There Are No Words for Your Tender Love
A grieving mother must protect her child, even in the afterlife.
By M.W. Lockwood
• • •
She couldn’t get the smell of crushed carnations to leave her. They were the flower of choice for grieving families, second only to lilies, the funeral director had said with a practiced sympathy, while Julia wrung her hands and stared at a scuff on the wall.
Today, Julia was throwing a load of dirty toddler clothes into the washer. Even though the child was gone—despair bloomed in her chest and she sobbed, holding a tiny sock between her fingers—the washing had stayed. She didn’t have a use for the clothes anymore, but she couldn’t bear to throw them out. So, she washed them, and she folded them, and she put them away in the too-silent room with ponies painted on the walls.
After putting the last of the laundry away, Julia took a moment to lean against the wall, next to a spotted teal pony. She put her fingers to the Cheeto-smudged paint, right over the pony’s muzzle. This had been her son’s favorite of the three. Eddie had named this one Blueberry, and the pink pony with the yellow mane was Cupcake, and the silver and purple pony was Rainbow. He loved them, she thought, and thinking of Eddie in the past tense made her vision blur.
The tears flowed—they never seemed to end—and she let them. Ren was out picking up something for dinner. Neither had the time or energy to make food; it was difficult enough to force themselves to eat.
She heard the door open—how did hinges manage to sound so sad? Julia wiped her tears but more took their place. She trudged bravely into the kitchen. Ren—tall, beautiful, sweet Ren—wrapped her in a hug and they stayed like that, surrounded by the strong smell of Thai takeout and the perpetual scent of carnations.
Monday
Ren had to go back to work the week after the funeral. Bereavement leave was unpaid, and they couldn’t afford for both of them to take time off. Ren was the breadwinner, and Julia was—had been—the stay-at-home mother.
“I’m sorry, love,” Ren said and kissed Julia on the forehead. “I’ll be home as soon as I can. There is some leftover soup in the fridge.”
Don’t go! Julia wanted to scream, but she bit her tongue. The world moved on. Today would be a tough day, and tomorrow would be a tough day, and the day after, but someday—they had been assured by well-meaning friends and family—someday life wouldn’t hurt so bad.
So Julia stayed behind while the door slammed and the engine on Ren’s ‘85 Chevy grumbled to life. And in the silence that followed, she never felt more alone.
She tottered around the house as if in a daze, made herself one pot of coffee and then another, but no breakfast or lunch. By one o’clock her hands were shaking from caffeine and her head was light. She fell into a heap in their bed, but it was impossible to sleep.
She laid in bed for an hour before she heard the first scream.
She sat up fast, head pounding and vision threatening to go black. When she tucked her head between her knees, the second scream sounded.
She darted to her feet, hands trembling. Not human, she thought. It sounded like some sort of animal, but what?
She heard the sound again, clearer. It was coming from Eddie’s room; she was sure of it. And it wasn’t a scream she heard, but… a whinny?
Julia opened the door to Eddie’s room, more puzzled than afraid. It was as she had left it: nice and neat, everything in its correct place, very much the opposite of how a child’s room should be, with toys strewn around and Cheerios mashed into the carpet.
Another wave of grief—she’d had too many to count lately—swept her feet out from under her, and she collapsed on Eddie’s racecar bed. She felt like a giant sitting there, with her knees pulled up to her chin. Her bottom lip trembled and tears threatened to come again, but when Julia saw Blueberry, all of her grief dissipated in an instant, replaced by shock.
The two-dimensional teal pony was still in its prancing pose, hooves poised above the ground. Except its once-black hooves were splattered with blood. And the Cheeto-stained muzzle was no longer slightly orange, but a deep crimson.
Julia stared for a long moment, then turned her gaze to the cotton-candy pink Cupcake, and deep purple Rainbow. Cupcake was rearing—his normal pose—with blood dripping from his hooves. And Rainbow too, perpetually bashful Rainbow, was hiding behind her silver mane, the red glint of her muzzle peeking out from behind her locks.
