Mommy's Baby.
Okay, so I know I've been MIA for a while, I hope y'all aren't too pissed. And just so y'all know, there are no spoilers in here except for one little one, it's kind of like a sequel to Not Enough Time, Not Enough Experience, and there are going to be other things concerning Calpurnia coming out soon, please review... I need reviews...
Oh and by the way, I've been thinking about writing some stuff for Game of Thrones, I'll probably notify y'all when I publish them, but please read those when I put them out.
Denton Public Hospital
330 Allison Boulevard, Denton, Ohio
216-555-5382
Magenta Alvarado
Take whenever necessary, do not exceed more than six tablets per day. If this occurs consult your physician.
RMS MS Contin, morphine sulfate.
Prescribed by Dr Lithuania Horan.
...
"DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY LOOOOOOK!"
My 4 year old Calpurnia jumps at me like a rabid leopard as she races down the hallway,
"What are you so hyper about?"
"Look what I found!"
And that's how it starts. Clutched in my little girl's sparkly pink nails is the one object that started a year of horror and finally having to confront what we've been hiding.
"Where did you find that?!"
"I went down to the basement because I was chasing Sassy down there and my socks were too slippy, so I slipped and fell on my butt, and I hit this box and it said a long word I couldn't read and then some other stuff, but I hit it and a bunch of stuff spilled out and this is my favourite treasure!"
Her favourite treasure is an empty pill bottle. One of Magenta's. After she died, Columbia packed a few boxes full of her clothes and pills and everything else, so I guess that's what Callie knocked over. She puts it in my hands, I start to feel nauseous and manage to squeak out,
"You shouldn't follow Sassy around like that."
"That cat is always running."
"That's what cats do, you need to put this back where you found it."
"No! I won't! Her name is Maribel Hester-May Alvarado and she's my baby. See? Isn't she the prettiest baby you've ever seen?"
The pill bottle is covered in star stickers, Calpurnia is grinning at me as I hold the previous container of the pills that kept her own beautiful mother numb before she had to succumb to the disease that was eventually named after her. I don't know how I can even go into the basement and face the boxes when they're there for that exact reason. I haven't been able to let her go since the night she died. I didn't sleep for two weeks, I kept having dreams that she was sleeping next to me, or I kept seeing her die over and over, or I'm watching her legs burn out or it's one of her bad nights and I have to take care of her because I've experienced that before. Calpurnia was either a fetus or a baby. She knows that Magenta existed but she doesn't know the details. She doesn't know about the last few months when her mother started to deteriorate.
"Callie, sweetheart, you know how many dolls you have?"
"Maribel Hester-May Alvarado is special. I knocked her over."
"Don't you think she'll want to go back to her home in Mommy's boxes?"
"But I'm her mommy now. Did you give me back when Mommy went to live with Jesus?"
"Calpurnia, you're not made of plastic. Mommy actually made you, you just found... Hester...Lynn... Alvarado or whatever."
"MARIBEL HESTER-MAY. Get it right, Daddy."
"The point is... I need you to put her back."
"Why? I love her!"
"I'll explain it when you're older."
...
I go down to the basement. Magenta's boxes are overturned, our fluffy white cat, Sassy (named by Calpurnia) is sitting in a cluster of her shirts. A lacy red one is draped over her head.
"Sassy, go upstairs." the cat stays stationary, "Scat, cat." she begins to run up the stairs, I stack the boxes back on Magenta's wheelchair, (generously donated by the mother of Columbia's late cousin, Alexandra, who did not actually die of cerebral palsy, but she got drunk one night and thought cough syrup was grape soda, she drank the whole bottle.) Magenta became paralyzed in the last months of her illness, and even though it really spiced up our sex life, her paralysis was maybe what hurt her the most.
The first box is her clothes.
The second box is basically just miscellaneous belongings, pictures of Magenta over her short life of 24 years, childhood toys, some books even though Magenta didn't like reading all that much, her laptop, phone, makeup...
