Work Text:
The silent house split in half for the third night in a row. Around the dark corners from the master bedroom, Judy’s tormented whines might make a stranger worry she was being poked with a hot knife. That was only partially true, though; her fever had been rising steadily and she was just uncomfortable enough to scream through the night, frustrated, overwhelmed and too warm in her tiny, exhausted body.
Lorraine was already in the nursery when Judy started to cry. She’d been dozing in the armchair in the corner since the baby had started showing signs of illness. Ed had tried to trade places with her, insisting she rest herself in their bed, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep regardless. She would still hear her baby cry, still need to run to her, still need to hold her in order to believe truly, to her core, that her girl was safe.
Uncomfortable and sad, but safe.
The pediatrician assured them that Judy’s sniffles and high temperature were just their daughter’s first brush with the common cold. That Judy was so colicky because she was fresh out of her mother’s comfy, cozy belly – barely three months new to the outside world – and encountering the aches of sickness for the first time in her tiny little life.
As natural as she knew it was, Lorraine couldn’t banish the lump in the throat as she scooped up her baby from her crib. She tried to settle squirming, kicking Judy on her chest.
“Oh, honey,” breathed Lorraine. Uselessly, she wiped a tear away from her eyelashes with the tip of her thumb. “My girl… My baby. Mommy’s here. Shhh..."
Judy wailed into her mother’s neck. Her tiny hands grabbed for handfuls of Lorraine’s nightgown. Her sobs begged her mother — her one source of safety, her comfort — to make her feel better.
It made Lorraine’s heart ache horribly. She had no way of helping her baby understand that she couldn’t magically take the discomfort away, no matter how desperately they both wished she could.
Weeping silently, Lorraine closed her eyes and cradled the back of Judy’s head in her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, almost inaudible. “Mommy loves you. You’ll feel better soon. You’ll feel all better…”
Humming a lullaby, Lorraine soothed herself and her baby.
Between sniffles and kisses to Judy’s forehead, she heard Ed’s approach from the hallway. Soon he was close enough for Lorraine to hear him humming with her, sleepy voice warm beside her ear. His arm wrapped around her waist and he stroked a hand over Judy’s head.
“I wanna stay with her,” insisted Lorraine, again, her voice thick.
Ed exhaled through a kiss to her head. “I know.”
And he did. He was there when Judy was born. He saw her little body, curled lifeless and pale, in her mother’s arms. His soul was woven with Lorraine’s as it plummeted through the earth, heavy as lead with the grief that he feared his wife might never heal from.
So he knew as well as Lorraine did what it meant to be with their daughter, to hold her close, when she was fighting.
“Lemme stay with you,” said Ed softly, half a question. “Both of you.”
He kept a hand on Lorraine’s back while settling into the chair that she’d been treating as her bed. Lorraine followed along. She kept the baby tight to her chest and sat into Ed’s lap, knees close to Judy’s little back, resting her own head against Ed’s shoulder.
The baby’s cries settled to soft whimpers. As if she could feel the warm safety provided by both her parents’ bodies, with one of Judy’s little hands wrapped around a lock of Lorraine’s hair, she stopped her squirming.
Lorraine felt Ed’s lips touch her forehead. A lingering tear fell from her cheek.
—
Lorraine was leaning against the big front counter in the school office when Judy came around the corner, escorted by the school nurse. Judy’s big backpack hung on her sunken shoulders, practically bigger than she was. She looked pale and sleepy.
Humming, Lorraine tilted her head. “Oh. There’s my girl.”
Judy waved both her little hands. “Hi, Mommy.”
“She’s not feeling well,” sing-songed the nurse, patting the back of Judy’s head. “Poor thing was sick after lunch. She ought to spend a day or two at home.”
“Yes. We can do that.” Lorraine opened her arm to welcome her daughter into her side. With a run of her fingers through Judy’s hair, she sighed, “Let’s go get you some rest, honey. Mmm?”
Judy hummed, affirmative. She rubbed her face with her hands.
