Mother

The deer buckled beneath the wheels. Em’s scream started, then stopped, then started again. She clutched her stomach like she was trying to keep it from escaping.

“Oh my God pull over, pull over pull over –”

Burnt rubber, seatbelt straining. The car stopped and I reached for her.

“Oh my God oh my God ohmyGod –”

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay. Em – I’ll –”

Em kept sobbing. I undid my seatbelt, clambered out the door.

“Did we kill it? Did we kill it?”

“I don’t know.”

I approached the deer. Its head twisted in the wrong direction, eyes reeling. No blood. I glanced back at Em, in the car.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We could probably keep going.”

“But our windshield –”

“It’s okay.”

The deer twitched. Its belly pointed toward the sky, swollen. Pregnant.

“Let’s go,” I said.

The car door slammed. I fought back a surge of anger. Hadn’t we dealt with enough today? The bug-eyed doctor. The paperwork. The blood between Em’s legs, thick dark chunks of it, her body heaving out a disassembled child, the same consistency as vomit, the sheet-white silence all the way from the parking lot to the deer hitting the windshield.

“Get back in the car,” I said.

“I want to see.”

“Get back. In the car.”

Em needed to rest. She needed to lie down. She did not need to see a pregnant deer dying in the street.

“Oh my God.”

The deer stared at the sky. Its stomach wobbled.

“No. Noo, nono. What the –”

Its legs split. A shudder rippled across the sleek brown fur. The deer’s eyes went blank, almost serene, then her body expelled a child in a pool of gray liquid.

Not a fawn. A child.

“What the –”

But it didn’t look like a child. At least, not the way a child was supposed to look. Its eyes were sewn shut, back curled. Its veiny arms spasmed and reached up, fingers stretching. Reaching. Asking to be picked up.

Em started toward it. I grabbed her elbow.

The creature opened its mouth and began to cry.

“Nope,” I said. “Nope, no. This is messed up. Let’s go. Please. Let’s go. This is –”

“What, and just leave it?”

“What else are we gonna do? Call animal control?”

“It’s a baby.”

“It just clawed its way out of a – are you serious? Em –”

“I’m not leaving it.”

The crying hitched to a new octave. Hysterical, beating wails. The baby rolled onto its knees and floundered, tiny palms pressed into the ground, and pounded its head against the pavement. Em sprang.

“Don’t –”

And it was in her arms. Tiny fists curling and uncurling. Its cries snapped off like a branch, gave way to satisfied snuffling. A thin brown liquid ran down from its forehead. Em held the creature against her chest.

“Take us home,” she said.

“Em. We can’t keep this thing.”

Em’s eyes flashed. She clutched the child closer to her chest. And in that glance I saw everything – the stinging white walls, the smell of antiseptic, the exile of something grown inside of her, the most intimate betrayal. My wife’s child, gone. Cradling roadkill.

“Take us home.”

I took her home.

The nursery had been prepped for weeks. The walls sang soft pink. Stuffed dogs and bears stared into space from the bookshelf. Em opened the door, cooing into the child’s soft crown. The child glared at me over Em’s shoulder. Its eyes were open now – milky black, no pupils.

Em set the child in the cradle. It wrapped its leathery hands around the bars.

 “Em,” said Janet. “Seriously. Can I talk to you?”

“Of course, honey.”

“No, I mean – alone. In the hallway?”

Em’s eyebrows shot up. “It’s a baby. It can’t understand what we’re –”

“Please.”

Em followed me into the hallway.

“We need to talk this through,” I said.

“Talk what through?”

 “The thing. In our nursery.”

“It’s a baby, Jan. Why can’t we take care of her? She would’ve died out there. She needs us.”

“It came out of a deer.”

“She came right when we needed her. I know she’s not – what we expected. But taking care of her is the right thing to do.”

“That’s not – are you serious? Where is the logic in that?”

“It’s not about logic. It’s about doing what’s right.”

 “Em, I don’t want to fight. I know today was horrible. But this isn’t rational.”

 “Rational? How is this not rational?”

Because whatever this thing was, it wasn’t human. Because it came out of a deer. Because it found us at our most vulnerable moment, and it already held onto Em like a parasite.  