And the third box out of the five, our makeshift wedding. One night when she got really bad, a few weeks before she died, I gave her a ring, and we decided that was it. There's a bunch of pictures, Magenta extending her frail hand towards the camera and the flash reflecting off of the ring, her debilitated body- I can't believe we took pictures. Calpurnia is in the background of some, she's only little though, she wouldn't remember, she barely remembers the name Magenta, I don't even think she knows the colour.
The last two boxes are random things, some from when she died, such as the red curls that Janet snipped and put in a box, the sheets she used to sleep in, even a used Kleenex, and hundreds of bottles of pills. Not hundreds, exactly, but probably in the 80s at least, some aren't even empty. There's a small slip of paper in the bottom, it's written in Magenta's handwriting, in the weird shaky way of writing she developed as she descended further into illness,
Brad, if Callie wants these to play with, let her have them.
So she was psychic. She's written me, Janet, Columbia and even Calpurnia countless letters, all of which intended to opened after she was gone, (I haven't given Callie hers yet) but I didn't think empty canisters of pills were really what little kids were into playing with. But if it's what Magenta would have wanted, it's fine by me. I decide not to take anymore, I'll just let Callie play with the one bottle until she gets tired of it.
My daughter is waiting expectantly at the top of the stairs,
"Can I keep her?"
"Fine." I concede. It's not like it'll hurt her at all. By her I guess I mean Magenta and her little girl.
...
"FAST FOOD FAST FOOD FAST FOOD!" Calpurnia sings as she skips down the sidewalk. I guess the Farley Flavours Fabulous Fast Food restaurant down the street is a good place to take her when she can't sit still anywhere expensive. And it's not like we come here every night.
"It's hot out... my god..." Janet whines, fluffing her blouse against her skin, Columbia puts an arm around her waist, Calpurnia pulls on a corner of Columbia's skirt,
"Mumma, hold Maribel." she shoves the starry bottle into her godmother's hand and proceeds to start flipping down the sidewalk,
"SHE'S GOING TO BREAK HER HEAD, BRAD, GET HER." Janet screams, I start to walk faster in the kid's direction when she stops flipping and starts spinning. Safer.
"DADDYDADDYDADDY THIS IS WHAT I'M GONNA DO FOR THE PAGEANT ON THURSDAY!"
Columbia glances at me, "Is this the bottle from Magenta's painkillers?"
"One of them. Where'd the stars come from?"
"I'm guessing Genta put those on there, around the time she wrote the note, she played with these as a kid too, her sister was being medicated for ADD so I guess that's where she picked it up. Remember when we went out and got stuff for the baby? We got a bunch of stuff and Genta got those star stickers to put on pill bottles and stuff."
"So it's genetic? It'll pass?"
"I mean, yeah, everything PASSES, when I was her age, I was dead-set on becoming an equestrian, and guess what? It never happened, the only horse I ever rode, I fell off and broke my arm."
"I'm just glad she didn't get a hold of one of the ones that still had pills in it, she'd be in a coma by now."
"That kid eats everything."
Calpurnia spins to the entrance on the restaurant. "YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYY I'M SO HUNGRY." Calpurnia cartwheels up the stairs.
"I don't understand how that's possible." Janet remarks, dabbing sweat off of her face. We sit down at a table and Calpurnia continues talking.
...
"Okay, I'll take her up to bed." Janet volunteers, I pass her my sleeping daughter and she starts upstairs. Columbia collapses on the couch,
"God that food is seedy. I can't eat a whole platter of that stuff and keep up with Callie turning flips and shit."
"She really loves that pill bottle."
"I think she's just attached to it, you know, because it's Genta. I used to wear my dead aunt's shoes after she died when I was ten."
"Did you give them weird long names?"
"Callie names everything."
...
I wake up to find my daughter standing over me.
"Hey, kitty, what's wrong?" I whisper, turning the light on.
"Daddy... did Mommy die because I was a bad baby?"
"No, what makes you say that."
Calpurnia starts to cry harder.
"I can't find Maribel Hester-May."