The Nursery

by Szilvia Molnar

But pity takes over, grabs me by the arm, and reminds me that I am a monstrosity.

My mother never prepared for the worst. Maybe that made her happier than most. Maybe her death was sweeter because of her naivety. Maybe I should have tried to get to know her better. Maybe then I would have been left with more than my romanticism of her. As my head rests on the pillow, tears fill my eye sockets. Eventually they drip over the soft edge of my face and I join John in sleep.

My friend has aged since giving birth, the impact is visible on her face, on her hair, shoulders, and smiles. There is a fault or fallacy in her appearance. A twitch is always ready to expose her. The last time I saw her (pre-baby) she joked about things that she believed were funny. Today, her presence is translucent and her attention scattered, even though her child is not with her. She is still not really here. But I suppose I should commend her for trying.

This is your life and you’re so deep in it that you can’t unmake it, you can’t unbirth your baby because she wishes to be alive, you can’t remake your career, there’s no way you’ll be a professional dancer anymore or join the philharmonic, don’t even fantasize about one day becoming that avant-garde independent filmmaker because you’re here, feeling like you did when your mother died but now wondering who around you

Through his broken English, Peter implies that love comes with sacrifices. The important kind of love does not exist without the existence of certain losses. It remains to be seen which loss is possible enough to bear, to endure, to relinquish.

As she drinks from the other tit, the steady white noise infiltrates my consciousness. To hear myself think, my thoughts have to yell. But I want to be free. The dark room swallows my sentence. Button’s eyes are closed like any newborn pup’s. The noise machine doesn’t falter. I continue screaming: Let me be a child. If only I could sit at my desk. I turn to the dim walls around us. My nose starts to run and my belly is squished by the weight of Button. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and it’s impossible not to feel pitiable. My legs are tight and sore from not moving enough. My neck crackles, my back crumbles forward, and my eyes are dry from the contained air. The size of the apartment is the contour of my body. Traces of tears and dirt and sweat and gunk surface in all our combined corners as crust and goo. I am a prisoner of my own making. After all, I made Button and I wanted her, and now I can’t get out. Why can’t you give me a mother?