Again... Part One

JESS AT FOUR MONTHS OLD

Aaron Sampson’s eyes were heavy with the fatigue of fatherhood. They burned when he closed them and ached when he opened them, and those seemed to be the only two choices he had.

His daughter Jess had been fighting sleep for the past few weeks. Not yet four months old, she raged through the late hours of the night, her tiny fists clenched beside her face, battling sleep as if her life depended on it.

It did.

To give his wife Sandra some sanity, Aaron carried Jess through the house, bouncing with a father’s unconscious cadence. Kitchen. Living room. Back upstairs to the nursery. The same path, again and again, until he stopped thinking about where he was going. His feet understood where the loose floorboard waited and how to avoid the corner of the coffee table in the dark.

The aroma of stale coffee, baby lotion, and the sour milk drying on his shoulder filled the house. Downstairs, a bottle stood beside the sink where he had left it hours ago. He couldn’t remember whether or not it needed washing.

In the nursery, he offered Jess his thumb. Her little hand closed around it with surprising strength, her fingers gripping hard enough to whiten at the knuckles.

For a moment, it helped.

Her cries weakened into wet, exhausted hiccups. Aaron held still, afraid that even the relief moving through him might disturb her.

Then her eyes shifted past his shoulder. Her fingers tightened. The violent crying returned.

“Jess,” Aaron whispered. “What’s the matter?”

He waited for her to lock eyes. Even through her crying, she looked at him. Her eyes would find his face, and for a few seconds he believed she knew he was trying.

This time she kept looking beyond him.

Aaron turned.

The nursery door stood half open. A strip of hallway light fell across the carpet, ending beneath the rocking chair. A burp cloth hung over one wooden arm.

Nothing else.

He looked back at his daughter.

“Come on, sweetheart. Daddy’s here.”

Jess screamed until her voice scraped.

His arms trembled from holding her. Aaron lowered her into the crib. His hands resisted the release. He lingered, one hand beneath her head, unable to shake the feeling that he was setting her down somewhere he shouldn’t.

He was tired. That was all.

He and Sandra had agreed to let her cry for a little while. They needed a few minutes to collect themselves.

Still, he had to make himself step away.

At the edge of his vision, a green light blinked. The baby monitor sat on the dresser. Its little microphone faced the crib.

Aaron rubbed his eyes and leaned closer. The light was dark.

He checked the switch with his fingertip.

Off.

He stood and listened to Jess cry behind him.

For one unpleasant second, he couldn’t remember whether he had already touched the switch. The nights blended together. The sleep deprivation was devastating.

He switched the nursery unit on. The green light held steady.

He went downstairs to their bedroom, trailing one hand along the wall.

Sandra lay against a heap of pillows, her hair stuck to one damp cheek. The receiving speaker sat on the nightstand beside a glass of untouched water. Jess’s cries came through it thin and harsh, the small speaker struggling with each new scream.

“Nothing’s working?” Sandra asked.

Aaron shook his head. Then the speaker went silent. Both of them stared at it. The sudden quiet was almost painful.

Aaron listened. From upstairs came the faint sound of Jess crying.

“Cheap piece of shit…,” he muttered.

He crossed to the nightstand. Static crackled before he touched it. Beneath the hiss, someone drew a ragged breath.

Aaron stopped.

Another breath followed, wet and shuddering.

Sandra pushed herself upright.

A man was sobbing through the speaker.

He sounded close to the microphone. Close enough that Aaron could hear his lips part, the spit catching in his throat as he struggled to speak.

Neither of them moved.

“Whatever happens,” the older man said, “don’t sing—”

His voice broke off.

Aaron turned toward the door, ready to rush to the nursery.

A song burst from the speaker. The first note stopped him with one foot lifted from the carpet.

It was the same man’s voice. Aaron knew that much, although the sobbing had vanished. The voice was clear now, full and impossibly steady. The little speaker should have rattled. It should have distorted beneath the volume.

Instead, Aaron soaked in every note.

The singer drew breath. Aaron drew breath with him. Synchronized.

Something shifted in his ears, a pressure like the moment before they popped. The bedroom seemed to grow deeper. The doorway stood farther away than it should have, at the end of a stretch of carpet he couldn’t quite bring into focus.

The lullaby poured from the tiny speaker with such overwhelming beauty that Aaron forgot his daughter was crying. Beside him, Sandra closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks, her fingers loosening around his wrist.

