Dani
Day one of my new life as Pip’s caregiver began at exactly five o’clock standard time, just as Andrek had promised. I woke at four, too nervous to sleep, rehearsing everything I’d read in the files Andrek sent me. I thought I prepared myself well.
How wrong I was.
“Good morning,” Andrek said when I opened my door and took two steps to the nursery.
He looked far too alert for such an ungodly hour.
Already awake, Pip rested on a cushioned platform near the window, watching the pre-dawn sky with those large, luminous eyes.
When she saw me, something in her expression shifted.
I didn’t see fear or distrust, but I got the sense I was not welcome.
“Good morning,” I managed, trying to project confidence I did not feel.
Andrek gestured me forward. “We’ll start with the morning routine.
First, the greeting. It’s important. It sets the emotional tone for the day.
” He moved toward Pip with fluid grace, lowering himself to the child’s eye level.
“Good morning, little star,” he murmured, his voice pitched lower and softer than I’d heard it before. “Did you sleep well?”
Pip immediately reached for him, small hands grasping at Andrek’s shirt, and pressed her forehead against Andrek’s chest. They stayed like that for a long moment, and I could see Andrek’s eyes close, his tail curling protectively around Pip’s small form.
“This is the morning bond,” Andrek explained, his voice not rising above a whisper. “She needs physical contact, calm emotions, and reassurance. She needs to feel that the world is safe before she can engage with it.” He gently extracted himself and guided Pip to turn toward me. “Now you try.”
I knelt down, my human joints protesting the unfamiliar position, and tried to remember everything he’d just done. “Good morning, Pip,” I said, keeping my voice soft. “How are you?”
Pip stared at me for a long second, then turned away and reached for Andrek, a desperate keening sound passing her lips. It made my heart clench.
“It’s alright,” Andrek said, scooping Pip up. “She’s new, but she’s staying. Danielle promised. You’ll get used to her.” But over Pip’s head, I saw concern in his eyes, and I knew we were both wondering the same thing: what if she doesn’t?
By the time we reached breakfast, I failed at a few tasks I didn’t know I could. Walking, for one. Pip needed slow, loud footsteps so she wouldn’t startle. I learned she needed to see me coming, and not to approach her from behind, and to keep my emotions in check as my frustration level rose.
That last one was the hardest. How was I supposed to keep my emotions neutral when everything I did seemed to make Pip uncomfortable?
“The morning meal is critical,” Andrek said, setting Pip in her specially designed seat at the table. “She’s always hungry when he wakes, but she’s also the most volatile, emotionally speaking. If feeding goes poorly, it affects the entire day.”
Of course. No pressure, then.
He showed me the food preparation with a mixture of grain-like substances and pureed fruit, warmed to a specific temperature and mixed until it reached a precise consistency.
Too thick and Pip would reject it. Too thin and she couldn’t eat it properly.
The color had to be right too, a warm golden-orange that apparently signaled safety and nourishment to young Yxians. What have I gotten myself into?
I watched Andrek prepare it and tried to memorize every movement. He handed me the bowl and spoon.
“Your turn,” he said. “I’ll be right here.”
I settled into the chair across from Pip, and offered a smile that Pip didn’t return. Her eyes tracked the bowl in my hands with suspicion I didn’t expect from an infant. Judgemental much?
“Okay, Pip,” I mumbled. “Breakfast time. This is your favorite, right? The golden sunrise blend?” I’d made up the name, but it sounded cheerful to my ears.
Pip’s face crumpled, and she cried - not fussy whimpering, but a full-throated wailing. The sound shot straight through my skull and activated every panic response I had. I looked at Andrek, holding myself together.
“What did I do?”
“You’re anxious,” he said, moving closer. “She feels it. Here.” He placed his hand over mine on the spoon, steadying it. “Breathe. Center yourself. Think of something calm.”
I tried. I thought about the moons I’d seen last night, serene and distant. Pip’s crying overrode my senses, and all I could feel was the crushing certainty that I was failing before I’d even begun.
Andrek took the bowl from my hands, and within thirty seconds, had Pip calm and eating. The difference was stark and humiliating.
“It’s the first day,” Andrek said, but even his patience sounded strained. “Pip needs time to adjust to you.”
I wasn’t sure I had time - not if every single interaction went like this.
By day three, I’d made a non-comprehensive list on my tablet of everything I was doing wrong.
