Mommy's Secret Game

Beware

Anne—never Annie—was prepared for motherhood.

She read all the books, all the what-to-expect books; she memorized developmental charts, when they’re this old then that, when they’re that weight then this, and on and on. But she wasn’t prepared, but she thought she was.

Four months in, she felt as frazzled as frizzled got. It was Tuesday. It was one of those Hell mornings that circled back around every few weeks and made her regret every life choice she’d ever made. She was late for work at the bakery, and Jullian was screaming. Red faced and breathless, his little body quaking with effort. She rushed down the stairs and through the townhouse like a tornado, and he was her emergency klaxon. Daniel had fed him a bottle three hours earlier and left for work; now was time to eat again, and Jullian wasn’t happy. Anne wasn’t either. Her hair was a mess, and she could only find one sneaker (she still wore a house slipper on her left foot). Jullian’s diaper bag wasn’t together, and she had to warm his formula. She knocked her purse over, spilling its contents across the kitchen counter. And he was screaming and would not quit.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” She patted his back and bounced around the kitchen. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”

Her phone buzzed and she dropped it while trying to answer. She quickly sat Jullian in his highchair then bent, picked up her phone, and tossed it onto the counter with the rest of her purse refuse. The microwave beeped and she rushed over, opening the door and pulling out the bottle to test the formula’s temperature, and that’s when she remembered what she had forgotten. She turned as Jullian’s fuzzy head tilted slowly forward. She forgot to buckle him in or to place the tray properly, and without the slightest concern for gravity, Jullian leaned forward, tipped out of the chair, and fell to the floor.

He fell with glacial speed. Anne should have had hours to reach him, but she couldn’t move faster than a snail’s pace either. Dropping the bottle, she rushed forward, arms outstretched. Warm formula splattered across the kitchen. Her fingers swiped the air just above his wriggling toes as he dropped head first onto the linoleum floor.

She was too shocked to scream and froze in place with her arms out. Jullian hit the floor and shot into the air, directly into her arms. She snatched her baby and held him tightly to her chest, crying and covering him in kisses. And he giggled. He’d bounced off the floor like a rubber ball. He acted the same way when Daniel played airplane with him. She was so relieved, and she inspected his whole body checking for injuries. He was perfect.

After calming down, feeding and burping the baby, she ran a test. She held him upright a foot off the floor and let go. He dropped diaper first and bounced right up, giggling, and she giggled with him. She planted a big smooch on his chubby cheeks and neck and then released him again, rising a few inches each time. Soon she was standing straight up, holding her arms out and dropping the baby from shoulder height. And he bounced and laughed, and she decided to call out of work for the day.

She scanned her parenting books.

None of them expected anything like this. Searching online didn’t help either. Beginning to wonder if she’d hallucinated the morning, Anne ran through the drop-bounce protocol again when Jullian woke from his noon-time nap, starting low and getting higher and higher. The baby bounced every time, and he loved doing it.

She decided against telling Daniel about it when he returned home from work. How would she explain it? She had let him fall. What would he think of her? What kind of mother was she?

But Jullian was fine and he liked it and it would be their mother-son secret. Their secret game. Daniel would teach him to hunt and fish, and when he got older, he would play football and baseball. And would he be a reader? What would they have? Right now, they had this. Their fun, secret bouncing game. They played it every day they were home alone.

One morning when she was late and couldn’t get it together, Jullian did nothing but scream and shake and scream until she wanted to scream in his face and shake him back and forth. She wanted to blow in his face to make him take a breath, to stop the noise for just a second. Sick of begging and crying for him to stop, she let go, and he dropped and bounced and came back up, still red faced but now with laughter instead of anger. Frustration broke across her scalp like a wave, and she bounced him off her chest and into the air a little, grabbed his legs, and slammed him onto the thick rug on the floor in the hallway. He landed back first, shot right back up, and she clutched and smooched him, and they laughed until the bottle was ready, and then they were calm. It made her sick to her stomach when she thought about it later, using their game as an outlet for her anger. Still, it helped; Jullian liked it, and it didn’t hurt him at all. He was fine. Even so, she swore off the game for a couple of months.

She went to the library for more parenting books, came home with a stack of them, but couldn’t find anything relating to Jullian’s abilities, superpowers, or whatever it was. There didn’t seem to be any answers anywhere.

Her alarm hadn’t gone off. That wasn’t right; she had meant to hit the snooze button but had turned it off instead. Now she was going to be late again. Patricia had already warned her, and now she might get fired from the bakery. This was a bad morning. Jullian was furious and screamed and rattled the panes, peeled the paint, and moldered the carpet. She rushed from her bedroom to the baby room to the bathroom, trying to calm him, dress herself, wash her face. She forgot to brush her teeth and didn’t bother with any makeup. She rushed back to gather him up. Her arms were full: Purse, phone, diaper bag, baby. A busy signal at the bakery. They must be slammed this morning. They were going to be furious. Nearing the stairway, heading toward the front door, everything in her arms decided to leap in different directions. The diaper bag slipped off her shoulder and pushed her purse down her arm. Her cell squeezed from her sweaty fingers. The newest parenting book tumbled out of her purse and rolled flapping down the steps, tossing pages freely into the air. Jullian struggled against her shoulder until she was ready to scream and jump down the stairs herself. And then she remembered their game. She held her arm out and let the baby fall, pushing him forward and up a little to clear the steps.

Jullian sailed through the air, screaming and giggling, floating like a cloud against the unit’s purple geometrically patterned wallpaper.

Her arms free of the wriggling baby, she stooped, gathered all the crap she’d dropped on the landing, and started down the stairs and…

She froze halfway down, disbelieving. Her mind couldn’t comprehend the scene below, and it simply switched off for several long seconds.

Jullian hadn’t bounced.

There was a bad mess.

Anne screamed.