Stay Small by Bridget Healy
If I hold my breath and count to one hundred, it will
go away, Caroline thought, remembering her grandmother’s advice about
conquering her fears. She counted silently, one two three…but could only
make it to seventy-one before her lungs burned and the air tore out of her,
filling the space beneath the covers with the stink of her insides.
She made herself as flat as possible, pressing down into the mattress, wanting
to disappear, but her bumpy form kept rising above, those god-damned breasts
poking through. They had grown so large, spilling over the bra her mother had
just purchased for back to school. Caroline wanted them gone, return to being
flat when there were no differences between boys and girls, when boys didn’t
stare at your chest like it was something to be feared or conquered.
The girl willed herself deeper into the mattress, wanting the bed to swallow
her whole, until nothing was left, not even memories. Her eyes trembled and
she vowed not to cry; bit down hard on her lower lip until she tasted copper.
She pressed the flats of her hands hard against her stomach, whispered, stay
small, please stay small.
A tentative knock on the door and her mother entered, asking why she hadn’t
gotten out of bed—it was already past eleven. Caroline could feel her
standing guard in the doorway, caging her in.
“Caroline, are you awake?” Her mother cleared her throat and approached
the bed. “My little bird,” she inhaled wetly, “what’s
wrong now?” A hot hand fixed on the girl’s ankle and gave a gentle
shake; Caroline tugged her foot away. “Wake up little birdie,” she
sang, “the sun is shining and it’s time to play.” Words from
childhood for a girl who no longer lived here.
She held her breath, counted, twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five…Her
mother sighed and worried the blankets covering her daughter’s feet. “Just
let me see your face so I know you’re alive.” She laughed, like
trying to play a game with babies who don’t want to eat. forty-seven
forty-eight forty-nine…
The clunky jumble of plastic beads filtered beneath the covers. “Let’s
pray the rosary together, pumpkin. God will guide us.” Caroline
smiled coldly into the blanket; it was god that got her into the mess, he sure
wasn’t
going to help her get out of it.
Her mother incanted the Virgin Mary through a repetition of prayer. Caroline
stopped breathing, letting the husk of her body crumple in on itself. She felt
herself floating and lifting, like when you first begin to fall asleep, closing
her eyes to the brightness of it all…Her mother’s hand brought
her back abruptly, as if she’d been a toy balloon ripped from the sky
to pop it. She sighed, the weight of the world more than she could bear.
Her mother cried, “Tell me what to do? How can I help you if you don’t
tell me what to do?” seventy-two seventy-three seventy-four…
Caroline’s lungs threatened to betray her, but she focused on one hundred,
could just barely reach it. She felt water rise around her, sweep her
into its cold, comforting arms. eighty-nine ninety ninety-one… sank.
She
woke with a start, the room silent and dark. This is death,
she thought,
an empty house to haunt forever. Caroline inched her head above
the blanket to see how the landscape had changed. Her deserted bedroom
remained a dulled
collection of her youth. She coughed weakly, her frail hand against her
mouth terrifying her for a moment, as if it belonged to another girl. The
cough reminded her she was still alive, the thing still in her.
Caroline’s head drooped below the blankets. She pressed hard on her
stomach until it hurt, thinking of the thing floating inside. Stay small, she
prayed to it, then to her mother’s god, make it stay small…
Bridget Healy
Bridget Healey lives in Kansas with her husband and two daughters,
Sharon and Frances. When she is not working, she writes short fiction, normally
late at night when only the cat is awake. This is her first published story.