The unfamiliar words stirred an ache in them both, a longing to be held somewhere warm and safe, where nothing could ever hurt them again. But while Sandra surrendered to the sound, Aaron anticipated it. He knew where the voice would rise, where it would tremble; his tongue shifted behind his teeth, forming words he had never heard before. Each pause tightened his chest until he drew breath with the singer.

When the transmission ended, Sandra gasped and opened her eyes as the melody faded. Aaron stood motionless. Every note remained clear inside him, and in the sudden silence, he felt an almost unbearable need to sing.

Then a woman spoke through the speaker.

“Again…”

The transmission ended.

Aaron stumbled forward, catching himself against the doorframe.

Sandra made a small, frightened sound.

Upstairs, Jess was screaming.

They ran.

Aaron reached the crib first and scooped his daughter into his arms. Her sleeper was damp at the collar. Her face had gone red and shiny, her mouth open in a cry that seemed too massive for her body. He pressed her against his chest.

Sandra stood beside him, one hand over her mouth. He needed Sandra to believe it. He needed to hear himself say it.

His wife touched Jess’s back, then Aaron’s arm. She tried to smile.

“Did we imagine that?” she asked.

Aaron looked toward the monitor. Its green light glowed on the dresser.

He had no answer.

Jess’s wails filled the nursery. Each breath seemed to hurt her. Aaron shifted her against his shoulder, then into the crook of his arm. Nothing helped.

The melody returned to him. A few notes threaded through the crying.

He remembered the man’s warning. Whatever happens, don’t sing—

Aaron swallowed.

Jess dragged in another desperate breath. He only wanted to help her. To let Sandra sleep. To lie down beside his wife and close his eyes without waiting for the next scream.

The tune returned to his thoughts. He knew every note.

“Go to bed, Sandra,” he said; his voice sounded calm.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I’ll get her to sleep.”

For a moment she stayed where she was, rubbing Jess’s tiny foot through the sleeper. Then exhaustion won. She kissed Aaron and bent to kiss their daughter’s forehead.

“I love you.”

“Love you.”

Aaron watched her leave.

The instant Sandra crossed the nursery threshold, the urge to sing became so strong that his chest tightened. He held his breath against it.

Jess twisted in his arms.

He could hear the song now. He felt the first word take shape behind his teeth. He opened his mouth.

The sound that came out was beautiful.

Aaron had never carried a tune. Sandra teased him about it whenever he sang along to the radio. But now his voice rose, finding notes he’d never dared try.

The words followed. He didn’t understand them.

He rocked Jess and sang, taking quick, hungry breaths between the phrases. Each time he reached the end of one, he felt an urgent need to begin the next.

Jess’s crying faltered. Her fists opened. Aaron smiled through his tears.

It worked.

Her body softened against him. The little muscles in her face relaxed. She watched him for another moment, her eyes fixed on his mouth, before closing them.

He finished the song. In the silence that followed, he could hear her breathing.

“Oh, thank God,” he whispered.

He waited, remaining still, then lowered her into the crib. This time she stayed asleep. Aaron kept his hand against her chest until he was sure.

At the door, he turned back. Jess lay still beneath the faint light, one hand resting open beside her head.

Behind him, the monitor’s green light on the dresser blinked off.

Then on.

Then off again.

Aaron never saw it.

JESS AT FIVE YEARS OLD

By the time Jess turned five, the crib had given way to a small bed crowded with stuffed animals. Picture books leaned against one another on a low shelf, and plastic bracelets filled a little jewelry box whose ballerina no longer turned. A tea table stood near the window, set for guests who rarely changed: a rabbit with a flattened ear, a bear in a dress, and her father, whose knees rose well above the tabletop.

Jess loved her room. It was her sanctuary. Everything she needed was there, and when Daddy sat down for tea, he always waited for her to pour.

It was where she could be herself.

She didn’t quite understand what that meant. She only knew she enjoyed being Jess.

She didn’t enjoy being the other thing.

Sometimes Aaron caught her humming, standing near the corner between the dresser and the wall. She faced the narrow space, arms hanging at her sides, content to stand there as long as he let her.

At first, he thought little of it. Children did strange things. He would call her name, and she would turn, smiling, ready to show him a drawing or ask for a snack.

