The Paint

Elliott leaned forward, her neck craning into the next room. From the third rung on the ladder she was a top in her office, it was a balancing act of sorts, her paintbrush hovering in the air precariously as she steadied herself.

The living room was too quiet. It had been full not ten minutes ago with the sound of blocks smashing onto themselves, and the whirring of that Spanish speaking toy he loved so much looping through “Como te llamas?” as many times as he could make it so, his tiny chubby hand slapping hard on the large yellow and red piano shaped keys. It drove her insane most mornings, closing her eyes as she took in a slow first sip of her coffee.

“What do you think an appropriate thank you to your mother would be for this?” she had asked Derek as he sat next to her a month ago, the morning after her son’s first birthday party. They were both disheveled, hardly awake at 5:32 am, his t-shirt neck stretched out and his hair on end. If she looked close enough she could hardly make out that his eyes were, in fact, open despite the puff of their squinted together folds.

“Probably the same thank you we can give your dad for that four-wheeler that’s still waiting to be built in the next room.”

“He had good intentions.”

“Elle, he’s one. I’d love to put off potential neck injuries until he’s at least five.”

“Well,” she shrugged, too exhausted to get into it further, “maybe he won’t ask about it.”

“He still asks me why I don’t wear the My Rights, My Guns t-shirt he got me six years ago.”

“Can we be political after 7 am?” she sighed and he acquiesced, taking another sip of coffee. Henry banged again, the buttons lighting up red then yellow as the Spanish repeated throughout the room endlessly, and his gummy smile met theirs across the room.She had to admit, it was difficult to be angry at a face like that this early in the morning.

Now, she leaned further, a slight winds breath away from tipping her back completely off the ladder. The silence continued.

“Henry?” she called, shaking her own head after a second. He hadn’t mastered the word ball or dada yet, she wasn’t sure why she was expecting an “I’m in here” from her thirteen month old. She listened still, closer. Just the sound of the dishwasher running from the kitchen.

“Henry what are you playing?” she tried, her voice lighter, giving into the inevitable that despite the paint on her forearm and the complete inconvenience of having to climb down to make eye contact with him, she would have to. She tiptoed, watching her foot connect with the next rung carefully and then the carpet, watching the brush still hover in her hand to make sure there would be no drips.Derek had told her that painting the office ceiling without a tarp thrown down over the carpeting was a huge mistake and had asked her twice on the phone since this morning if she was successful in finding his extra ones in the garage. She had smiled through her teeth, assuring him she had.

She had not, in fact, looked for those tarps.Like most household tasks, she assumed Derek was making it more complicated than it needed to be and felt that one paintbrush, a half gallon of old ceiling paint from the basement that they stored there three years ago and a paint stick that she used to haphazardly mix it back to life would be more than enough. Looking up at her work so far, it was not exactly the Sistine chapel.

She rested the brush lightly on the paint can. The moment she removed her hand she watched with horror to reveal it never had any balance there, and it fell with a muted thud on the carpet, the white against tan as jarring as bird shit on a sidewalk. She closed her eyes, breathed out.

Priorities. She picked up the brush, placed it back on the can and turned out of the room. All of this just to make sure Henry hadn’t backed himself up underneath the couch again on his stomach, which was unlikely as most times when he did that, half of his body wedged and holding him in place, he would slap his hands hard on the floors and crane his neck upwards, hollering for his savior to pull him out again.

“Sweets?” she asked and came around the corner.The toys were there, still lit up but abandoned. She peeked around the corner of the couch and to her surprise, where she expected him to be wedged was just an abandoned pacifier. He didn’t suck on them really, just carried them around with him double fisted most days, his one comfort item.

She blanched. For a baby that couldn’t walk yet let alone scoot himself around on his belly very well, she could feel the swift panic rising that only a mother with a firm loss on her grasp of reality can. The anxiety that builds in her chest the moment the possibility of the worst possible scenario enters her brain and that was Elliott, turning swiftly now in place.

The stairs leading up to the bedrooms, the hall way clear down to the half bath. The front door ajar, but the screen still closed, letting sunshine and air in lightly.

Most importantly. The silence. The silence of a small child not moving anywhere in sight. The silence mothers prayed for and dreaded in identical moments.

It was gaining momentum, that anxiety, building quickly from her stomach to her lungs, up her neck in a brilliant flush of heat and also, cold dread. Where was he? Where was he? It had been minutes since she last saw him. Minutes, that could be broken down into seconds.That means nothing, she chastised herself, her mind gaining control that this could obviously only end in the worst.Children drown in seconds.Children go missing in public parks in seconds. Seconds are all it takes for buildings to crumble and planes to collide and babies to push open locked screen doors and work their way out onto porches where they tumble down concrete steps to the awaiting sidewalk, too stunned and injured to cry out.