I held Pip wrong. My body was too tense, and my arms didn’t curve enough to support her back.
I fed her wrong, usually too fast, because I didn’t wait for her to swallow between bites.
I chose the wrong toys or didn’t understand how she arranged them so I played with her wrong too.
I even breathed wrong around her, too. Maybe I was too human.
“You’re overthinking,” Andrek said after I’d spent twenty minutes trying to get Pip interested in a puzzle she loved yesterday. Today, the moment I touched it, she turned away. “Children can sense when you’re forcing it.”
“I’m not forcing anything,” I snapped, then regretted it when Pip’s crying intensified. I handed the puzzle back to Andrek. “I’m doing what you told me to do, and nothing is right.”
“I told you to be calm. Don’t put on a performance.” He picked up Pip, who buried her face in Andrek’s neck. Something ugly and sharp twisted in my chest.
Jealousy. How the hell was I jealous of a child’s bond with their father? God, what was wrong with me?
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I murmured, staring at the rejected puzzle pieces scattered across the floor. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this.”
Andrek’s tail stilled. “If you’re going to leave, do it now. Before…”
“I’m not leaving,” I interrupted, my words coming out more harshly than I intended. “I said I’d stay, and I meant it. But maybe you should have higher standards than ‘the only person desperate enough to apply.’”
A mixture of hurt and anger flashed across Andrek’s face at my cruel words.
“I apologize for my desperation inconveniencing you,” he said, his voice ice-cold. “Tomorrow, five o’clock. We’ll work on the sleep ritual. Don’t be late.”
He left with Pip, and I sat alone in the playroom, surrounded by toys I didn’t understand for a child who didn’t want me.
Day five brought a new circle of hell: the soothing harmonics.
“Yxian children respond to specific frequency ranges,” Andrek explained, Pip fussy and overtired in his arms. We had a rough afternoon.
During play time, Pip fell and scraped one of her knees.
Despite Andrek’s quick response with medical supplies, the child was inconsolable.
“When they’re distressed, they need to hear sounds that remind them of being in the womb.
Low frequencies, resonant tones all working in sync to a steady rhythm. ”
He shifted Pip to a cradling position and hummed.
I’d heard a lot of sounds in my life. Earth sounds of music and traffic and the constant electronic hum of surveillance systems, but never anything like this.
It started deep in Andrek’s chest, a vibration so low I felt it in my bones before I heard it with my ears.
It thrummed through the air, rich and alive, modulating in subtle ways that I couldn’t track, but found soothing.
Pip’s crying tapered off within seconds. Her small body relaxed, breathing evening out, and I watched in amazement as her eyes drifted closed.
“That’s,” I struggled for words. “That’s beautiful. How do you do that?”
“Resonance chambers in the chest,” Andrek said between hums. “Some species have them. For Yxians, they develop in adolescence, part of secondary sexual characteristics. The males’ are lower, more suited for calming, while females’ are higher, better for alerting and energizing.
” He glanced at me. “You’ll need to learn to approximate it. ”
My stomach sank. “I don’t have resonance chambers.”
“No, but you have vocal cords and a diaphragm. You can create similar frequencies with practice.” He finally stopped humming as Pip fell into a deep sleep. The absence of the humming felt like a loss. “Try it. Low as you can go, steady rhythm.”
I felt ridiculous, but I tried. The sound that came out was nothing like Andrek’s resonant hum. It was weak and wavered. To my ears, it sounded more like a groan kids mimicked on Halloween. Pip stirred in his sleep, her face scrunching up, and I stopped.
“That’s normal for a first attempt,” Andrek said, though I detected a hint of doubt in his voice. “It takes practice. Try again, but from your chest, not your throat. Feel the vibration.”
I tried again. Multiple times. Each attempt was worse than the last. I practiced until my throat hurt.
“Enough,” Andrek said, standing carefully with Pip in his arms. “We’ll practice more tomorrow. Without Pip present, I think.”
The dismissal stung, even though I knew it was practical. I couldn’t learn this with an empath child feeling my failure.
“Andrek,” I called as he reached the door. He paused, looking back. “Does it get easier? Please tell me it gets easier.”
For a moment, he looked as tired as I felt. “I don’t know, Danielle. I wish I did, but I don’t know.”
By day seven, I’d stopped counting my failures. There were too many.