The melody bothered him, though. One afternoon, halfway down the stairs, he realized why.

The lullaby.

He stopped with his hand on the railing. He hadn’t sung it to her in years.

One Saturday morning, the old monitor crackled as Aaron rinsed his coffee mug in the kitchen. They still kept the speaker downstairs. A low, uneven murmur came through it. Then a thump.

“Jess?”

Another thump.

Aaron left the water running.

She stood in her usual corner, her forehead almost touching the wall. Her shoulders jerked beneath her pajama top. One knee bent sharply, straightened, then bent again. Her fingers opened and closed at her sides.

“Sweetheart?”

Her lips kept moving.

Aaron crouched beside her. Up close, he could hear the words catching against her teeth, too soft and crowded together to understand.

“Jess. Look at Daddy,” he demanded.

He touched her shoulder. Her whole body snapped backward.

Aaron caught her before her head struck the dresser. For a moment, she went rigid in his arms, her heels dragging on the carpet. Her eyes were open, fixed somewhere beyond his face.

“Jess!”

He held her against his chest, trying to keep her from hurting herself. She wouldn’t look at him. The muttering continued against his shirt.

He reached for his phone.

Then the lullaby came to him.

His voice shook at first, but the melody steadied it. Jess gave one last violent shudder. Her fingers caught in his shirt, then loosened. Her body softened against him.

By the end of the song, she was asleep.

Aaron stayed on the floor with her in his lap, one hand cupped around the back of her head. He watched her breath until his own breathing slowed.

Later, when Sandra asked about their morning, he told her Jess had worn herself out playing.

He never told her about the corner.

JESS AT TEN YEARS OLD

At ten, Jess could repeat conversations she had slept through.

“You said we couldn’t afford another doctor,” she told her father one morning, scraping the burnt edge off her toast.

Aaron stopped stirring his coffee. The spoon rested against the mug’s side.

He looked toward the hallway. Upstairs, Sandra opened a drawer, then closed it. Water ran in the bathroom.

“When did you hear that?” he asked.

“Last night.”

Jess watched him beneath the untidy fringe of hair she had refused to let Sandra trim. Her knife hovered over the toast. She wore a frightened expression, the cautious look of a child who stumbled into trouble without knowing it.

“Was I not supposed to hear?” She asked.

“You were asleep.”

Jess lowered her eyes and resumed scraping. Black crumbs fell onto the plate. “I know.”

Aaron listened to the water running upstairs.

He and Sandra had spoken in the kitchen after midnight. They kept their voices low. He remembered leaning across the table when she asked him a question because he hadn’t quite heard it.

Jess’s bedroom door had been closed.

“Are you mad?” she asked.

“No, sweetheart.”

He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. Her fingers were icy.

A few weeks passed. They still used the baby monitor.

Its white plastic had yellowed around the edges. The cord had a permanent kink where it passed behind the nightstand, and sometimes Aaron had to turn the volume wheel back and forth to clear the static.

Sandra kept it turned low. She said every creak woke her. Every breath sounded wrong through the speaker. More than once, Aaron had awakened to find her sitting up, holding the receiver close to her ear.

He moved it to his side of the bed.

One night, he heard Jess crying.

It was a quiet, breathless sound, almost lost beneath the hiss. He lay still for a moment, listening, then pushed back the covers.

Upstairs, the hallway felt colder than their bedroom. Light showed beneath Jess’s door.

He found her sitting upright against the headboard, both hands tucked beneath her thighs. Her bedside lamp lit the scattered books on the floor and the glass of water she always insisted on, though she never drank from it.

“Daddy,” she said. Pleasant. Tears ran down her face. Her mouth smiled.

Aaron stopped in the doorway. The smile stayed in place as another tear reached her chin and fell onto her pajama top.

“Are you hurting?” He asked.

Without warning, her shoulders jerked hard enough to knock her against the headboard. Wood struck plaster with a flat, ugly crack.

“Daddy?” This time she sounded frightened.

Aaron began the lullaby before he reached the bed.

By the second line, her shoulders had lowered. Her hands slid out from beneath her thighs, leaving red marks across the backs of her fingers. He eased her down, lifting her hair clear of the pillow.

She watched his mouth while he sang. By the last line, she was asleep.

Aaron stayed beside her, one hand resting on her shoulder. When he stood, his knees ached.

Sandra met him in the hall. “Another nightmare?”

