To the Rescue

IFyou cry in front of a child too young to notice, did you even cry? This is my thought process as I lean on the counter, eyes glued to two slices of burnt toast. Isn’t that a stroke symptom or something? Am I having a stroke? No, there’s really burnt toast on the counter.

Dovi tries to jump out of my arms and grab the black, crumbly thing. “Stop,” I say weakly. He just looks at me.

I bend over, every bone and muscle in my body aching, and deposit him on the floor. Chazi would know exactly which muscles are giving me trouble. “You stretch your supercalifradgilistic when you pick up the baby from the crib like that,” he always says. At least, that’s what it sounds like to me. Because I don’t actually care what muscle I’m pulling. I just care that I’m the one pulling it. Alone.

Dovi tries to pull himself up against the cabinets, the unsnapped edge of his undershirt dragging pathetically on the floor. Poor baby. I cried the day he was born.