“I can’t have a kid,” said Em. “Not with a sperm donation. Not with this new egg merging technology. It. Never. Works. Now a perfectly good child has dropped into our laps, and we’re supposed to let it die?”

Something crashed in the nursery. I jumped a foot in the air and Em shot through the door.

“Janet! Come here!”

I followed her into the nursery. The crib lay on its side, and the child clung to Em’s ankle. It laughed. Blew spit bubbles that took too long to pop. Looking at it, a cold feeling worked its way through my chest.

That night, it slept in the bed with us.

Em caged it between her arms, trapping it in a hug. The child nestled into her shoulder, facing me. Its eyes stayed open.

In the morning, we brought it outside. Em set the child down by the playset and watched from the porch beside me. Both of us held cups of tea: Em ginger chamomile and mine black chai.  We watched the child belly-crawl toward the slide.

“She’s a day old and already crawling,” said Em, voice soft with wonder.

I said nothing. I could feel the insidious eyes of the child from here – even as it faced away from me. My tea tasted sour. I set it down.

“Be happy,” said Em. “We did it. We have a kid. Be happy.”

“I am happy. I’m just – what is it doing?”

The child had squirmed onto its back. It rocked back and forth, grinding its spine into the ground. Delighted laughter spiraled through the lawn.

“Just having some fun,” said Em.

“What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

“Oh, God. It’s like –”

 “Oh, no. I smell it too. What is that? It smells like –”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. We both knew. It smelled like a dead animal.

“Go get your kid,” said Em. “If you’re happy, go get your kid and wash her up so she doesn’t stink up the house.”

Jesus. Christ. I rose to my feet. For years, I’d dreamt of this kind of banter – the casual poking between two parents, sharing the load. A family. But I never thought it would be like this. Families were supposed to be a political unit – tyrannical at times, perhaps, and often split into parties, but always wanting the best for their kid. Always aiming to teach their child how to be better. I’d had considered a lot of scenarios in the last month. But I never expected to hate the child.

I approached the toddler writhing in the grass. The scent built as I got closer – the ripe scent of rot, of skin decomposing, of flesh undoing itself.

“Come here,” I said.

 I reached for it. The child screamed, jerked away. A strip of dark fur flashed under its back. A dead raccoon. A dead raccoon in their yard, and the child was rolling in it.

“Come. Here,” I said.

The child bucked and flailed. Dug its tiny fingers into the animal’s hide and held on. The scent nearly knocked me off my feet.

“Come here, you freaky little –”

With a blood curdling scream, the child darted back to the porch, crawling faster than should have been possible. I stood in the yard alone, staring down at the raccoon. The animal’s mouth was quirked into a near-dreamy smile.

Inside, Em had the child in the sink.

“It was rolling on top of a dead racoon,” I told her. “Try and tell me this isn’t some demonic shit.”

“Don’t curse in front of the baby,” said Em. “And seriously, just – relax. Okay? Babies are weird. They don’t know what’s socially acceptable yet. Dogs roll in dead stuff all the time.”

“No, it's - disgust should have stopped it. Instinct should have stopped it.”

 “Go grab me some baby shampoo.”

I grabbed her some baby shampoo.

The child slept between us again that night. Locked in Em’s arms, facing me. Watching me.

I always thought the meaning of life, the meaning of marriage, the meaning of motherhood, was to feel happy. Now, tense and sleepless beside my wife, I wondered if it was more important to avoid pain.

“I want to set up a play date,” Em said in the morning.

“It’s three days old.”

“And look at her.”

The child stumbled around on its hind legs, circling the living room.

“She needs to be socialized. Preschool won’t let her in until she’s two. Gabrielle has a toddler.”

“Gabrielle’s kid? But didn’t she have cancer?”

“She’s been in remission for months. And none of us are sick, so we shouldn’t pose any risk. Hey, you!” The child stopped running. “You wanna make a friend?”

It looked at its mother with a wide, blank grin. 

“Then it’s settled,” said Em.

Gabrielle sat on the porch with Em and I. She had a cup of tea, too – vanilla peach.

“I’m so happy for you two,” said Gabrielle.

Em glowed. The children wrestled by the playset.

 “I know you’ve wanted this for so long.”

“We have,” said Em. “Thank you. I’m so glad you could come by today.”

