A few weeks ago Cobalt Review posted a photograph of a young, pregnant woman with a small child beside her, awaiting the return of her husband after a twelve month absence. They asked for people to send in a piece from the point of view of the husband.
Interesting.
I wrote a short piece, and enjoyed writing it, but really, what interested me was the point of view of the baby. If the baby could speak. And it makes me think about the silence of children’s voices – how society silences them – and how the world would be a different place without the imposition of silence.
Here’s what I wrote:
My first word: Papa.
Between drooling and gurgling, Papa rolls off my tongue far easier than Daddy.
In my wailing and naming I give the game away: his brown eyes turned blue in mine.
*
Before he came home, as she wrote three words on her skin: Welcome home Daddy.
The pressure of each letter resonated along my spinal chord. I kicked hard and her hand slipped on the word ‘Daddy’. I was so large she couldn’t tie her own laces.
*
He was never good at math.
She was never good at solitude.
*
I knew it was time for me to meet the man for whom she’d cried those tears, the man from whom she’d hidden those high, intense emotions, her joyful cry a sparkle in my eye.
*
I push with the crown of my head and her fingers curl around that smooth browned belly. Her heart rate quickens, her right hand feels the heat of her skin, her mouth between a cry and a tear.
*
And beside her, the boy I will call brother. Twelve months, long and lonely.
There is no failure, there is only hope and life.
