Hamster Babies

[wpaudio url=”/audio/7_9/Finch.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″]

Threads trail from the stuffed elephant’s face, and a bit of cotton peeks from the fresh wound. I pry a button-eye out of my son’s two-year old fist. He is unwilling to give up, and he surprises me with his strength. He shrieks when I take the toy away, launching himself onto the floor, bawling on hands and knees. You’re okay, I assure him. You’re fine.

On the phone, my sister recaps her visit to a fertility specialist. Like a stand-up comic, her timing is practiced, details carefully selected. I can picture her in the examination room, hands tucked between bare knees, the paper gown scratching her shoulder blades. It’s a joke, right? she asks, looking from doctor to husband, waiting for the punch line.

Modern medicine, she tells me. To test the sperm’s ability to penetrate the egg, lab techs fertilize hamster eggs with husband’s sperm. A miracle and freak of nature, the impossible in a Petri dish. Six hundred bucks just to make hamster babies.

I laugh at her deadpan delivery, but wrap an arm around my toddler’s shoulder. He squirms away in protest, reaching for the elephant I’m holding just out of reach. I poke stuffing back into the animal’s face hoping to repair the damage. When my sister’s voice cracks, her pain muffled by her hand on the receiver, I surrender the slobbery toy. There’s nothing to say to make this better.

The ceiling fan ticks above me. My son empties the elephant’s head, and white clumps churn on the living room floor in a whirlpool of fluff.