Page 1 of Secret Baby for Mr. Grump

ONE

ALLIE

He was getting worse.

My heart ached as I watched my son, whose eyes remained focused on the fish figurine in his hand. It was his favorite, the one he always grabbed whenever he was feeling anxious about something. Like today.

I’d tried to ask him what was bothering him, but he didn’t answer. Then I’d tried to make friendly conversation, asking him what he wanted for lunch or if he wanted to go to the park today. It’d been snowing pretty heavily for the past few days, so we hadn’t gone out much, but the weather wasn’t too bad today, and I thought he might be feeling claustrophobic from all the time spent indoors. I even asked if he wanted to go visit the aquarium, one of his favorite places to go.

But he didn’t answer any of my questions.

In fact, he didn’t even act as if he heard me, barely making eye contact. When I placed the plate of pancakes in front of him, he averted his eyes the second I got too close.

I felt like crying.

“Hey, buddy,” I tried again. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

I slipped into the seat opposite him, making sure I didn’t get too close.

He glanced at me then but shook his head.

I gave him an exaggerated eye roll. “Come on, buddy. Something is bothering you. You’ve said five words to me the entire week. I know because I counted.”

According to the psychiatrist, Caleb had selective mutism. At first, it was mild, but it seemed as the days passed, it was getting more severe.

I initially thought he was simply a quiet child, the kind who spoke only when spoken to or hid behind my skirt to avoid meeting strangers. But slowly, it got worse. Gradually, he would only say a word the entire day, and then it turned to a word a week until he stopped talking altogether. And now we were at the point where he actively avoided eye contact, even with me.

And I didn’t know why.

I tried to fight back the helpless self-deprecation that threatened to drag me into a pit of despair.

I was his mother. I was supposed to know what was going on with my baby boy, and I was supposed to be the one to fix it. But here I was, cluelessly bumbling about while he got worse and worse. The therapist said it likely stemmed from social anxiety and that I shouldn’t try to pressure him too much to talk. But not pressuring him only meant that he retreated even more into his shell. And there was nothing I could do about it.

The phone ringing interrupted my morose thoughts. I went over to the kitchen counter to grab it.

“Hey, Athena.”

“Hey yourself. What’s going on? Your voice sounds sad.”

“Nothing…just the usual.” I didn’t want to talk about Caleb in front of him, and Athena knew what ‘the usual’ meant anyway.

Her voice went quiet for a second before she asked sympathetically, “He’s still not talking?”

“No,” I said, and even just saying it made me sad.

"I thought he was doing better,” she said.

“I thought so too.” A few months ago, after we’d started seeing this new psychologist, Caleb showed some marked improvement. He still wasn’t a chatterbox, but he would occasionally answer my questions with words rather than gestures. He even sometimes gave me full sentences. I’d seen hope, and I encouraged it to continue.

And then, without warning, he started regressing.

I couldn’t pinpoint anything that could have triggered the regression. We were still attending our weekly therapist visits, and I’d been going slowly, not trying to push him out of his comfort zone too quickly.

But still, here we were.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, Athena, if you don’t mind,” I said.

“Of course, sweetie. I’m so sorry you’re having a hard time.” Athena was only four years older than me, but sometimes she acted more like a mother than a sister. I knew that a part of her still saw me as her baby sister who couldn’t handle even some basic adult things.

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