She held her robe closed at her chest. Her eyes moved past him toward the open door.

Aaron nodded and looked back into the room. Jess lay curled on her side, her face peaceful in the lamplight.

In November, Sandra whispered in the kitchen that she couldn’t keep doing this.

Rain ticked against the window above the sink. On the table lay a folder of appointment summaries and instructions, its corners softened from being carried in her purse. The appointments. The questions. The drive home afterward, trying to sound hopeful with Jess listening in the back seat.

And the waiting outside her daughter’s bedroom because she couldn’t bear to go in first.

“Sometimes I hear her,” Sandra said. “And I just stand there.”

She pressed her fingers against her mouth. Aaron put his arms around her.

“I wait for you,” she whispered into his shirt.

He held her while she cried, feeling the small, exhausted movements of her shoulders.

On the counter beside them, the monitor transmitted Jess’s soft, regular breathing.

The next afternoon, Jess found him folding laundry.

“I’m sorry that Mommy can’t keep doing this,” she said.

Aaron lowered the shirt.

She stood barefoot in the doorway, wearing leggings that had grown too short at the ankles. One hand rested against the frame. She looked tired, though she had slept until almost ten.

“I try to stay asleep,” she said.

He put the shirt down.

“But I don’t sleep.” She rubbed one foot over the other. “I don’t think I sleep at all.”

Aaron felt the room go silent.

He wanted to ask what she meant, but Jess began crying. He opened his arms.

She crossed the room and climbed into his lap, though she insisted she was too old for that. He held her against him, feeling how little of her there still was beneath the clothes.

The worst episode happened just before Christmas.

They were watching television, working their way through the holiday movies Sandra loved. Colored lights glowed around the front window. A bowl of popcorn sat between them, and Jess had tucked her feet beneath a blanket.

Onscreen, someone slipped on an icy sidewalk. Jess laughed. Then she began sliding off the couch. Her knees stayed on the cushion while her shoulders dipped toward the floor. The blanket slipped from her legs.

For a second, Aaron thought she was playing.

Her back continued to bow. One heel struck the back of her head.

Sandra screamed.

The popcorn bowl hit the floor as Aaron dropped beside the couch. Jess’s arms jerked beneath her. Her fingers opened and closed against the carpet, catching in the fibers. Her face darkened with effort, and each breath came in a sharp, shallow gasp.

He reached toward her, then stopped. He couldn’t see how to lift her without hurting her.

“Make it stop!” Jess bellowed.

Sandra stood behind him, phone out. He heard her fumble with it, then say his name.

Aaron sang.

His first breath shook. He forced out the next line, watching Jess’s face.

Her heel lowered.

He kept singing.

Her back straightened, inch by inch. One hand caught his sleeve. He supported her head as she slipped from the cushion, and she crawled into his lap, sobbing against his chest.

“Should I still call?” Sandra asked, the phone trembling in her hand.

Jess pressed her wet face against her father’s neck. Her heart beat so fast he could feel it through his shirt.

“Give it a minute,” Aaron said.

Behind them, the movie continued. Bright voices filled the room. Someone was laughing.

Afterward, they agreed to tell people Jess had night terrors.

They practiced saying it. It explained the tiredness, the canceled plans, and why Sandra sometimes left her phone on the table through dinner, checking it whenever the screen lit up.

They stopped letting Jess sleep at friends’ houses. They kept the monitor plugged in.

Sandra recorded Aaron singing the lullaby. He sat at the kitchen table while she held her phone in front of him. In daylight, with the refrigerator humming behind him, he felt foolish.

That evening, they played the recording in Jess’s room.

She screamed before the first line ended.

Sandra almost dropped her phone as she scrambled to turn it off. Aaron hurried to the bed, but Jess recoiled from his hands, kicking herself backward until her shoulders struck the wall.

He sang to her. Only then did she let him close.

It had to be Aaron.

That frightened him more than he admitted. He began keeping his phone beside him at work. When traffic backed up on the way home, he watched the clock. Once, while shaving, he felt the beginning of a sore throat and stood with the razor in his hand, afraid to swallow.

Still, it worked.

When the receiver crackled at two in the morning, and Jess sobbed, Sandra reached across the bed and touched his arm.

“Please,” she whispered.

Aaron nodded, still caught in the heavy confusion of sleep.

He had to sing.

 Continued in Part Two