Alice couldn't tear her eyes off her son. Everything about him was significant and beautiful and there was so much left to learn. Soon he would be interacting with a new environment and she would be on her way as a mother.
She gently rubbed his cheek with the tip of her finger, then quietly brushed her fingers over his fine, black hair.
"Must you be always ruin everything with your medical nonsense?" she said, speaking as though to Fabian, because she was looking at him, but harpooning each word directly at Robert. There were nine months of hormones, twenty years of longing, ten years of resignation, a natural inclination towards the blunt, left-over pain from her parents' recent deaths, and twenty four hours of exhaustion and pain crippling her ability to self-censor.
She never self-censored as it was.
She returned to gently brushing Fabian's cheek with her finger, hoping to get him to react, to open his little mouth the way that her nieces and nephews always did. Maybe to inspire a sound or a squirm.
"Can't you just enjoy the fact that you have a son? Are you going to remind me that when he smiles it isn't a smile, and that he can't understand me or see me and that everything he does is rooted in reflexes and that I could be removed from the room and replaced by a warm pillow and he wouldn't know the difference? This isn't a lecture to a bunch of overeager, overstimulated university students! This is a baby! Our baby! And when he smiles, it will be a smile, and he'll be smiling because he knows it's me, and you're not taking that away before we even get started! Throw the goddamn cards out the window. I'm tired of them and they were wrong."
no subject
She gently rubbed his cheek with the tip of her finger, then quietly brushed her fingers over his fine, black hair.
"Must you be always ruin everything with your medical nonsense?" she said, speaking as though to Fabian, because she was looking at him, but harpooning each word directly at Robert. There were nine months of hormones, twenty years of longing, ten years of resignation, a natural inclination towards the blunt, left-over pain from her parents' recent deaths, and twenty four hours of exhaustion and pain crippling her ability to self-censor.
She never self-censored as it was.
She returned to gently brushing Fabian's cheek with her finger, hoping to get him to react, to open his little mouth the way that her nieces and nephews always did. Maybe to inspire a sound or a squirm.
"Can't you just enjoy the fact that you have a son? Are you going to remind me that when he smiles it isn't a smile, and that he can't understand me or see me and that everything he does is rooted in reflexes and that I could be removed from the room and replaced by a warm pillow and he wouldn't know the difference? This isn't a lecture to a bunch of overeager, overstimulated university students! This is a baby! Our baby! And when he smiles, it will be a smile, and he'll be smiling because he knows it's me, and you're not taking that away before we even get started! Throw the goddamn cards out the window. I'm tired of them and they were wrong."
She had waited a very long time to have a baby!