As she sunk into the racecar bed, the paint began to chip away on the opposite wall. In a few moments, words appeared.
MOMMY HELP ME MOMMY PLEASE
Julia leapt to her feet, heart pounding in her ears, and with a voice that shook worse than her hands she said, “Eddie! Eddie, are you there?”
But the words were fading and she watched as the paint smoothed over, unscathed. She knew even before looking that the ponies’ muzzles were clean and their hooves were once again a deep black.
Julia was shaking so badly, she had to sit down. Those words—that plea—rattled around in her mind and she wanted to scream. Could it be? Of course, of course it was. Her baby. What was a mother to do in this situation?
She breathed.
She closed her eyes.
She counted to ten.
When she opened her eyes, the room was as she’d left it when she put the clothes away. Her baby was not here now, but she had no doubt he had been a moment ago. He had been here, and he had needed her help.
She paced the room, softly calling “Eddie?” and placing her ear against the walls. She was still rattling around the room when the front door groaned. Ren was home.
Julia went to greet her and a moment after Ren set eyes on her, she dropped her purse and hurried over.
“Honey, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” Ren was so worried and Julia was so touched that she began to cry.
“It’s Eddie,” she said, and the story spilled out alongside the tears.
At some point during the tale, they had migrated to the couch. Julia finished her story, and the look on Ren’s face put an immediate end to the tears.
“You don’t believe me,” Julia said.
“I believe that you believe what you saw.”
They sat in silence. Julia was seething. How can she not believe? Why would I make this up?
“Think about it,” Ren started. “Eddie never learned to write, so how could he have written those words in the paint?”
More silence. She had a point.
“I don’t care,” Julia said. “I know it was him. And besides, the ponies…”
Ren grabbed her by the shoulders and fixed her with an iron stare. “I believe you saw and heard those things. That doesn’t mean they were real.”
Ren had picked up dinner again today, and Julia was thankful. Tonight was chicken wings and pizza.
They ate in a heavy silence and promptly went to bed.
Tomorrow will be better, Julia thought, and sleep came easier than it should have.
Tuesday
Ren kissed her on the head and told her to keep busy, then she left.
That morning, Julia scrubbed the kitchen from top to bottom, but it only took her two hours. She ate breakfast—leftover pizza—and limited herself to one cup of coffee. The entire time, she kept her ear cocked towards the north, towards Eddie’s room, but the quiet day was not interrupted with whinnies or screams.
She baked a loaf of bread and vacuumed the carpet; she really tried to keep her mind off of Eddie and the funeral and the ponies with their muzzles dripping blood, but somehow she managed to find herself flipping through a photo album, the one Ren had gifted her for Mother’s Day earlier that year. Before, Julia only kept her pictures on her phone and in the cloud, but that all changed with the gifting of the photo album.
There they were at Eddie’s first birthday, Julia and Ren supervising while Eddie plowed face-first into his smash cake. And there he was in his Mickey Mouse outfit. His first haircut, the first time they helped him swim in the kiddie pool.
There were others, older ones, mostly of Eddie and Julia. Ren took most of those photos, when Eddie clung to Julia and never left her. Eddie and Julia had a bond, and it showed in the glossy photos, in their easy smiles and happy eyes.
Julia closed the album before she reached the end. She didn’t want to look at the last picture they took of him, the week before he died. She didn’t have to see the picture to view it in her mind; his bright smile and the dandelions all around him were etched in her thoughts like words in stone. He was four years old, never to make it to kindergarten, or college, never to get married or have his own children.
She tried not to think of it, but trying not to think of something only guarantees that you will think of that very thing, as she learned the hard way.
Julia breathed.
She closed her eyes.
She counted to ten.
She tucked the photo album away and with steely resolve, went to scrub the bathroom.
Wednesday
Julia decided that today she would shampoo the carpets, organize the closets, and wash the bedding.
She had only just put her cleaning gloves on and grabbed a bottle of carpet shampoo when a clatter came from Eddie’s room.
