Cry Baby

By Kathleen Alcalá

Oh, that moan was cold. It swept in under the door, crept across the floor, up the walls, crouched in the window corners, ready to come down on her at a moment’s notice. She felt that chill, heard that baby blue hiccup that meant Baby was up.

What’s up? she asked, as she lifted Baby from the crib, a safe crib, a guaranteedto keeplittlesnookumsoutofthewoodswhenthewolvesareout crib.

Cindi longed to climb into the crib herself, babe in arms, and sleep forever. Instead, she changed Baby, who didn’t try to flip off the table for once, and plopped her into a high chair while she heated the bottle.

Who’s to know what the cat knows? He had brought her a mouse again. Did this mean an extra-cold winter? Need to fill the larder with fat mice? Or just get fat? She patted her own belly, still loose and jellified from the pregnancy, the extra thirty pounds she gained down to maybe fifteen or twenty. Maybe a little more. As long as she was nursing, the clinic told her, she would lose weight. It didn’t happen. Her hunger was not as raging as during the pregnancy, but it still turned noisily inside of her, like an internal combustion engine craving coal in order to burn, burn, burn.

She came to when Baby started her hic -uppy cry again, to find the water boiling around the bottle – now too hot.

Oh, baby oh … I love you so! So many songs to Baby, but they didn’t mean Baby, did they? They meant the one who would end up with baby when it was all over – when the music stopped, when all the lovers went home, when no one would save the last dance for you.

My Mama done told me – but no, her mama did not tell her, told her nothing, not how it happened, only not to let it happen, which Beto guaranteed he would not let happen – murmuring in her ear, his hand creeping down her pants – until it did. Then he was gone – from town, to the Army, to work, to the Good Girl it turns out he was cheating on with you. But still. Cindi had never been happier, if only for those few weeks. The wind hummed a little louder.

Oh Baby, let’s try the bottle again. Baby grabbed it like a bear cub and practically turned the bottle inside out she sucked so hard.

The birds twittered. The sun came up. There were playful gusts of wind, like the day straightening its sheets as it got up from bed. She changed Baby again and put her in the playpen. She was just starting to pull up, trying to stand, so she could not be left by herself for a minute. Cindi grabbed some clothes and threw herself in the shower. As soon as she had shampoo in her hair, Baby started screaming. Cindi jumped out and grabbed a towel. Baby had fallen backwards in the playpen, but stopped crying as soon as she was picked up. Cindi brought her in the bathroom and tried to hold the wriggling infant while rinsing her own head in the sink.

By 7:00, Cindi had Baby in the car seat and was on her way to Mama’s.

That cold moan got in the car with her. It threatened to drown out the people on the radio who covered the news from overnight – floods, money, disasters, rich people getting richer. More floods. Cindi remembered she had not paid her credit card yet, and she would pay more if she did not pay that day. It started to sprinkle and she turned on the windshield wipers, the left one always sticking just a little before returning.

Cindi’s mother was at the door to take Baby. All frowns for Cindi, all smiles for Baby. Told her she looked fat. That she’d never get a husband looking like that, and of course, already with a baby. Baby.

At work, Cindi parked, got out of the car and straightened her shirt. She would eat only an apple for lunch today, she promised herself. Mondays were hell. Everyone was frantic, hung over, bright-eyed, meaning to do better, be nicer, eat only an apple for lunch.

Cindi’s desk was already stacked with forms to enter. Bruce must have brought more after she left work on Friday. At least the software was fixed. She put on her glasses and set to work. Every five forms she allowed herself to stop, initial them, and put them in a separate stack.

At 11:50, Natalie stopped by Cindi’s desk, wondered if she wanted to go to lunch with her and some others for Gale’s birthday. Cindi liked Natalie, and sort of liked Gale. But she said no, conscious of her tight top, her promised apple.

“Oh, come on,” Natalie said. “Just once.”

Cindi winced. That was exactly what he had said, just once, and nothing would happen. Nobody ever got pregnant the first time. That burn in her belly set in, that engine that wanted to be stoked, and she said yes.

The Daily Special was a Rueben sandwich, and Cindi ordered it. She had to lean forward to keep the juices, the dressing, the sour kraut, from dripping down her front. She told the whining apple part of her brain to shut up.

When she got back to the office, there were more forms. Bruce must not take lunch, she thought. Although about fifteen people processed, he was the only one who checked the forms before dividing them up among the processors. Only once did Cindi find an omission he should have caught.

Cindi called her mother to check on Baby. Baby’s fine. Maybe Dad and I should take her more of the time. Why? Asked Cindi. Dad’s not getting any younger. So you want to watch the baby more on top of watching Dad? Her mother was silent.

At 4:30 Cindi grabbed her purse and was pulling her hair back into a ponytail when she ran into Bruce in the hall. I was just coming to see you, he said. Oh yes? We are going to alter the form again, just one line, make it easier for the adjusters. If she left right then, she would beat the worst traffic on the Valley Highway. Can we talk about this tomorrow? She asked. Oh, sure. He continued on towards her cubicle with his load of forms. She knew he would drop some off along the way, the Johnny Appleseed of insurance claims. Cindi suddenly loathed the office, her job, her co-workers and their simple lives. She loathed the greasy spots on her blouse and the computer glasses she had forgotten to take off and leave on her desk. But she would not go back and risk running into Bruce again.

The wind was blowing fitfully, stronger, when she got outside. She shielded her face in the crook of her arm from the dust devils picking their way across the parking lot. Bits of rock and dirt pelted her head and arms.

At her mother’s house, the wind tried to shut the car door on her leg. She limped to the door and struggled inside. Her Dad was asleep in the recliner in the living room, a game on television, the low roar of the crowd backwash through the dim room. She heard Baby call out, a rising note of a question.

