Page 60 of Say You Love Me

Lori managed to get Calla to sleep. She had a way with her that I didn’t and it felt like a betrayal. At times it felt like my little baby girl knew how to hurt me. She knew that it cut to the quick each time she’d smile for Hudson but not for me. Each time she’d fall asleep for Lori but never for me. She’d lie on the floor and kick wildly, arms and legs flailing as Lance laughed at her, but for me she’d just lie there and scream until her little face almost turned purple, no matter how much I begged her to be quiet, to be happy.

Hudson was supposed to be home for dinner at six. That was over five hours ago. Calla has been crying on and off for three hours now. She’s reached the point that she is fighting exhaustion. Her fists are clenched. Her sobs are interspersed with hiccups. She has no fever. There is nothing physically wrong with her, but she won’t stop crying.

I hold her to my chest, swaying back and forth and patting her back as my own tears fall.

“Please, Calla,” I beg her. “Please just go to sleep.”

Her crying is stopped by a yawn.

“See, you’re exhausted. Just go to sleep.”

Calla just screams louder.

Almost at my breaking point, I pick up the phone and dial Hudson. It goes straight to voicemail. I scream and toss the phone, frustrated when it hits the wall but doesn’t break to pieces. Finally, after crawling across the floor to retrieve it, I dial the number for my mother.

I haven’t spoken to her since we moved. She knows Calla’s been born, though I wasn’t the one to tell her. She hasn’t seen Calla smile or laugh. She hasn’t seen the way she tries to shove her entire fist into her mouth, or, on occasion, her entire foot. She hasn’t heard the way she babbles, or the sounds she makes when she’s content and feeding. She hasn’t got to see the way Calla bumps her mouth into me, looking for my breast when she’s hungry, or the way she latches onto my chin or my nose hoping for it to be something else. Hudson laughs each time he catches a glimpse of the purple stain on my chin, but my mother hasn’t witnessed any of that.

“Please pick up. Please pick up,” I whisper under my breath, swaying and rocking as Calla cries.

My mother’s voice is groggy when she finally picks up. “Hello?”

“Mum?”

“Finity?” There’s genuine concern in her voice and it makes me want to cry. Mind you, everything makes me want to cry these days. “Is everything all right?”

“She won’t stop,” is all I manage to get out before my throat constricts too tightly for me to talk.

“Who won’t stop?”

Those words are all it takes for a fresh wail of despair to rip from me. I sink to the ground, holding Calla tight to my chest and the phone pressed between my ear and my shoulder. Mum doesn’t say anything, she just lets me sob. It’s only when my blubbering turns to whimpers that she speaks. But her voice is different now. It’s colder, harsher. It’s as though the tendrils of sleep have released their clutch on her and she turns back into the mother I’ve always known.

“Where is she now? Where is Calla?”

“I’ve got her. She’s with me.” I feel like yelling, ‘can’t you hear her crying?’

“Just put her down, Finity. You need your rest as much as she does. She will be exhausted, over-tired. She needs to sleep.”

“But each time I put her down she just screams even louder.”

Her words are blunt. “It’s called self-soothing. It was the only way I got you to sleep. I spent months trying to comfort you, please you, rock you to sleep. But in the end, you needed to learn to do it yourself. My midwife said that you were being overstimulated. No doubt Calla is the same. Put her into bed. She’ll be fine.”

“I’m just so tired.”

“It was your choice to move away, Finity. Don’t blame me that I’m not there to help.”

And then she hangs up. We haven’t spoken in months, not since I moved to this horrible town and she hangs up as though my call were nothing more than a hindrance. As though the desperation in my voice means nothing to her.

I let the phone slide to the floor and hold Calla tightly as I get to my feet. Her sobs have reduced to hiccups again. I try to keep my movements smooth and gentle as I walk into her room. The curtains are already pulled and the only light comes from the little star-shaped nightlight plugged into the wall socket. But as soon as I lay her down, her eyes fly open and the screaming starts again.

“Shhh, baby girl.” I pull the string on the mobile above her bed and the stars twinkle and sway to the music. But Calla doesn’t stop crying.

Her cries can be heard from the hall, from the living room, from the kitchen, from the bedroom. Everywhere I go they haunt me.

Turning on the shower I step under the stream of hot water, letting it flow over my face and run in rivulets down my body. I imagine it washing everything away. The tiredness, the stress, the tension that has knotted my body so tightly it hurts.

The water is cold by the time I turn it off. I open the bathroom door cautiously, waiting to hear her cries, but there’s nothing. Wrapping a towel around my chest, I tiptoe down the hallway, stopping at her door and pressing my ear to the wood. Still nothing. The door creaks when I open it and I curse under my breath, but still, she doesn’t wake. She looks so peaceful, lying in her cot. So beautiful. Her arms are stretched high above her head as though she’s pretending to be a rocket launching into the sky. Her face is turned to one side, her cheek squished against the mattress. The stars above her have long stopped their song, but they still sway with the memory of it.

I back out of the room quietly and sink to the floor in the hallway. With my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees, I let myself cry.

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