The original prompt is a year old and can be found here.
Shelly was six years old when she learned adults were terrible at explanations. When she was five years old, simple answers were acceptable. A fish breathes water, not air, and that’s why he can’t leave the tank. Winter make leaves turn brown because of cold air. People can’t walk on clouds because they’re hard to capture and don’t sit still long enough for a little girl to climb on. At six years old, these explanations weren’t good enough. She was going to be a big sister soon and needed to know everything before the baby arrived. Big sisters should know all the answers.
The day she learned that not even adults had all the answers was also the day her little sister was born.
A chill snuck into the air of her bedroom that November morning, and she huddled under her quilt for warmth. It was her favorite quilt, baby blue with a picture of the Disney Queen Elsa and her ice castle. She loved mimicking Elsa. If the cold didn’t bother Elsa the Ice Queen, then it wouldn’t bother her. Shelly tossed off the quilt and scrambled to find her favorite dress, ultimately digging it out of her laundry hamper. Light blue with sparkles, sheer sleeves, and a cape, the dress fluttered each time she twirled.
She spun in circles, making the dress flare around her, until she made herself dizzy. With a giggle, she fell to the floor and watched the room spin circles without her. Bouncing to her feet moments later and stomping past her parents’ room, Shelly halted in front of the old reading room down the hall and peeked inside.
Gone was the dark oak desk that she hid under, and so was the navy loveseat that she jumped on (though she would never admit that to Daddy—if he asked, it was just the one time he caught her). The tall bookcases with their musty books were replaced with a white dresser and changing table. The scratchy, burnt orange carpet was ripped out in favor of a plush, soft yellow one. She loved lying on it and making snow-angel indentations while staring at the recently painted lavender walls and their teddy bear borders.
Her old purple and yellow quilt of Beauty and the Beast hung on a rocking chair tucked into the corner near the window. She immediately honed in the other object in the room that used to be hers: the newly re-assembled cradle. She stuck her arm through its bars and gave the limb a wave. The inside was tiny. It’s a wonder that she was ever that small. Would the baby grow as fast as she did? She hoped not. Soon, she was going to be taller than Mommy and didn’t want any competition. She also planned on growing taller than Daddy too, but kept that detail to herself for now. She had to get past Mommy first.
She left the door ajar, but it widened to full capacity as Mommy stepped inside the baby room. While her face was solemn, a small smile emerged at the sight of her little girl. “Baby, you can’t wear your Elsa dress today.”
Shelly frowned. “I won’t be the baby. Not anymore. And I wanna wear my dress to show my little sister. It’s my faaaavorite,” she said, her voice rising in pitch. She jumped a little with each sentence to punctuate her point.
“I know, Ba-” Shelly’s pout deepened. “Sweetheart,” her mother continued, “but we’re visiting Great Auntie Helen today. You wore that dress yesterday and it’s dirty. Don’t you want to wear a clean one for your great auntie? I know that she would really like that.”
“No. I wanna wear this one.”
“Your auntie’s sick. You have to be nice to sick people.”
“My dress is nice.”
“Michelle…”
She swallowed her next words at the sound of her full name and Mommy’s tone.
Back in her room, she pulled a clean jumper from her closet. A dark green one that used to fall past her knees, it now rose above them. Underneath, she wore a white long-sleeve shirt with pink flowers that she remembered Great Auntie Helen once said was nice. She liked her great auntie. They always talked at family holidays, and the elderly woman listened to every word she said. She liked when adults paid attention only to her. She hoped her new sister would be as good a listener as Great Auntie Helen.
When Mommy called her downstairs for breakfast, she spun down the hallway trying to get her jumper to flutter like her Elsa dress. It failed miserably. Coming down the stairs, she could hear Daddy already in the kitchen with Mommy.
“You don’t think that six is too young for this?” he asked.
“Stop worrying. You’d be surprised at the situations little kids can handle. It won’t traumatize her,” Mommy replied.
“Helen’s in a coma. She won’t know if Shelly isn’t there.”
“It’s the thought that counts. You know how Aunt Helen loved visiting with her, considering how much Shells reminded her of her own big sister.”
Daddy snorted, “I don’t remember that weathered old bird liking dresses as much as Shelly.”
“Dear.” Shelly recognized that warning tone.
“What? She never liked me, you know she didn’t. You never saw the dirty looks she gave me when we announced our engagement.”
“She was just being overprotective.”
“You know what? I am not arguing about this again. I may not have mourned her big sister Margret passing, but I am going to miss Helen. Family gatherings aren’t going to be the same without her.”
“Yeah,” Mommy’s voice hitched a little, “It’s going to be weird when she’s gone.”
“At least, we’ll have the baby to distract us.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’ll finally stop stressing and eating seconds at dinner.”
Shelly walked into the kitchen just in time to see her mother smack her father upside the head.
“You’re the pot calling the kettle black. A mother has every right to gain a little weight when a new baby is coming.”