Lorraine got Judy’s backpack off of her and tossed it over her own shoulder. She lowered down to hoist her daughter up onto her hip. Judy draped herself over her mother’s shoulder, burrowing into the crook of Lorraine’s neck.
In the car, Lorraine kept glancing at Judy in the backseat through the rear-view mirror. Her little girl leaned her head on the door. Lorraine carried her into the house, hung up her backpack and jacket, and gestured for Judy to follow her upstairs to the bathroom.
“Come here, honey.”
Lorraine squatted down on the tile floor. She fished the thermometer out of the drawer under the sink and ushered Judy to come to her.
“Under your tongue,” said Lorraine. “Okay? We’ll sing. Like last time.”
Judy nodded. She’d made a fuss about the silvery end of the glass in her mouth the last time she wasn’t feeling well. She said it felt uncomfy. So Lorraine distracted her with all four verses of “Jesus Loves Me,” sung with the little illustrative hand motions that she would teach the children in Sunday school at church.
Judy settled into her mother’s lap. While Lorraine sang, Judy mirrored her hands in the air.
By the time the thermometer was done, Judy was even smiling and giggling. Lorraine kissed her forehead.
“Good job, love.” She took the thermometer to check the tiny little numbers. “Guess what? No fever!”
“That’s good, Mommy?” asked Judy, grabbing at Lorraine’s hand to take a look herself.
“That’s very good.” Another kiss. Lorraine pointed to the numbers. “See where the little line stops? If it was higher up, that would mean your body is too warm. But it looks like your temperature is just right.”
Judy nodded approvingly. “Just right.”
Lorraine lifted Judy up again to carry her down to the living room. “Just right, honey. We’ll just let you rest for the day, alright?”
Gasping excitedly, Judy squeezed at her mother’s shoulder. "Sesame Street, Mommy?”
With a smile, Lorraine kissed Judy’s cheek before letting her down to run to the couch. “Yes, Judy. That sounds perfect.”
—
“I’m sorry, Mom,” moaned Judy from the passenger seat. She was curled up around her middle, knees up to her chest, hands pressing on her lower belly.
Lorraine looked over at her with a sad smile.
“Oh, honey. I’ve felt the same way that you do, hundreds of times. Nothing to be sorry for.”
Judy dropped her forehead to the car window. “You mean it’s gonna happen like this hundreds more times?”
In the middle of the day at Vacation Bible School, Judy had crumpled to the floor of the bathroom, bleeding through her menstrual pad and nearly fainting in pain. One of the college kids volunteering as a youth counselor had helped her up to find a phone and call Lorraine to come take her home.
“You’re gonna get through it, baby.” Lorraine reached over to touch the back of her fingers to her daughter’s cheek. “It’s the worst. I know. We’ll get you feeling better.”
Skeptically, Judy groaned, “How?”
“Oh, your Mom’s got a couple decades’ worth of experience in this arena. Have some faith.”
In the driveway, Lorraine wished she could scoop her daughter up and carry her inside the way she used to. She held Judy’s waist and told her to go do what she needed in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Lorraine found the Motrin in the kitchen cabinet and the heating pad in the linen closet.
She knew Judy liked her parents’ bed when she was hurting — emotionally or physically. So she pulled back the covers on her own side of the bed, plugged in the heating pad, and tucked it under the blankets to warm up. On the little radio on Ed’s nightstand, she turned to the station that played Judy’s favorite new music.
When Judy shuffled out of the bathroom, she fetched her book, her stuffed bear, and her favorite blanket off her bed. She poked her head into her parents’ room.
“I can stay in here?” asked Judy softly.
She’d taken her hair down, letting it hang around her shoulders and tumble into her face.
Lorraine smiled at her. “Yes. Come here. I’ll show you how to help you feel better.”
“Thank you,” murmured Judy, clutching her bear to her stomach, appearing for a moment much littler than thirteen.
She let her mother tuck her into the bed, lying back on a pile of pillows. Lorraine gave her the heating pad.
“It’ll keep getting warmer for a few minutes,” she said. “I’ll put it on your tummy, here. But you can also lie down on it if your back starts to hurt, too.”
“Mmm. It feels nice.”
