom and took a shower. I let the water get as hot as I could bear and my skin turned red in patches.

Now, standing in his office with his arms around me, I imagine pushing him down an empty elevator shaft and watching his body get smaller and smaller until there’s a dull crack as he hits the ground.

He kisses the top of my head. “I promise, as soon as I’m finished, we’ll all go on a trip together. Somewhere warm maybe.”

Turning, he walks back to his desk and sits down and puts the airpod back in his ear and returns his focus to the screen. I stand there and watch him for a few moments. The back of my eyes begin to burn and my vision becomes a bit blurry.

“This isn't what I fucking signed up for.”

He notices I’m still standing there and that maybe I’ve said something and takes the airpod out again.

“Sorry, did you say something?”

I twist my face into a smile. “I said, I’m putting Avery down for a nap.”

Sean nods. “Can you shut the door behind you? I can’t concentrate when he cries.”

The door knob clicks and I walk into the bedroom and place Avery on the sensory mat in the corner and give him a rattle that he shakes. Tucked away in the back of the closet, I retrieve a small duffle bag. Opening random dresser drawers, I fill the bag with underwear and jeans and sweaters and socks and shirts along with the phone charger from my bedside.

“Come here, my little man.” I say to Avery and pick him up. He yawns and his face stretches and his nostrils flare and his eyes begin to flutter. I carry him into the nursery and leave the bag by the door and turn on the white noise machine and turn off the light. Quietly, I sing to him and rock him back and forth and after a while he begins to softly snore and I carefully lower him into the crib.

Everyone says this about their children, but he really is the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen, with cherub cheeks and a button nose. His lips are rosy pink and full and slightly parted so that I can see the tips of his little teeth. I lean down and breathe in his scent, lavender soap mixed with the sourness of dried milk.

“I love you.” I whisper and kiss his forehead.

Tiptoeing towards the door, I pick up my duffle bag and make sure the latch shuts without a sound.

In the kitchen, I place my laptop in its case and pack it in the satchel that also carries notes and academic papers. My wallet and keys are by the front door and I pick them up as I step across the threshold. The car sits in the driveway and it beeps twice to unlock and I slide into the driver’s seat with my belongings beside me.

I watch as the house gets smaller in the rearview mirror. The radio has come on automatically and I listen to Stevie Nicks sing of reflections in snow covered hills. By the time I get to the highway a new song has come on and I witness the yellow lines as they get swallowed up beneath the car.