It was so loud and aggressive that for a moment, Julia wondered if someone was breaking in.
The shampoo dropped from her hand and spilled a bubbly mess onto the carpet, but Julia didn’t notice. She was already running towards Eddie’s room, ripping her gloves off and tossing them behind her before she jerked the door open.
The dresser was tipped over but the window was still locked, and not broken. Clothes were strewn everywhere, some ripped to threads, and the closet door hung limply from one hinge, a large splinter jabbed into the floor.
Stuffed animals were gutted and stomped, markers uncapped and broken, bleeding onto the carpet. The only thing that appeared to be untouched was the racecar bed, which now seemed perfectly out of place in the destroyed room.
On the walls, the ponies were covered in blood, and Rainbow had changed position: once shyly peering from behind her thick silver mane, now laying on her side with a red slash from her flank to her shoulder. Julia moved to take a closer look and stepped in something warm and wet. A puddle of blood oozed from Rainbow to the carpet, a puddle so large and dark that no amount of shampoo would ever get it out.
Surprisingly, Julia was not frightened, only concerned. Had Eddie been here? Was he okay?
Paint splintered from the walls in a large crack like thunder, and her hands instinctively flew over her ears. The words appeared all at once, repeated over and over on every inch of every wall, letters raw and jagged and desperate.
MOMMY PLEASE MOMMY PLEASE THEY WANT ME TO GO I CAN’T LEAVE YOU MOMMY HELP MOMMY PLEASE
With another boom of sound, the words disappeared and Julia fell to her knees, clutching a shredded teddy bear and burying her mouth in its matted fur to stifle her sobs.
She breathed.
She closed her eyes.
She counted to ten.
She rose slowly, surveyed the mess, and left it. Ren would believe her now. Ren would come home and see the mess and believe her.
She let the teddy bear drop from her fingers as she gently closed the door behind her. She walked as if in a trance to the computer, sat down, and opened the browser.
If the internet didn’t have answers, nobody did.
• • •
Hours later, she still hadn’t found a thing, other than far-fetched stories of angry ghosts and poltergeists on forums buried deep in the web. Nothing about dead toddlers writing on the walls, or about painted animals coming to life.
She sat back in her chair, feeling conflicted. She knew with a confidence she couldn’t explain that Eddie was there. She knew. She wasn’t crazy like those people on the internet; her story was true. But what was she supposed to do about it?
She had been a weeping mess since he died, but now, she was beyond tears. Her baby was still out there, which was somehow worse than if he had just blipped out of existence. He was alone and afraid and he wanted—needed—his mother.
A memory dredged up from the murky waters of her mind: Eddie sitting on her lap in front of the fireplace, holding their cup of hot cocoa; Julia had always shared her drinks with her son. They had been watching Rudolph—it was last Christmas, she remembered now—and she had paused the movie for some reason or another when out of the blue, Eddie asked, “Mommy, what’s the word for how much I love you?”
The question had taken her aback, and to be honest, she wasn’t sure what he had meant at the time. “The word?” she said, and he watched her with those sweet brown eyes. “Well, I don’t know. Sometimes feelings are too big for words.”
Eddie gave her a big hug and a sloppy kiss and they un-paused the movie and watched as Rudolph befriended the misfit toys. Later he said, “We can make up a word,” and then his little eyelids drooped and she carried him to bed and her heart melted as she watched him sleep.
Julia didn’t know why this came to her now, of all times, but for the first time that day, tears flowed.
They had never made up their word, she thought. She pushed her chair back, stood up, and checked her phone. Two hours before Ren got home. Plenty of time to clean Eddie’s room.
She didn’t want it to be a mess for his next visit.
• • •
Ren walked in the house just as Julia had finished gluing the massive splinter back to the closet door. She wished she had time to admire her handiwork, but she dipped out of the room and ran to greet her wife. Hair messy and hands still gloved, she threw herself into Ren’s arms and kissed her deeply.
“Better day, I take it?” Ren smiled.