“Good.” Lorraine smiled. She rubbed her hand over the heat, praying for a moment to send as much warmth as she could into her daughter’s cramping muscles.
Grabbing the Motrin from the nightstand, Lorraine deposited a couple of tablets into her palm and handed them to Judy with a cup of water.
“These will help, too. It might take a little while. Be patient.”
Judy obeyed. She seemed a little lighter. If anything, her mom’s attention helped to soothe her soul.
“I know it’s a horrible feeling,” Lorraine sighed. “I’m sorry you have to go through it. But it gets better, over time, as you get used to it. You learn what to do.”
Judy nodded. “Thank you, Mom.”
Lorraine stroked back Judy’s hair and kissed her forehead. “I’m going to run out to the store, okay? I’ll be just a few minutes.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“What would you like me to get? Black raspberry?”
Judy’s eyes lit up.
Shocked and delighted, she murmured, "Ice cream?"
Lorraine brought her finger to her lips silently, playful, smile bright in her eyes.
—
Judy’s alarm radio glowed red on her nightstand — quarter-till one — when she rolled over for the umpteenth time in her little twin bed. Her hands were cold. The tears that dripped off the bridge of her nose, down to her pillow, were hot. The very core of her, deep in her belly, trembled on an impossible loop of sadness. A deep kind of despair, inexplicable and painful.
Listening to the neighbors’ windchimes clang, Judy told herself, fifteen more minutes. If she still felt so awful when her clock read one, she would surrender and go wake her parents.
It’s what they would want her to do.
She was home from college, just over a week into her summer break. The familiar mattress, blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals felt good, smelled good, but they weren’t enough to soothe the heavy ache pressing on her chest.
She breathed through the next fifteen minutes of hurt. Nothing felt any better.
So Judy rolled her feet to the floor, teddy bear and seasonal throw blanket tucked under her arm, and found her way in the dark to her bedroom door. The little nightlight, a yellow daffodil on the wall, lit the hallway for her to find her parents’ room around the corner. She inhaled, breath shaking, tears still falling, before pushing open the door.
Like a little girl again, Judy padded across the carpet. She sank to her knees next to Lorraine’s side of the bed. Through the dim air, less thick with sadness than her own room, Judy made out the soft, sleepy lines of her mother’s face.
Judy swallowed one of many lumps in her throat. She managed to bring her voice to the surface.
“Mom.” She whispered it while rubbing her mother’s shoulder. Tears bubbled up in her throat. She choked. “Mommy.”
“Mmm.”
Lorraine’s breathing shifted, then her legs, and then her eyes flickered. After taking a moment to wake up, she inhaled, sharp and deep.
“Judy,” she mumbled, voice rough. Then: “Judy? Wha’ is it?”
Sitting back on her heels, Judy tried to take in a good, deep breath. She hiccuped on a sob. Her mind rifled through ways to explain what was wrong. Even that was too overwhelming.
Lorraine wasted no time pulling herself up, propping herself on her hands.
“Honey. What’s the matter? Are you sick?”
Judy shook her head. Then she nodded, shrugged, and choked again.
She moaned, “I feel awful, Mom.”
Clicking her tongue, Lorraine leaned in closer to take in her daughter’s face in the dark, twisted up with sadness. She reached out to cup Judy’s cheek in her hand.
“Oh… baby.”
Judy thanked God that her mom was so capable of putting together the pieces of someone’s mind without needing the words to explain it.
Lorraine’s own face sank. She steadied herself against her nightstand and stretched out enough to kiss Judy’s forehead, tiding her over for another minute.
“Let’s go downstairs,” whispered Lorraine. “Do you want to go down to the family room together?”
Judy nodded. She also felt grateful that her father was such a heavy sleeper.
“Yes, please.”
“Mm-hmm. Let’s do that.”
Judy clung onto her mother’s arm all the way down the stairs. Lorraine held a couple of pillows under her other elbow. She set them up against the arm of the couch. She sat, looking at her daughter, trembling with her blanket and her bear bundled up in her shaking arms. Judy’s tearful eyes looked at everything in the room, out the windows, on the floor.