That’s where she turned hastily, pushing the door open quickly and looking out into the yard. “Henry!” she tried again, furious.Why wasn’t he older? Why couldn’t he talk yet? How did this happen? How did she lose someone who had no hope of ever finding her on their own?

The yard was quiet, empty and she reeled, pushing back into the house, careening around the kitchen island now. The dishwasher closed, the dining table without his little chubby legs sticking out from beneath. The sink wasn’t running, the oven was firmly shut, no burners on.There was no trace of a mischievous hand peeking out from behind the toilet in case he wedged himself between there and the wall, maybe trying to get toilet paper? Like a cat? Did babies do that? No toys on the stair case leading up which meant, of course, that left on the most awful places left to go – the basement stairs. She could feel her legs moving independently from her own body, scrambling, unable to make firm traction with the ground at the thought that someone had left the basement door open. How could Derek? How could he when he knew, from the minute she got pregnant and insisted they baby proof the entire house, how could he do that to her child?

She hit the wall and turned left making almost a complete circle of her first floor layout, the living room just out of site and the basement door there, shut firmly, doorknob cover in place for the moment when Henry pulled himself to stand and could start working doorknobs in the same week, which was bound to happen.

She opened it anyway, looking down into the vast and quiet darkness and closed it. How could he ever? How could he and yet he must have, he must be able to now, it was obvious that in the three minutes she had looked away he went from being her baby to having the dexterity and skills of a new born baby giraffe that was expected to stand and walk and keep up almost immediately upon being born.

Her baby. Her baby. Her phone. She had to call Derek. She had to call the police. She spun to the right reaching the office door once again, unsure of where she had set it down. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. He would never forgive her for this. She had one job to do, the most important job of her life every day, and it wasn’t painting the damn office ceiling. She knew this she knew that she should wait until naptime, but nap was so far away and the days were so long and where was her phone? WHERE HAD SHE PUT HER PH-

She hit the doorway leading into their shared office and halted, letting out a breath she had not known was there. Henry, stood just behind the ladder against her husband’s desk, his little legs wavering to hold his own weight. He was looking at her, smiling, stunned at his own accomplishment. He was standing. Did he see her? They told her this would happen, she didn’t need to rush it, look at me mom, look I’m standing I have legs and I’m standing! Like a baby giraffe! I will be able to run tomorrow and I’m going to college next Thursday LOOK AT ME MOM I’M STANDING.

All in silence, his gummy smile showing just for her.He had been in the office all along now, without her realizing. He had come in while she was up high, shimmying himself up to the desk until he could reach it and used it, just as she used the ladder, to pull himself up to the place high in the air he wanted to be.

The stunned relief brought her to her own knees and she dropped in place, just next to the paint brush on the carpet. She could feel the tears that were once welling her eyes shift from terror to sweet relief and also, extreme joy. He was standing. He was standing the way her pediatrician said he would, just one day when he wanted it enough and her face broke into a smile, the laugh falling from her lips, unexpectedly. Henry smiled wider in response, one arm outstretched now in her direction. Unsure of himself, this being the first day he had ever been on his feet but still wanting it, desperately. His feet bare and flat, gripping at the carpet with each of his toes, the excitement she can see building in his face, in every single of his limbs.

“Come on, baby. You can do it,” she can hear her own voice encouraging, the laughter mixed with tears that won’t stop now and she meets him, almost the whole way just as he lets go of the desk. He’s free, standing only in the air around him for a split second until she’s catching him in the net of her arms. He laughs and she laughs and she can feel his whole chest shake as she envelopes him.

“Look at you!” she smiles into his neck, the sweet folds of his skin that smell exactly how he should and that she is mercifully grateful she gets to smell it again, when only seconds ago he was missing forever.She lifts him off his tiny feet, pressed to her chest, swaying him, repeating over and over, “Look at you, look at you! We should call Daddy! Look at you,” until her voice is a whisper. The side of his face is wet with her tears but he doesn’t notice, pulling back his fair head of hair so that his eyes meet hers, her face within his fingers reach as he pulls at her cheeks and eyes, gleeful. She caught him. Of course she caught him. He never doubted she would. He knew if he could just reach her she would be there, ready for him. She was always right there, always waiting for him.

She leaned back, taking her with him tight to her chest and felt it, knowing exactly what it was before she dared to look. She leaned forward, one hand reaching back to touch her own butt and felt the sticky wetness the paint brush had left only moments earlier on the carpet. Down her pants, coating her fingers.

“Oh boy,” she laughed at him, making a surprised face only Ms. Rachel would be proud of. He laughed in response and she did it again. “Oh boy. Oh, we are not gonna tell daddy anything about this, are we? Let’s not call daddy,” and she laughed, pulling them up until she was on her feet again. Laughing, the two of them, all the way to the kitchen.