Chapter 18
That was the night I was awakened by a horrifying wail, almost inhuman.
Ida or Henry, I thought frantically; which one?
My mind conjured bones jutting from skin, pools of blood.
Another shattering cry: “Mommy!” Not Henry.
Ida, calling to me from the hallway. I’d pulled the covers off, heart thudding, cold floor against my feet.
“Mommy, help!”
“What’s happening?” Tom murmured, surfacing.
“It’s Ida.” She had gone silent; I called hoarsely to her, “I’m coming; stay where you are.
” I found her frozen at the foot of three shallow steps, halfway to her bedroom.
Crouching, I began running my hands over her.
There didn’t seem to be any blood, but she was shivering.
“It’s okay,” I soothed, “you’re all right. ”
Very slowly, she shook her head, no. Pointing, “Look.”
I stiffened. On the step behind me, the one I had just walked on with my bare feet, was a small white scorpion, its tail lifted. “Ida, stay still.”
She nodded, her eyes white orbs of panic.
“It didn’t sting you, did it?”
She began to cry again, to scream in fury, “No! You’re the mother! Do something!”
“Don’t speak to her that way,” came Tom’s disembodied voice from the bedroom.
“What will happen to me?” Ida panted, ignoring him.
“Nothing. We just need to stay calm.”
“But what if it stings me?” she demanded. “Will I die?”
“You’ll be fine,” I told her.
“Don’t lie to me!”
“I would never lie to you; come, come, my angel, put your arms around me.”
She whimpered but did as I said, and I struggled up to my feet, clutching her tightly as I turned toward my room.
To calm myself, I continued to speak into her ear, “We’re fine, it won’t get us, we’re safe,” dumbly lifting a bare foot onto the first step, the second, like a person just thawed from ice, awkward and bewildered, Ida’s ungainly limbs overspilling my arms as I shuffled ahead, her sharp chin pressing my shoulder, her cold hard feet little muscled fish striking my knees.
At the bedroom door, I barked, “Tom, get up.”
“What is it?”
“There’s a scorpion on the hall steps. The bottom one,” I said, clipped, making clear what I wanted him to do. Clumsily I lowered her onto the jumbled covers, climbed beside her. Tom had picked up one of his shoes, carrying it into the tunneled darkness. We heard the first quick strike, the second.
“What if it’s still alive?”
“It’s not. Daddy made sure.” I pulled her stiffened body to me. I was still a bit drunk; I had a drunkard’s self-indulgence, thinking, When did she get so tall? She isn’t even mine anymore. As if children ever are, Ida especially.
“It’s dead,” Tom said, dropping heavily back into the bed.
“You see, darling? You’re okay,” I cooed at her. “We’re together, safe.”
“Mommy’s right, Ida,” Tom said, rolling onto his side to reach across me, stroking Ida’s cheek. “Estás bien.”
“No Spanish!” Ida shrieked, jerking away from his hand.
I turned my back to him, making my body a wall between him and Ida, curling against her.
Having divided us, Ida calmed. Through the dimness, I saw a look of uncanny wisdom and otherworldliness pass onto her face; it was the expression that I had associated with her from the very first moment she appeared, only her head yet born, her eyes black wells.
At length, she said in her clear, determined voice:
“Do you know what I feel like when I hear Spanish, and I understand, but I can’t say anything back? I feel like I’m this very, very small person, and the world is very, very large, and no one can hear me. I’m like the song of a tiny bird.”
The phrase astonished me. Her face was still wet with tears. Tentatively, bracing for a harsh lift of her arm, I touched her cheek. For once, she allowed the small affection.
“I used to think it would be fun,” she said.
“I thought it would be easy to speak another language.” For moments, she seemed lost in her musings, her eyes squinting in concentration.
“It isn’t.” A few more tears escaped her, stoic, hot as bathwater beneath my fingers.
Then, at last, she rolled onto her side and slept.