“Judy. Honey.” Lorraine’s voice was soft, without a trace of forcefulness. She still carried the warm weight of sleep. “Come here. Come sit.”
She extended out her arm. She wrapped it around Judy’s waist when she came to sit in her mother’s lap. Judy’s knees trembled. She chewed on her knuckle.
“Talk to me, baby,” pleaded Lorraine gently.
Her fingertips carded slowly through Judy’s hair. Her eyes examined her face.
A deep, shaking inhale, and Judy whispered, “I just feel so afraid.”
Lorraine breathed an empathetic hum. “Of what?”
Judy’s hands covered her face, almost involuntarily. She wanted to hide. She felt like a little girl, terrified of her own sadness.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just feel… so overwhelmed. I don’t know where it’s coming from.”
God knew Lorraine was familiar enough with this same feeling. It broke her heart to watch her daughter hurt the same as she did herself, before she had grown enough to make sense of what Heaven or Hell had chosen her to carry.
When Lorraine blinked, Judy’s silhouette behind her eyes became the sight of herself. Young, afraid, lost in desperation. Lorraine’s own soul was tossed to the shadowy corners of her childhood home whenever she went to her mother, crying these same tears.
Since Judy was a tiny, wriggling little thing, Lorraine had promised her -- as long as she herself was living and breathing -- Judy would never be left alone in her fear.
So Lorraine slipped her arms tightly around her baby’s waist to lie back on the pillows with Judy curled into her chest.
“It’s okay,” whispered Lorraine. “You don’t have to know anything. I’ll just stay here with you.”
Face wet and contorted with surrender, Judy breathed in the warm sweetness of her mother’s skin between sobs.
—
Judy had been staying with her parents for barely one full week, but was almost twelve into her pregnancy and still losing her breakfast almost every morning in the guest bathroom. Tony had to leave town for work – too fresh in his new position to beg off for his wife’s sake – but Lorraine and Ed were more than willing to prop up their daughter while she was too sick to be alone.
It was an early Saturday when Lorraine came upstairs to change the bedsheets. She found Judy panting on the tile, shoulders and head tossed back against the wall beside the bathtub.
“Judy, oh —”
Lorraine dropped the linens she was carrying to the floor in the hall and sank on her knees. She stroked her hand over her daughter’s hair.
“Mom.” Judy’s voice shuddered out of her throat. Her eyes weakly searched for her mother’s. “I feel so awful.”
Wrapping an arm around Judy’s shoulders, squeezing her, Lorraine whispered, “Oh, baby. I know. I’m sorry.”
In the back of Lorraine’s mind flickered the dim shadows of the Smurl house. The aching sound of Judy’s weak little coughs, her uncomfortable squirms sending her trickle of blood over her lip and into her mouth. It was a memory almost half a decade old, but too heavy not to stick.
For a split second, Lorraine wondered if she would feel this same fear every time she saw Judy sick for the rest of her life.
With a sudden, shaky breath, Judy threw herself to her side to heave up some of the last of her latest meal over the edge of the tub. A sleeve of her nightgown slid down her shoulder to the clammy crook of her elbow.
Lorraine shook her head slowly and rubbed her hand over Judy’s belly. With her sensitive psyche, she felt the tiny thump of growing life there and she sighed. She hated to see Judy so uncomfortable. But at least she knew that, this time, it was a natural response to how much Judy’s body was working to form that of her own little girl.
“I’m so tired, Mom, I’m —”
Judy’s face twisted up as she started to cry again. She felt barely strong enough to hold herself up to sit.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Here, let’s – let’s lie you down here. Okay?”
Lorraine spread two towels across the floor; one for Judy to curl up on, the other to catch her sick mess. She bundled another into a pillow where Judy set her head. She was on her side on her makeshift cot for a mere few seconds before another cramp clenched her stomach and her jaw. She vomited again, more stomach acid than anything else. Her forearms held her middle and then fell limp, like the rest of her.
She would stay for another few minutes, at least, before the retching and the worst of the nausea passed. But then her exhaustion would keep her muscles rendered useless. Lorraine would rub her back and her arm and her thigh until Ed came in from the weekly grocery run. Lorraine would call for him to come help carry his daughter back to her bed.