“And the father has the right to sympathy weight.”
“No, he doesn’t. I’m making you salads for lunch starting this week.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“You should’ve thought about that before commenting on my eating.”
Shelly interrupted, “You could always make your own lunch, Daddy.”
Mommy grinned. “Yeah, Daddy. That sounds like a great idea.”
He let out a sigh, “God help me, I’m soon going to be outnumbered by three girls instead of two.”
The little girl jumped on the topic change. “Will my little sister be coming today?”
Her mother leaned back resting her hands on her belly. “The baby will come when she’s ready. You can’t rush her, sweetheart.” Daddy poured milk and cereal into Shelly’s bowl. He even refilled his wife’s coffee mug, without her needing to ask, in a silent plea not to give him only salads this coming week.
After breakfast was the drive to the Sprout Care Center to visit Great Auntie Helen. Shelly leaned upwards in the backseat, so she could see the center’s sign as their van entered the front gate. She liked the fancy green leaf that the center’s name was etched onto.
She liked the inside of the center a lot less. The white halls were so quiet and everyone they passed talked in a whisper. Their footsteps echoed off the white tiled floors as they walked. At one point, she heard a baby’s cries bounce up and down the hall behind her. With each hand held by a parent, Shelly couldn’t even turn towards the noise. She bet she could find that baby and tell it to laugh instead of cry. Babies had to listen to all big sisters, even future ones that didn’t belong to them.
The seconds dragged on at the same sedate pace of her parents down the hallway, but they finally reached her great auntie’s room. A butterfly magnet, with a metal body and laminated paper wings, clung to the metal door frame outside the room. ‘Helen’ was written in black marker on its left wing. Shelly broke free of her parents’ grips and ran the last few feet to the door. She leaned against the door frame on tippy-toes, stretching as tall as she could to reach the butterfly. Additional grunts and jumps didn’t bring her close to even touching it.
Her father gripped her under her armpits, picked her up, and moved her away from the door. He placed her down while kneeling to the same level. “Michelle,” he said pulling a lock of hair from her mouth at the same time. It had flown into her mouth while she jumped, and the girl couldn’t resist chewing on it.
“No running. No jumping. No grabbing. You have to be on your best behavior and respectful for your great aunt.”
“But—" she began.
Daddy cut her off, “No arguing.” He sighed, “Aunt Helen is not going to be with us for very long. We have to make her last moments as pleasant as possible. Do you understand?”
She didn’t, not really, but nodded anyway. “She’s going far away and not coming back?” she asked.
“That’s…one way to put it. Perhaps you’ll understand better when you’re older.” He gave her a sober smile. “This might a scary day for you, but I don’t want you to worry or be frightened. Everything that happens will be completely natural.”
She hesitantly nodded again, even more confused. They rejoined her mother by the door. Shelly gave the butterfly another longing glance but didn’t try reaching for it again. There was a similar one on their refrigerator at home. However, the butterfly at home was damaged, missing its right wing. The remaining left one was battered with the name ‘Margret’ written on it in faded marker. The colorful butterfly looked so lonely and out of place against the center’s white walls. It would be much happier at home with the injured butterfly; she was sure.
Inside, a small gathering of family was standing vigil at Great Auntie Helen’s bedside. Shelly had never seen such a still room of people in all her life. Nobody was talking and they barely moved. She couldn’t even catch anyone shifting weight from one foot to the other. Mommy said they were all family, but she barely recognized the other adults’ faces.
A huge white bed dwarfed her great auntie who lay with no blanket covering her green hospital gown. Her skin was an ashy gray, her hands limp at her sides, and her eyes closed. After one glance, Shelly understood her father a little more clearly. Her auntie wasn’t sleeping. She was stopping—her body was stopping. The elderly woman’s throat creaked with each slow breath, and she groaned with each exhale. The sound was quiet yet deafening in the small room which was getting smaller by the minute.
Shelly wanted to go home.
Uncle Stanley greeted them at the door with a pained look on his face. Mommy gave her brother a big hug. Daddy gave him a firm handshake. “Stanley,” he said.
“Jarod,” her uncle replied accepting the handshake. It was the nicest exchange Shelly ever saw between the two. Uncle Stanley turned his attention back to his sister and whispered, “She’s been having trouble breathing. The doctor says it won’t be long until her lungs completely give out. Either today or tomorrow will be the day.”
Mommy held a hand to her mouth, her eyes becoming watery. She leaned further into her husband who wrapped an arm around her. Shelly had grabbed her father’s free arm as tight as she could, and kept her parents positioned between her and the frail figure on the bed.
“It’s awful for me to say, but after Dad spending months here last year, I’m glad Aunt Helen is going quickly,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed, “I’d be happy if it’s years before we have to visit this place again.”
