Monica Raible

Lullaby

 

The first time it happens, Steven is four and he thinks Mummy is joking.  He jumps on her, his fingers pushing into her neck as he tries to tickle her, and he giggles as he asks her what game they're playing.  When Mummy doesn't open her eyes, he frowns and tell her that she isn't playing very nice.  She's being very silly, and he wants to play.  But still, Mummy doesn't open her eyes with a gleeful shout of gotcha, grabbing him and pulling him into a bear hug.  He sits cross-legged on her stomach and pokes her cheek. 

 

He tells her that he wants a cheese sandwich, please.

 

He tells Mummy to wake up, but when he pulls on her hair, her head just lolls to the other side. 

 

This isn't right.  He pushes on her face, his fingers grasping her cheeks, but Mummy just lays there.  He hits her forehead.  Wake up, wake up.  His little palms beat down on her face, bouncing off of her smooth skin.  Wake up, he shouts.  Tears are welling up in his eyes, and he screams louder.  Wake up.  It's light time, wake up.

 

But his Mummy is dead. 

 

He climbs off of Mummy and runs over to the table.  He stands on his tippie-toes but can't reach, so he grasps the cord and pulls so hard that the phone falls to the ground.  He picks it up and pushes the zero three times.

 

The ambulance comes, but as they walk in the door, Mummy suddenly opens her eyes.  She sends the people away and says she was just sleeping very, very hard. 

 

When Daddy gets home, he grabs him by the wrist and says that he should never call the ambulance again.  His Daddy is a doctor.  They don't need the whole goddamn neighborhood knowing how fucked-up his Mummy is.  God, he says, I need a drink.  Brenda, if there isn't any alcohol in that refrigerator, I'm going to give Stevie a real reason to call the ambulance.

 

 

 

The second time it happens, Steven is six, and he remembers last time.  He knows Mummy isn't playing with him.  She lays on her side in the kitchen, and he gets down on his knees and pushes her onto her back.  He grabs her arm and stands up, valiantly trying to pull her to her bedroom, but he can't.  She's too heavy.  So instead he runs up the stairs (no running in the house, he thinks as he does it anyway) and gets his green blankie and his favorite book. 

 

He sets his blankie on Mummy's knees and then he tries to get a glass of grape juice, just like Mummy does when he's sick, but the cabinets won't open.  So instead, he carefully takes the pitcher out of the fridge, only spilling a little on the cheese and the floor, and he sets it next to Mummy's head.  When she wakes up, she can open the cabinet and he'll pour her a glass of grape juice and she'll be all better.

 

When he puts his hand on Mummy's forehead, right between her eyes, he realizes that he doesn't know why.  Mummy always does it when he's sick.  Maybe it makes people feel better?

 

He takes his hand away, deciding that Mummy is sick anyway.  And then he flops down on his stomach, laying right next to her, and pulls Hop on Pop to him.  He glances over at Mummy's face before he starts, but she doesn't move.  He reads to her.

 

UP. 

 

PUP.

 

Pup is up.

 

 

 

When Steven is seven, he can tell time, even by the minute hand even though the rest of his class has only learned the quarters of the clock.  He has cereal for breakfast and when he goes into the living room to watch Tom and Jerry, he sees Mum laying on the coffee table, eyes closed.  He asked Mum why she does that once, and she told him that she was playing a game, just like when he pretended that he was a surfer.  She likes to pretend, too.  He doesn't know who would want to pretend to sleep. 

 

He crawls all over the couch and finally finds the remote behind a pillow, and then he watches his show. 

 

When the show is over, he goes up to his room and uses a purple crayon to draw a picture of the clock.  Every time the hour hand moves to a new number, he draws a new clock, in a different color.  He adds a smiley faces and suns and hearts to the faces of the clocks, and crescent moons and triangles, and even an airplane that he worked on for a long time with five different colors.  When Mummy finally gets off the table, there are ten clocks on his paper. 