Baby broke into a smile as Cindi picked her up out of the high chair. Those sharp little teeth in front, that dimple just like his. Baby broke Cindi’s heart every day. She had a little bruise on her forehead.

What’s this? asked Cindi, kissing it.

Oh, I’m so tired, said her mother, holding her back with both hands. Baby was into everything today.

She’s pulling up. She wants to stand.

I had to put her in the high chair to get anything done. Baby wore a bib full of soggy Cheerios.

For how long? Oh, I don’t know. She wouldn’t nap today.

She always naps. Baby bounced her lips off Cindi’s shoulder. She was hungry. She was also soaked.

We’ve got to go before the storm gets any worse. Cindi could hear the wind calling around the corner, whispering sour nothings in the ears of the house.

Leave her here. She’ll be okay.

What’s with you, mom? Thank you. I’ll see you later.

It’s just…

What?

I ran into my friend Sylvia at Safeway. She has a son.

Yeah… so?

I, I gave her your phone number. Maybe he’ll call.

I told you mom, the last thing I want to do right now is date. End of story.

Cindi picked three empty bottles out of the sink and crammed them into Baby’s diaper bag. I have zero time for pendejos.

Who else is going to date you? Cindi’s mother could be mean. She wished she could afford real daycare.

I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s Tuesday, remember, so I have to be there a half hour earlier for our staff meeting.

I know. You think I don’t remember anything.

I don’t think that.

Outside, the sky had turned a swirling gray. Cindi tucked Baby’s face against her shoulder. Opening the door to the back seat, it whipped back and hit them both. Baby screamed. She kept screaming, arching her back, as Cindi struggled to buckle her in. She might have hurt her a little, pinched her leg with the buckle, but there was nothing she could do about it. It’s okay, it’s okay, she kept murmuring.

The rain started up again. The farther they drove, the heavier it got. Cindi was worried about the underpass. It had flooded at least once recently, but was the quickest way home. She could not think through Baby’s screams. She wondered if something else was wrong with her. Maybe mom had put one of those old-fashioned diapers on her she liked to use. Sometimes the safety pins came open. Baby was braying like a donkey, unable to catch her breath. She smelled really bad. Traffic was at a crawl, and Cindi could barely see out through the windshield.

That low moan got louder and louder, a growl filling the car like a trapped animal.

Cindi tried to gun it through a low spot, but the car lost traction, began to drift with a quick flow of water across the roadway. She felt her blood surge in fear. A truck driver in the oncoming lane blared his horn. Cindi’s car began to rotate slowly to the left as Baby screamed. Cindi realized the moan was rising from her own throat as it turned to a scream. Oh Baby.

Cindi loosened her seat belt, and struggled onto her knees, reaching back to release Baby from her car seat. She could not open her door, the rising waters holding it shut. Finally, Cindi lay on her back and kicked a window out.

Cindi squirmed out through the window, only to find herself waist deep in water, the surrounding cars and trucks beginning to float and bump into each other. The rain was so hard, she could barely see. Baby was quiet now, as though she knew her mother needed to concentrate. “It’s okay, Baby.” She held the little girl close, reassuring herself as much as Baby.

Cindi walked up the embankment and made her way to the overpass, heedless of the traffic that continued to pass her by inches. At the top, Cindi looked down to where she had left her car with everything still in it – Baby’s car seat, Cindi’s purse, her phone. She realized she was barefoot. She must have lost her shoes along the way. By now the water was beginning to close over the top of the car.

As she gazed down through the windshield, Cindi realized with a start that she could see a woman inside, lying inert in the driver’s seat. It must be someone else’s car. Where was hers?

Cindi looked at the child in her arms. All she held was Baby’s coat. Baby was not there. “Baby! Where’s Baby?” she called. By now it was dark. Cars continued to stream past Cindi as she tried to make her way back below the underpass, trying to find her car. Find Baby.

Time passed, and the waters began to subside. The light was failing, and Cindi had trouble seeing. A dense fog had settled over everything. Cindi could hear a police radio down the street, where police cars and flashing lights surrounded a barrier keeping drivers away from the scene. She kept wiping her eyes, as though this would make Baby appear. A tow truck came and the driver hooked her car up to it. There was no one inside that she could see. She must have imagined the body. Cindi stood by the side of the road all night. She did not feel tired, and did not know where to go. “I have to think,” she said to herself. “I have to go to the police. I have to find Baby.” She kept trying to remember those final moments in the car. How she picked up Baby How she got out. But she could not.

And she would not go to the police if she had left Baby behind. She imagined being taken to her parents’ home like this, without Baby. She imagined the things her mother would call her, would accuse her of.

She did not leave the intersection.

A day passed, and the underpass was swept out and reopened to traffic. Cindi crouched by one end of the underpass, her arms wrapped around herself, wet and dirty, barefoot, watching each car as it entered the tunnel, looking for Baby. No one seemed to notice her.

Night fell.

Cindi stood and realized she was rooted to this place, that she could not stop looking for Baby. Ever. The whine started in the pit of her stomach. Up through her chest, it rose to a growl in her throat. It burst out of her mouth and filled the street, echoed down the tunnel below the overpass, down the dank asphalt byways, the water still draining down the walls of stained stucco buildings, down the alleys and sidewalks and gutters of the old downtown.

“Baby!” she called. “Baby.”

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Kathleen Alcalá is the author of six books, most recently, The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island. A member of Los Norteños Writers, she is a founding editor of The Raven Chronicles and a member of the Opata Nation. Her first novel, Spirits of the Ordinary, will be back in print in 2021.“Kathleen’s craft illuminates the souls of her characters: the Mexican women who carry the universe in their hearts.” – Rudolfo Anaya.