Lorraine would slip under the covers beside her sleeping girl, unable to resist the pull she would always feel, deep in her own belly. To be close, to kiss and hold her baby, praying for peace in Judy’s soul.
—
The water flowed into the sink as strongly as the faucet could run. Lorraine wanted the white noise; she felt all too weak to be standing at the counter, washing the dishes. The water becoming static in the back of her head was the best she could find to numb the rest of her senses.
Her chest was heavy. Her sinuses, blocked up, sent a dull ache to the front of her forehead. A line of sweat drew an arc from temple to temple. She knew, somewhere deep in her belly, that she shouldn’t be off the couch or out of bed. But since Ed messed up his back hauling mulch the week before, he hadn’t been capable of moving off the sofa in the basement without her help, anyway. Every meal and every dish and every phone call had been up to her.
With Tony and the baby visiting his side of their new little family, Judy arrived to lend her helping hands to her own parents the previous morning. All the same, Lorraine had done her best to hide her fever and aches.
But even she had her limits. As much as she tried to deny them.
Lorraine rallied every ounce of focus in order to line up the bowls from breakfast in the draining rack beside the sink. She followed her hands on every movement, moving her head along with her eyes because throbbing discomfort accompanied any shift of her gaze side-to-side.
It's okay, she told herself. Breathe. Take it slow.
Suddenly, her hands started to shake. She had broken her concentration just long enough to lose her grip. A measuring cup slipped between her dishwashing gloves.
Lorraine watched as it fell, almost in slow motion, spinning off the edge of the counter to the floor. She blinked and then opened her eyes to a firework of ceramic shards scattered across the tile.
The noise rattled in her ears. The roar of the faucet didn’t do enough to block out the crash. Lorraine threw her hands, gloved and covered in bubbles, over her ears.
"Damn it," she whimpered.
Burning tears welled up in her eyes in an instant. She reached to steady herself on the counter, gathering her thoughts enough to smack the faucet off, hard enough her palm stung. Her knees wobbled. She landed on them, rough, unable to keep her grasp on the sink.
She was trembling there, weeping, forehead fallen to rest on the back of her wrist when Judy rounded the corner into the kitchen.
It took a moment for Judy to recognize the details of the scene. The sink, full of water and bubbles. The cup broken on the floor. Her mother, hunched and shuddering over it, looking just as broken.
“Oh, Mom —” Judy stepped around the corner of the counter toward her.
As soon as she registered Judy’s presence, Lorraine straightened, as much as she could. She sniffled, shook her head, and started gathering the broken pieces into the palm of her glove.
“It’s fine,” she croaked. “It’s – It’s just a measuring cup. Just… slipped out of my hand. It’s fine.”
Judy breathed a rough exhale. She sank down to squat in front of her mother.
“The cup isn’t what I’m worried about.”
She took hold of Lorraine’s shoulders. So close, Lorraine couldn’t hide her teary eyes and red face.
“Come on,” said Judy with gentle firmness. “Put those pieces in the trash. I’ll clean up the rest.”
Biting down on her lip, Lorraine nodded. She opened the cupboard under the sink to drop the shards into the paper bag inside. She made herself stand again, drain the sink, and yank off the gloves that had her hands sweating. The back of her neck had grown hot and damp, too.
Judy fetched the broom and pan from the corner. She exchanged glances between the floor and her mother, unsteady and petting her chest with trembling hands over the emptying sink. She watched as Lorraine reached for the lotion she kept in the cabinet, to refresh the acceptable moisture of her hands and wrists after washing up. All the while, Lorraine shivered with a deep, interwoven overwhelm of sadness and deep frustration. Frustration with herself. With her weakness that she couldn’t control.
With a sigh, Judy dumped the contents of the dustpan into the trash.
“Mom, you need some rest,” she said gently. “Please? Just for a little while.”
Lorraine opened her mouth first to argue. But as she did, another rush of soreness pulsed at the nape of her neck. She winced.
“I’ll finish up down here,” added Judy.