 

He shows her his drawing, pointing out his favorite one—the one with the plane—and Mummy tells him that she had the most wonderful dream about a plane once.  She says it was falling, falling through the clouds and past the birds and down to the ocean, and all the people were flying and laughing. 

 

 

 

One time, when Steven is seven-and-a-half, which is what he likes to tell people when they ask for his age, Daddy has to leave for a whole week.  He is writing a book about people who can't move very good, and he says the book will tell their doctors how to help them move gooder (better, Daddy had corrected him, but he liked gooder more).  He told Daddy that he should just be everyone's doctor so he wouldn't have to go away and write books, but Daddy laughed and ruffled his hair. 

 

Mum reads her Bible a lot while Daddy is gone.  She goes for a walk in the afternoon, and he has Tim Tams and Coca-Cola for supper, and afterwards, he sucks on peppermint humbugs from the bowl in Daddy's office. 

 

When he falls asleep in front of the TV, Mum isn't home yet, but when he wakes up he's in his bed with the covers up to his chin. 

 

He finds her in the bathtub, dressed up like she's going to one of Daddy's parties, except her eyes are closed and she doesn't seem to care that her dress is all wet.  He reaches between her legs and pulls the plug of the drain, and then he puts a towel over her body so she isn't cold.

 

Afterwards, he decides that he will write a book like Daddy's, except his will have Batman and space aliens and lots and lots of pictures.  After pulling down colored paper, crayons, scissors, and Daddy's dictionary for just in case, he spreads it out all over his bedroom floor and works until he runs out of paper.  Then he pulls a chair over to his closet, stands on it, and reaches for the cardboard box full of action figures.  It's too big.  When he slides it out, he loses his grip and it falls to the floor, spilling plastic toys everywhere.

 

Batman, the Hulk, dinosaurs, army men and George Jetson in his flying car join Mum in the bathtub.  He reads her the book he wrote, making the dinosaurs and the army men the space aliens, and the Hulk their mean leader.  George Jetson, who is glued into his car, is ignored and his flying car is made into the Batmobile, which Batman sits on top of.  He knocks over lines of space aliens and makes loud sound effects. 

 

Did you like it?

 

Mum doesn't say anything.  She keep sleeping.

 

I want another Batman action figure for Christmas, okay?  'Member the one Liam has?  Like that.  His has flashing lights on the cape.

 

He jumps up and down on the couch for a while, and then he rides his bike in circles around the driveway.  He thinks about calling Daddy, but then he remembers that Mum is only pretending.  Daddy can't do anything.  He'll just yell and Mum will cry more. 

 

He goes up to the bathroom and brushes Mum's long, pretty hair.  He takes out her glittery earrings and accidentally drops one down the sink, but he puts the other one in her big box of earrings.  He tries to take off her necklace, too, but the hook in the back isn't working.  It's broke, he says.  Sorry, Mum. 

 

She wakes up before dinner. 

 

He asks her, can I have macaroni and cheese? 

 

But Mum doesn't hear him.  She stands up, army men and dinosaurs falling down into the tub, and walks down the hallway in her wet dress.  He follows her down the stairs and into the living room, where she sits down on the couch.  She turns on the TV but turns down the volume so that none of the sound comes out, and then she says, Stevie, go into the kitchen and get me a beer.  The Bible, too. 

 

Happy to have something to do, he returns with the two items in less than a minute. 

 

She opens her beer and takes a long gulp of it.  Would you read it to me?

 

He looks at her, unsure of what to do.

 

She plucks the book from his hands, flips through it, and then hands the open book back to him.  Read there, honey.  I know you can do it. 

 

He reads, not understanding the sounds that leave his lips, and watches as the light from the television makes her skin glow. 

 

 

 

By the time he's ten, he realizes that Mum isn't pretending to sleep.  She's pretending to be dead, and she only does it when Dad isn't home.  He also realizes that this isn't normal—that other kids' mums, they don't spend hours laying on the ground. 