I stared at the kids. “Is it okay for them to rough house like that?”

“Should be fine,” said Gabrielle. “Her symptoms have been improving for months.”

The children rolled and tumbled through the slow-swaying grass.

“It’s hard, raising a child,” said Em. “They’re so vulnerable. Everything sends a message. I just want to do everything I can to make it possible for her to be good. How do you tell someone what’s right and what’s wrong?”

“I don’t think we ever stop trying to do that,” said Gabrielle. “Trying to tell each other what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“We teach it to make choices,” I said. “Weigh outcomes.”

Em looked at me a little too fast. “No, I don’t think it’s about outcomes. Not always. The right thing to do is always right. We should be on the same page with what we teach her.”

The child had its hands around its playmate’s throat. I stared. Neither of the other women noticed.

The child’s laughter boiled in the August air. Louder, louder. The playmate’s laughter squeaked to a stop. Before I knew what I was doing, I was on my feet, sprinting across the lawn.

“Jan? What’re you –”

The child’s hands gripped around its playmate’s soft throat. Strangling him. Our child was strangling its playmate. Gabrielle’s kid kicked and twitched, his eyes straining to meet me.

I grabbed the child by its shirt and dragged it back to the porch.

 “Janet! What are you – don’t be so rough with her!”

The child kicked and screamed. Gabrielle’s kid wailed on the lawn.

“Go, please,” I said to Gabrielle.

“We’ll talk about this later,” said Em. She took the child and disappeared into the house.

I went with Gabrielle to retrieve her kid from the grass. Dark purple bloomed across his tiny collarbones.

“Oh, God,” said Gabrielle. “Oh God. He shouldn’t be bruising this fast.”

My stomach lurched.

“I’ll have to take him to the hospital. This is an old symptom. God. Can you get my phone for me?”

“Of course –”

Did the child know somehow? Sense its playmate’s mutating cells? Aim to end his life before his illness could drag down the herd?

In the house, Em shoved the child into my arms.

“I have to go talk to her. Make sure she’s not going to tell the whole neighborhood –”

“I’m grabbing her phone for her.”

“I’ll get it. You change the diaper.”

The child grinned. I set it down on the table and peeled open the diaper while my wife darted out the door. The child’s thin white legs spread triumphantly.

Jesus. Christ.

Tiny rodent bones were nestled in the shit. Tiny bursts of fur. Teeth.

I was done. Finished. The decision made itself, right in front of me.

I waited for Em to fall asleep, the child in her arms. Night ticked in slow folds around me. Wind hissed against the windowpanes. I reached out. My fingers lingered centimeters from the child. The child watched me, eyes glittering.

I thought, This is going to hurt.

I thought, Me, my wife, this creature. It’s going to hurt all of us.

A car passed by outside the window. The light shifted across the room, played across the child’s veiny scalp.

I thought, This thing is not human. My wife is wrong.

I thought, Being human is not about doing what’s right. It’s about weighing consequences.

Em shifted, arms tightening around the child. This woman who rescued roadkill out of grief, out of suffering, out of an invisible obligation. Who loved this creature because she believed in rules that she didn’t write. My wife. My favorite person.

I thought, It will hurt longer if I let this continue.

I thought, I am human. I am human. I am human.

The child watched me. Em snored. My hand hovered. Then, soft as a kiss, I pressed my palm against the child’s mouth.

Em would think it was her own fault. That she clutched the child too close. That she crushed the breath out of its tiny animal lungs and strangled it in its sleep.

My palm burned. The child seemed to take years to die. No struggle. Just its eyes, staring open and blank, as if asking why.

It was days later when the morning sickness started. I clutched the toilet rim and hacked until the room spun. It was days after that when I finally went to the doctor, when I faced those stinging white walls again. Em stayed home, still recovering.

The doctor said I was pregnant.

I said that was impossible.

The doctor showed me the tests. Impossibly far along, strange shape, blurred outlines. And I felt it in my stomach, the glassy black eyes and toothless grin, an animal, a child, a resurrection.

I went home with a packet of pills.

I imagined the creature plugged into my blood, drinking from the well of me.

I left the prescription on the dresser.

I lay down next to Em.

I said, “I have good news, baby.”

 I said, “We can be mothers again.”