Mother No More
[Summer of any given year, nameless neighborhood]
"Shh...", she whispered as she gently lay the bundle of blankets and human babe into the bed.
A smile, exhausted but honest fluttered over her features.
Two weeks, it's been two weeks already since she gave birth to this tiny being, a gift that she truly had not anticipated because she never planned for it. It just happened and she didn't even care that the father was nowhere to be found because now she got a baby. Her very own, a little precious baby girl with the rosiest cheeks and warmest eyes she had ever seen.
She stared down at the child, its limbs so small and fragile she felt a little fear even though nothing was happening, the baby wasn't even moving. More to sooth herself than the baby she wanted to sing her a lullaby, but she really didn't know any, so she hummed the melody of happy birthday for a while in hopes that would count.
'She has my hair', the young mother thought and pride filled her as she stroked the pale white face of her child.
A silent sigh expanded her lungs before she pulled a rusty camping stool closer so she could watch over her baby. For a while she mused over the peacefulness of the night, so uncommon in this neighborhood. There were no police sirens or drunken yells, no shots to be heard that could cut through the night. Everything felt light and she was content looking at the sleeping baby, her little miracle.
Slowly moving to the open window she pulled some cigarettes and a cheap lighter out of her jeans pockets to exhale warm smoke into the sultry summer air of the city. It smelled like car exhausts and dirt, so familiar to her, she felt comforted rather than bothered by the pollution of the city.
She felt laughter creeping up her throat, silly really but it felt good, so very good to laugh at nothing but the night itself and how the wind felt on her heated skin. She thought, if she were a cat, she might have purred in satisfaction.
How skeptical the nurse had looked when she had answered that there was no father to her child, only a useless sperm factory. Her own mother had died soon after her birth and her father was an abusive jackass, so she spent most of her childhood running alongside the other kids in the projects.
But now everything was different, she was a mother, a caregiver and as such she would provide everything for her baby girl that she herself had lacked the previous 16 years of her life.
The change had been easy too. Her dad was suddenly gone, maybe one of his gambling 'buddies' finally got him or he overdosed in some alley, but more importantly, she got to live with the baby in a semi-decent, rent-controlled apartment. At the hospital one of her older friends had pretended to be her mother and got her out. It had been nothing more than a farce of course and her friend was a hooker.
But the young mother was proud, she even got a job at a gas station, the pay was beyond poor but it might be enough.
Today was going to be her first day leaving her baby and she felt a little guilty that she still couldn't decide on a name for her little girl. She had been calling her baby girl, precious and honey but all the names she could come up with didn't seem to fit. Her baby was too special to be just another Jessica, Ashley or Heather.
Anyway, she managed to get a hold of some stuff for the baby, some old blankets to wrap her up in, some diapers she got from a friend and lots of toys and what not.
Of course she was nervous leaving her baby but she had to work to be a good mother. And she was, she was a good mother, she sang for her baby, she bathed her, she changed diapers and breast fed her. There was only one time she felt she was not a good mother. After the first week, she had panicked at the thought of raising a child by her own and the baby wouldn't shut up, kept on crying, screaming actually and she had lost it. One time, at that one moment she had resented the baby, and she might had been careless. The little girl had slipped out of the blankets, out of her arms, falling down on the floor with a hollow thud. The fall had not been from very high and she had immediately picked up the baby and cradled the then only whimpering bundle in her chest. Other than that, she has been a good mother, in fact after the incident, the baby hardly ever cried. Besides, her friend, the same friend that had pretended to be her mom, had experience, she had raised three kids of her own before she kicked them out. Her friend could take care of her baby until her shift ended. Maybe after that she would stop by a shop and pick up a kids book or something. It's been a while, but a little reading shouldn't be too difficult.
As she was walking down the street to her friend, she felt accomplished, a proud mother of a beautiful baby girl and soon bread-winner in her own home. She didn't care in the slightest about the disapproving glances, the looks full of contempt that others walking past her shot her.
"Hey girl, so glad to see you!", her friend waved her over and she happily obliged.
"You too, and thanks again for doin' this, I owe you!"
The two women hugged, careful not to crush the baby, when suddenly her friend wrinkled her nose and her expression showed disgust.
"What on earth is that smell?"
Embarrassed, the girl cradled her child, whispering: "Maybe I have to change her diapers, it's been a while..."
"Girl, that is not what shit smells like, it smells like - "
"Stop!"
.
.
.
The absence of police sirens and drunken yells was suffocating.
Laughing, she was laughing, huskily and uncontrollably. It sounded faint and hysterically desperate, because she was laughing at absolutely nothing aside from the bright lights of her bedroom and the feeling of the wind creeping over her cold skin.
Hollowness filled her, like the oxymoron that it was, like the moron that she was.
She was the worst. She is the worst mother on earth.
Scratch that, she was no mother any more.
Hadn't been one for a week.
Because she killed her.
Her child, it had been dead for seven days before the hooker pointed out, what she didn't want to know. Or to acknowledge.
She had cradled the bundle of blankets and tiny human corpse even harder against her aching chest, screamed for her friend to stop and collapsed.
Still so small... the baby was so fragile and she had failed to protect it.
Her chest ached painfully, guilt and desperation were choking her airways, as she moaned low like a mortally wounded animal.
All her hopeful plans had died with her daughter, because now she was a mother no more.