Baby

Baby



“How do you like it?  Is it all right?” she asks me.
I finish chewing and swallow.
“Yeah! It's great!” I tell her.

We had been dating for about a month now,
still getting to know each other in some ways
but we had already shared quite a bit about each other
and we were definitely making a connection.
It was nice.

I knew her father had left her and her mother and little brother
when she was seven and I knew she liked horses and a lot!
She had gone to college at UNLV and was now working
as an accountant.

There is more that I could tell you but you get my drift.
We had shared some things.
We were getting to know each other and we were becoming closer.
We were learning what made each other “tick” and what did not.

I knew the most difficult thing that she was dealing with
was the very recent loss of her baby from a previous relationship
that had gone terribly wrong.
She had decided to keep the baby though.
Everything had become about the baby.
And as it should.
I had really begun feeling her excitement over the baby with her.
A week ago all that had changed though with the loss.

Ever since losing the baby she had changed
and of course I felt that that was certainly understandable of course.
I wanted to be here for her, help her through it if I could.
I would certainly try.
Just be here and let her work things out and heal.

It did concern me some however how everything was still about the baby in a sense.
She called everything “her baby” and I mean literally everything.

“This is my baby,” she would say about a book, the television.
Anything and everything was “her baby.”
I was “her baby.”
She would say, “You're my baby sweetie.”

I was worried about her.
It was just a little eerie is all.
“So you like my baby?” she asked me as I took another bite.
She looked at me and I could see how troubled she was.
Her face was just....blank.
I figured she was just calling the food “her baby” just like everything else.

“Yeah. It's good hon. It really is.  What did you say this was again?”
I began to take another bite.

“It's my baby sweetie!” she said with a cheery laugh and smile that was all but comfortable
to experience.

I watched in horror as her expression went blank again immediately after, her eyes like stones gazing at me.

“Eat,” she said.  “Eat my baby.”


--msl2023