“Much better. Cleaning is a better distraction than one would think.”
Ren looked a bit suspicious, but Julia couldn’t blame her. Neither one of them were okay yet, not so soon.
They cooked dinner that night: chicken spaghetti and homemade garlic bread, all topped with mounds of parmesan cheese. They even laughed a little, and kissed a lot. It was good to be loved.
Julia cleaned up the dinner dishes while Ren began her night routine of showering and brushing her teeth. The counters were wiped down, the dishwasher was loaded, and Ren was still in the bathroom. In the moment that Julia had to herself, she opened the cutlery drawer and drew out a large knife—the kind that came in those fancy sets but was so big you never had a real use for it—and scurried to Eddie’s room.
She stowed it under the racecar bed, surveyed the room—she had cleaned it well, she thought with pride—and was back in the kitchen before Ren stepped out of the bathroom.
She was rinsing the last bits of sauce from the sink when Ren’s gentle arms circled her waist from behind. Ren put her chin on Julia’s shoulder, and Julia felt a flutter in her stomach.
“We’ll survive this,” Ren crooned in that warm voice of hers.
Julia said nothing.
Thursday
Julia waited until Ren’s body relaxed around hers, until her breathing was deep and slow and full, until the room was completely shrouded by the shadows of the night. And she waited some more, just to be sure.
When she finally untangled herself from Ren and rose as silently as possible, her phone read 12:03. She shielded it with her hand so the light wouldn’t wake her wife. Ren was generally a heavy sleeper, but she had to be sure.
Tiptoeing, she made it down the hall and to Eddie’s room with no mishaps. No stumped toes or bumped shins, and no clatters or crashes.
She pushed the door open, and Blueberry greeted her from the opposite wall, visible only by the harsh light of her phone and the soft moonlight shining in through the window.
The pony looked the same as it always had, all the way to the Cheeto stain. Julia hadn’t had the heart to clean it. That Cheeto stain was the last earthly mark of Eddie’s. The only thing that said I was here.
The room looked almost new; she had done a good job. Yet if someone looked hard enough, they would see the cracks in the closet door, the subtle marker stains on the carpet, and the fact that there were only two ponies on the walls, instead of three. Although Rainbow’s body had disappeared, her blood remained. It sat in a stagnant dark puddle, so Julia had placed the hamper over the spot.
Good as new.
Julia reached under the bed, slipped the knife into her hand, sat cross-legged on the floor, and waited.
When Eddie came back, she would be ready to meet him.
• • •
Ren woke at six a.m. to the blaring of her phone alarm. She rolled over to nuzzle Julia, but her side of the bed was empty. Normally, Julia woke after she did. Hmm, strange.
She stretched and rose, and made her way to the kitchen. The scent hit her first, and she breathed deeply. Julia was frying eggs and bacon and didn’t notice Ren’s approach.
She wrapped her arms around Julia’s slim waist, and Julia jumped.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
Ren kissed her head and stepped back. Julia turned and gave her a wan smile.
“Didn’t sleep well?” she asked, but she was really thinking, Didn’t sleep at all?
“I thought I’d make us some breakfast.”
“That was sweet of you,” Ren said.
Breakfast was ready a few minutes later, and after they ate, Ren got ready for work—thank goodness it was almost the weekend—and as she headed out the door, Julia gave her a quick peck on the cheek and glanced behind her shoulder.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Ren asked. “I can call in and we can put on a movie, or get out of the house.”
“No, no, I’m fine. We need the money, anyway,” Julia smiled and looked over her shoulder again.
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Peachy.”
Ren’s gut twisted into knots. Julia was trying so hard to seem okay, but…
“Call me if you need anything,” she said, and headed out the door.
“Wait!” Julia ran out after her, the first time she’d been outside in a week. She ran right up to Ren and squeezed her tight.
“I love you more than the world,” she said, and gazed into her eyes.
“I love you even more than that,” Ren said.
They parted.
