Page 131 of The Kiss Of Death
She smiled, but I didn’t understand why. “No, it’s been difficult for me… We tried, but… It’s my dream. I want a little girl. I want to play princess with her, for her to confide in me about everything, to be there for her like my mom was never here for me, you know? She never saw me grow up, and I felt so empty without a mother. That’s why I want a big family and—” She stopped talking. “Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? I asked the question.”
“It’s not about me.” She brushed me off. “I’m not giving up… That’s why I don’t want you to give up for the wrong reason too. Do you want to see your son?”
“Yes,” I said, avoiding looking at her beautiful white hair. It was impolite to stare.
“Would you like me to come with you?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t know at that time, but she was risking her own job to help me. When we went to social services, the baby was screaming in a room devoid of light. It was colorless. So empty.
I rubbed my fingers together. “He’s screaming; he doesn’t want me.”
Diana cradled the baby and smiled at him. She effortlessly was a mother at heart. “See, he just needs to be held. They didn’t let you hold him at the hospital, right?”
I shook my head. She gave me the baby, and I felt a shard in my guts. I had abandoned him. He screamed again like he could feel it. Like he resented me for it already. Did I do something wrong? I should have been more prepared and read more articles.
“If you were him, what would you need?” Diana whispered.
“Music,” I said back.
And so I played “Your Song” by Elton John, and he stopped crying.
He loved that song so much. It soothed him every time.
I could make things right with him by doing something right with music. I promised myself I’d do the opposite of what my parents did with me.
Note 8:
Levi’s list.
Levi’s likes: his love for puzzles, the relief he felt finding his special interest, which is disassembling computers, watching shadows, butterflies.
Note to self: should delete my notes from my computer and rearrange them somewhere else.
Dislikes: strangers who touch him when we go grocery shopping, Beethoven. Reading, if it’s not on a screen.
Note 11:
Diana.
Dalia.
Diana is busy with a little girl she named Dalia.
Sending a violin to her baby so if she cries she could play to her too—is it polite or displaced?
Note 18:
School.
Patrice.
Levi bullies children at school, and I can’t help but feel like it’s because of me. I struggle to fit in, and he sees that.
“Don’t you see they’re all making fun of us? They call us freaks, and you’re entertaining them because you’re so naive!”