 

He tells his friend Liam that his mum likes to pretend, and Liam says that his mum likes to do needlepoints and hang them up on the walls.  I wish my mum would pretend, Liam says.  This makes him feel cool, and he tells everyone else at school that his mum plays pretend with him lots, and they all want to come over his house.

 

No, you can't.  It's a special game just for us, he says. 

 

Mum doesn't always pretend to be dead.  Last night, after Dad left with his friends, she drank something called vodka from a little tiny glass, and then she gave him piggyback rides all over the house.  Even though he knew he was too old, he made her the horse and himself the Lone Ranger from Dad's old comic books.  Together, they ran around the house, fighting villains and looking for gold.  His mother, giggling and red-faced, had tickled him until he was the same. 

 

The next day, he goes to the beach with Liam and Liam's mother gives him the leftovers from their lunch to take home to his mum.  He makes a plate for himself and one for Mum, and carries them over to where she's laying on the carpet.  He sets hers down next to her legs, and then eats his own dinner.  Then he does his homework, propping his history book up against Mum's hip. 

 

 

 

Just before his eleventh birthday, Dad goes on a business trip to Japan for two weeks.  When he gets home from school, Mum is laying on the front lawn, face down.  He drops his backpack on the grass, kneels down next to her and rolls her onto her back.  Her eyes are closed and her body is completely limp. 

 

How long have you been out here, he asks, even though Mum won't answer. 

 

He glances around and sees a neighbor standing at her window, drinking something from a mug and watching them.  She doesn't come out for a better look, but it's clear that she's very keen on finding out what drama's going on with Mrs. Next-Door.  He glares at her, and then looks back to Mum.  Her painted face is beautiful, but it's cracked.  A slight run of mascara beneath her left eye ruins the picture like a calcium deposit on a whitewashed wall.  She's wearing a white dress shirt he knows belongs to Dad, and it's unbuttoned to reveal her black bra and flat, smooth stomach.

 

After he buttons her shirt up, he picks up his backpack and goes inside.  It thunderstorms, and his mother does not come in and he does not go get her.  He makes himself macaroni and cheese, cuts up an apple, and does his homework up in his room.  He showers. 

 

He keeps waiting for one of the neighbors to come over and see why there is a woman laying in the yard during a thunderstorm, but they never do.

 

In the morning, she is still laying there.

 

When he comes home from school, she is still laying there.

 

Dad calls. 

 

He brings the phone out to her and stands above her.  Dad's on the phone, he tells her.  Do you want to talk to him?

 

Mum doesn't move. 

 

She says to call back in a bit, Dad. 

 

He goes back in the house, and an hour later, Mum walks in and goes for the wine rack.  He does his homework silently at the kitchen table while Mum has glasses of wine at the counter.  She smells like urine and wet dog, and now, flushed Bordeaux.  Her beautiful face washed off in the rain. 

 

Stevie, let's order some pizza and watch a movie tonight, his mother says.  What do you want to see?  Lethal Weapon 2?

 

His eyes widen.  But you said I wasn't allowed to see the first one.

 

Mum waves it away with her hand.  You're older now.  Go get me the phone.

 

He nearly trips over the rungs of his chair as he runs to bring it to her.

 

 

 

Dad says that Mum drinks too much.  He says, it needs to stop.  I need you to help me, Steven.   If Mum keeps drinking this way, she's going to get very sick and die

 

He tells his Dad, maybe that's what she's trying to do. 

 

Dad goes on another business trip.  He goes to the United States of America for a whole month and misses his son's thirteenth birthday.  He sends a card with a picture of New York City and it says happy birthday, Steven, on the back.  Burn it, Mum says spitefully when she sees him reading it for the tenth time.  He probably had his secretary send you that.  Is it even in his handwriting?

 

I don't know, he says, even though he recognizes it as his Dad's handwriting. 

 

While Dad is gone, he tells Mum that she shouldn't drink so much. 

 

Did you father tell you say that, she asks.

 

He shakes his head.  We learned about it in school.  I don't want you to die, Mum.

