Holding The Babies

‘I think I’m nursing them!’ Sheila’s voice was breathless with excitement, and she spared a glance for Roderick as she said it. He could see a violet glow reflected in her eyes before she turned back to their ‘children,’ which were rotating slowly a few inches above her lap. 

One was the size of a baby newborn, one the size of a chipmunk. They looked like violet chunks of Himalayan salt crystal. Roderick didn’t know how they’d gotten here, but Sheila was pouring her long unused instinct for mothering into them, and she seemed to be getting something back.

‘They’re yours, too. Don’t you remember?’ He was struck by the peculiar balance of her eyes between green and hazel. Once again, she had grown more beautiful.

He did not remember. He was haunted by thoughts of Sheila being unfaithful. He didn’t know how that could even happen–nor were these even human children–but the thoughts remained. Roderick felt small, diminished to the size of a mote in the corner of the ceiling, overpowered by Sheila’s new radiance. This was how Joseph felt around Mary and Jesus, he was sure.

‘No,’ and she was quite firm this time. ‘They’re yours, too. They need you. I need you. Won’t you hold them?’ But his arms when reaching repelled the living jewels like opposed magnets. They flared a deeper purple, and Sheila turned his back on Roderick to coax them back down from the ceiling.

Roderick turned over, left and right and left again, in bed, alone. Sheila was sleeping downstairs with their children. Was this their new life together? Maybe now, it would be best to work away from home as much as he could. In the woods, or the city, or anywhere but home, he could make the living that would keep Sheila safe here, free to care for their new family.

A wind passed through the bedroom, and it raised the hair on his arms, and his eyes shot open. The door and windows were closed. Another rush of air passed over him, and he sat up. He thought of waves of static electricity, or the pins and needles of a limb fallen asleep. Roderick stood up, naked, and padded into the hall, then down the stairs. In the living room, Sheila was sprawled across the couch. One arm supported her head, and she snored softly.

He felt the rush of electricity again, and looked up: there were the living jewels, high and near the ceiling, but drawn close together, and their inner lights were dimmed. Roderick now knew they were frightened, and he also knew that he didn’t possess that radiant warmth of love which Sheila would’ve used to call them down. He sat in an armchair to wait it out.

It took about half an hour, and Roderick was fading in and out of sleep, when a flashing of pink drew his eyelids open. It was the smaller one, a couple feet away, floating at the level of his eyes.

He felt delighted, and awkward. He glanced towards Sheila’s sprawled shadow, as if for support. If he stood up to approach it, it would be repulsed. He knew it could see right through him. He decided to extend his right hand palm up, and wait. 

It immediately drifted in a few inches above his palm, and Roderick smiled widely. It was very beautiful. Small as it was, its light seemed to shine out from a vast depth within. Roderick suddenly remembered a moment with Sheila, in their first year together. Foolishly, they had been embracing, eye gazing, in the middle of a road at night. He remembered a sense of a special closeness that could only be enjoyed in that very spot in that very moment. He had held their embrace with a careful intensity, as one would hold a treasured discovery, as he held his smaller child just now. 

Next was the larger one, then. He frowned, looking up at his other ‘child.’ He was adopting an attitude of instinctual trust, which he usually associated with Sheila more than himself. It was this sense that told him he could never care for these creatures the way she did. If these children were his, there was a way to feed them uniquely his own. 

He looked down into the jewel above his hand, and hummed deep and loud. It spun like a weather vane in the wind. He fell silent, and it glowed a deeper violet. He felt a tingling in his chest, and knew the living jewel was surprised, and pleased. Roderick had his next idea then, and he carefully stood up with the junior above his hand, to walk out the front door. He looked over his shoulder: the larger had descended from the ceiling, as he’d hoped, to stay close to its sibling. Roderick wanted to be outside, to let Sheila sleep. If humming was good for the junior, then he wanted to roar with his older child.