She touched her mother’s back. The feeling reminded Lorraine of Ed’s strong hands.
“Alright.” Lorraine closed her eyes and nodded. “Thank you, honey.”
Judy kissed her shoulder as Lorraine surrendered and left the kitchen for the stairs, wringing her hands on the way.
With the remaining few plates washed and dried, the counter wiped clean, Judy fetched the ibuprofen from the cabinet. She filled a glass with water and three ice cubes, the way her mother liked it.
Walking up to her parents’ bedroom, too, Judy wasn’t sure what state she might find her in. But, thankfully, Lorraine sat silently on the edge of her side of the bed, dabbing at her teary eyes with a tissue wrapped around her finger. Her shoulders shook just a little with each deep breath she swallowed down.
“Here.”
Judy handed her the water and a couple of pills.
“Thank you, Judy,” said Lorraine with a trembling smile.
She couldn’t help it, the need to pretend she was more okay than she felt. Her daughter knew better, for better or for worse.
Judy sat beside her to help pull her hair up, off her neck, into a simple ponytail. As clear as it was that her mother wasn’t feeling her best, the temperature of Lorraine’s skin was a surprise.
“Mom… Jesus, you’re burning up.”
“But I feel so cold,” murmured Lorraine.
Another sniffle, full of sadness. She swallowed the medicine, sipped at the water, and then set the cup on her nightstand.
“I know,” Judy sighed.
She rubbed her hand at Lorraine’s forearm and watched her slowly scoot herself back to lay down on her side. Lorraine squeezed the corner of her pillow in her hands.
Judy reached down to peel off her flats. Then, she crawled up the bed to copy her mother’s position, curling up behind her. With steadier hands, she slid her arm around Lorraine’s middle and pulled herself to her back, close and snug. Maybe the warmth of her own body could help her mother feel better, just a tiny bit.
Judy draped her other arm up on her own pillow — her father’s — and bent her elbow to rest her forearm at the right angle to gently caress the slope of Lorraine’s hair. Stroking her wispy baby hairs back, off her temple.
Lorraine exhaled and it was unsteady, staggering. “I’m — I’m sorry, Judy. I’m…”
Clicking her tongue, Judy lifted her head a little. “What on earth for?
Blinking, eyes freshly tearful, Lorraine almost scoffed, “You’re my baby.” She grabbed a hold of Judy’s hand and squeezed it, holding it to her sternum. She hid a kiss in her daughter’s knuckles. “You’re not supposed to take care of me."
Judy shook her head. Through her nose, she chuckled softly.
“You’re so silly.”
Lorraine turned her head, as best she could, to look back at Judy. Among her tears was the pinching of her eyebrows.
“You really have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to hold my Momma like this?” Judy played with a soft curl of her mother’s hair. “Do me this favor, Mom. For once, let me help you feel better.”
Lorraine’s gaze wandered around her daughter’s face. For a few moments, her eyes bubbled with fresh tears. With her shaking fingers, she reached back to brush Judy’s dark bangs out of her bright eyes.
Breath shaking, too, Lorraine shifted her shoulder to roll onto her other side, toward her daughter. She tangled their legs up together. Sighing a sigh dense with her tears, she pulled her aching body close to Judy’s, imbued with such strength. Lorraine squeezed her tight and wept.
This body that she had birthed, that pulled her own spirit back from Heaven in her mother’s sweaty arms. A spirit that saved Lorraine again and again, everyday, reinforcing the weakened spaces in her own soul. A body that Lorraine had held through feverish nights and broken bones and even more deeply-broken hearts.
Lorraine would never stop wanting to hold her baby. And now, her baby got to hold her, too.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Lorraine found Judy’s cheek, just a bit higher in latitude than her own, and stroked her soft skin with the backs of her fingers.
“Thank you, baby,” whispered Lorraine. “My baby. You’re so gentle. It feels wonderful.”
Lorraine felt Judy’s lips touch her forehead. Against her warm skin, a soft hum.
“Mmm. Where do you think I got it from?”
Taking hold of her mother’s hand on her cheek, Judy smiled.