 

So she does not drink for three days.  She tells him that his father is a dirty rotten bastard.  She screams at him and tells him that she wishes that he'd never been born, because at least then Calvin would still love her.  She grabs all the framed photographs in the house and lays them in a line on the floor, puts on a pair of high heels, and smashes the glass while screaming fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.  She cries while he cleans it up and says, I didn't mean it Stevie.  I love you.  I  love you, my beautiful, beautiful boy, I love you so much.  I'm such a horrible person. 

 

He finds her sitting in the back of the closet, rocking back and forth and biting a plastic hanger.  She screams when he touches her, and hours later, he looks out the window and sees her running in circles around the house.  He goes out to her and when he pulls on her arms and makes her stop, she falls to her knees and throws up all over the front lawn.  She spits in his face and claws at him when he tries to help her up, but he keeps trying until she shoves him and he trips backwards and sees the sky before he sees nothing at all.  He awakes to find her hugging him, apologizing, her whole body shaking and smelling of sweat and vomit.

 

He sobs.  He can't do this. 

 

Mum drinks the whole bottle, tucks him into bed and reads him the Bible until he falls asleep.  The next morning, she is lying in the street and pretending that she is dead again.

 

 

 

Dad leaves when Steven is fourteen.  He's not on a business trip.  He's not writing a book.  He's gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. 

 

Mum lays on the floor of the living room and pretends to be dead.

 

On the second day, he lays down next to her and pretends to be dead, too.

 

On the third day, Mum is still pretending to be dead.  He has to get her up.  He knows this.  However, he also has to read the rest of The Odyssey by Monday. 

 

I know you're faking it, he tells her from the corner of the couch where he's curled up with the book.  You're not really dead. 

 

She doesn't move.

 

You're not really dead, he says again.

 

Only fifty-one more pages to go.  On page eighty-seven, he'll say it again.  And on page ninety-eight, he'll say it again.  And then when he's finished with the book, he will look at her and say fuck you, Mum.  Maybe he really will.  Maybe she'll wake up.

 

 

 

The next morning, Mum is drinking gin.  She sits on the floor of the kitchen, hand closed around the neck of the bottle, and her eyes stare off into the distance.  He steps around her and opens the fridge to retrieve the milk for his cereal.  He pulls it out with one hand, and just as he's about to let the door go so that it will swing shut, he's suddenly reminded of eight years ago with the grape juice, sloshing puddles all over plastic-wrapped cheese and the white floor. 

 

He pours the milk into his bowl of Cocoa Puffs. 

 

Mum takes a drink from her bottle. 

 

Is he coming back, she asks him.

 

He shakes his head.  I don't think so, Mum. 

 

There is a high-pitched, keening cry, and then there is darkness.  Followed by light.  Bright, bright lights.  He feels dizzy and nauseous.  Someone is saying, I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it.  He sees Mum laying on the floor, curled into a fetal position with her eyes squeezed shut, and he sees the broken bottle of gin next to his head.  He is laying down.  He has fallen.  Gin is sliding across the floor, clear and sharp, and it refracts the light in a way that makes the world rock violently.

 

It splashes his lips, and for a moment, all he wants to do is open them and share in Mum's salvation. 

 

But he does not.  Instead he looks up, swallowing the technicolor nausea of lights and colors, and he sees the little table above him.  Light-headed, he reaches up and grasps onto the cord awkwardly, and then he pulls.

 

The phone and cradle fall to the ground in slow motion.  Upon impact, the cradle cleaves and flies in two different directions.  The phone slams into the ground a split-second later with a sharp crack, but does not break. 

 

He reaches for it.  He holds it in one hand and uses the other to press the zero three times.

 

Dad was wrong.  It doesn't matter what the neighbors think, and it never should have.  Now they're all going to find out, and they'll find out in wailing sirens, in whispers, in a man in a dark suit driving away behind his tinted windows, and in a red sign standing alone, wind-beaten and faded in the middle of a diagonal lawn. 

 

It's time to stop pretending.