While driving down the interstate, the scene played over and over in Ren’s head. The knot in her stomach tightened. Something was wrong, she thought. Very wrong. Looking back, she would’ve given anything to have turned the car around and rushed back home. But instead, she kept on going—like we all do—not knowing that she had just said goodbye.
• • •
Julia hadn’t slept a wink last night, that much was true. Her limbs ached and her head pounded.
She printed the note in her best handwriting—which wasn’t saying much—when Ren’s ‘85 Chevy had barely left the driveway. She pinned it to the refrigerator, just in case. Hopefully, she would be able to take it down and burn it in the fireplace before Ren ever knew it had existed. But just in case, she had to leave some sort of explanation.
She scurried to Eddie’s bedroom, dove to the racecar bed, and uncovered the knife.
She’d never really thought about souls and ghosts and the other side of the veil, but some part of you moved on, she now knew. If she slit her throat, how long would it take her to reach Eddie? A deep dread worked its way from her chest to her toes. What if that wasn’t good enough? What if she didn’t move on or she never found him on the other side? There was too much she didn’t know.
She stared at the cold metal of the knife. Could she really do this to Ren? Her wife would most definitely be the one to find her body. Julia gripped the knife like a maniac. She had to do it. She had to. But first, she had to wait for Eddie.
The air stirred and stilled, like the moments before a storm.
A boom like before. Paint fell from the walls and ceiling like rain. She never saw them move, but every time she looked away and returned her gaze, the ponies changed position. She saw the whites in Cupcake’s fearful eyes. Blueberry was rearing on his hind legs, looking brave. Shadows like hands squirmed from the cracks in the walls; the paint fell away to reveal shapes of every size and color—reminiscent of fog—squirming along the panels. Them. The things that were frightening Eddie, or worse.
She made the mistake of looking away from Cupcake; when she returned her gaze, the pony was wild-eyed, ghostly hands pulling his mane, scratches etched along his sides, oozing blood. Julia’s eyes darted to Blueberry, who was now standing his ground, ears flattened. She tried not to think of the fate of the poor pink and yellow pony as she made her way towards Blueberry.
As she crossed the room, she felt the hands on her, scratching, grasping, roaming. She heard the screams, not of fear, but anger. They were inside of her head and they were angry with her. They were angry with Eddie.
She couldn’t hear her son; the walls remained untouched by his words. Blueberry tossed his head in her direction while she had her gaze on him. He moved like stop-motion, in short disjointed bursts. The mist-like hands lapped at his flanks like water, drawing blood, but he didn’t flinch.
She felt the knife drop from her hand. There was another way, a better way.
She locked eyes with the painted horse. Take me to him, she said, but her voice was in her mind, in the room, filling the space between them. Then, she placed her hand on that perfect Cheeto-smudged muzzle.
The voices screamed at her.
She breathed.
The shadows entwined around her.
She closed her eyes.
The floor shook beneath her feet.
She counted to ten.
The hands tore at her.
She sang.
• • •
Ren opened the door. The house was quiet, too quiet.
An alarm went off—was it really only in her head?—as she walked into the kitchen. The first thing she saw was the note. Immediately, she knew. She knew. She couldn’t run to Eddie’s room fast enough.
She knew she would be too late. She knew but she didn’t care.
The room wasn’t a disaster. The corpse of her wife wasn’t heaped on the floor. In fact, the room was… clean. Normal.
Still, something felt off. It took her a moment to identify, but she realized the walls looked different; the painted ponies were gone. Maybe Julia had painted over them these past few days. But if so, wouldn’t the air be heavy with the smell of fresh paint?
The warm scent of hot chocolate hit her and the paint flaked away from the opposite wall.
“Julia?” she asked, before she even realized what her brain was implying.
The words began to materialize. No, not words—an image.
A silhouette of a woman, and beside her, a pony. With a child on its back.
• • •
Morgan is the co-managing editor of Nocturne Magazine. She is obsessed with Halloween, chocolate, and goats. On Twitter @mw_lockwood.