Shelly tuned out their conversation once she spotted Uncle Stanley’s wife--Aunt Anne—and, more importantly, her nine-month-old baby cousin, Joey. The two sat on a green chair placed behind a black line on the opposite side of the room from the bed. She released her death-grip on Daddy’s arm and walked the room’s perimeter towards the duo. It was the long route, but she was afraid to disturb anyone surrounding the bed especially its lone occupant. The room was making her nervous; the state of her great auntie was making her nervous. She’d rather focus on the baby. She bet that she could make him smile and laugh.
And she did. Shelly spent the rest of the morning by baby Joey’s side playing peek-a-boo and making funny noises. Several times they were too loud, and a balding man, who stood by Auntie Helen’s bedside, shot them dirty looks. “Second or first-time-once-removed cousin Mike. I can never keep track,” Mommy said when she asked his name, but Shelly didn’t care how they were related. She didn’t like him. Any adult that shot her a mean look deserved one in return.
“Michelle, mind your manners,” Mommy admonished in a whisper when she caught the little girl glaring. Her mother gave Mike an apologetic smile and brought Shelly to sit next to her on a different green chair next to Aunt Anne’s. Shelly kicked her foot against the chair’s legs and fidgeted with her jumper. She studied and stared at every person in the room except the one on the bed, looking at her auntie made Shelly squirm. She eventually slouched against Mommy with her eyes closed. It felt like hours had passed and night would come at any minute. Shelly sneaked a quick peek out one of the room’s opened window, but bright sunlight shone on the green grass outside the center.
‘Uuuugh, this day was never going to end,’ she thought to herself.
Her tummy growled. She opened her mouth to complain when a sound from the bed caught her ears and stole her voice. More accurately, the absence of a sound silenced the already quiet room. Her Great Auntie Helen stopped breathing.
The room and its people were still.
Uncle Stanley suddenly leaped forward and pushed a green button on the wall adjacent to the door. A continuous high-pitched beeping sounded throughout the room, signaling the doctor and nurses on site. The entire family, once huddled close to Auntie Helen’s bedside, scrambled away and retreated behind the black line on the room’s opposite end. When the family was completely crammed into the tiny area, all movement ceased.
The room stilled and its people waited.
Gripping Mommy’s shirt for support, Shelly stood on the chair for a better view of the bed. She flinched back when small blue flames erupted from the skin of her auntie’s chest. They grew upward and expanded outward, spreading so fast.
Her eyes widened and the grip on her mother’s shirt tightened. The flames turned yellow. Higher and brighter, they grew. Auntie Helen’s thin skin darkened like burning paper, turning charcoal black while curling, crinkling, and crumbling. Sparks trailed from her scalp to the ends of each hair strand, like the fuses of a thousand fireworks, leaving tiny trails of ash. The flames crackled and snarled as they devoured each inch of skin. In minutes, the fire engulfed the entire body in a bright orange blaze that verged on red. Yet Shelly could discern the figure lying at the fireball’s center like a lone fragment of coal.
The blaze released a cloud of white smoke that billowed out through the windows, and slowly the flames began snuffing themselves out. They shrunk and withered.
Running footsteps echoed down the hallway. A young nurse in pale purple scrubs burst into the room shouting, “Everyone! Back away from the body and stand behind the black line!”
From where the family already stood behind the line, Uncle Stanley raised his eyebrow. Cousin Mike doled out another dirty look towards the nurse. “Miss, your response time could use work,” Uncle Stanley said looking up from his cell phone.
A sheepish blush rose in the nurse’s cheeks. Behind her, the last red flame flickered out of existence. Auntie Helen’s body had transformed into a charred shell, somehow still mimicking the human form, but looking as if it could collapse in a slight breeze. A soft smoke emanated from the body and twirled into the air. The white bed sheet hadn’t a single scorch mark, neither did the green gown.
A somber silence overtook the room. Shelly’s eyes flitted from one grown-up’s face to another’s. All their eyes were locked on the scorched remains and their breaths locked in their throats. They were again waiting. For what, she didn’t know.
Wheels now screeched towards them from down the hall. An older nurse, who wore pale pink scrubs, rushed into the room whilst pushing a small cart with a scale, towels, and water basin on the top shelf plus a plastic container, medical equipment, and blankets on the bottom one. Water sloshed over the basin’s sides as she grinded to a halt in the middle of the room.
“How long since she burned out? Has she screamed yet?” The pink nurse, out of breath, asked the purple one. The second woman studied the intact shell on the bed. “Have there been any cries??”
The purple nurse paled and fidgeted with the stopwatch in her hands, its digital screen blank. “...I, uh, just arrived, and, umm...didn’t have a chance to set the watch.” The pink nurse cursed and hurriedly pushed the cart beside the bed.
“Wait!” Uncle Stanley stepped forward. “I was timing the burnout on my phone’s stopwatch. Last flame was 2 minutes and 47 seconds ago.”
The woman stopped reaching for the cart’s bottom shelf and let out a frustrated sigh. “Too short of a time to warrant an extraction, but long enough to be worried.”
She looked over at the purple nurse. “You, stop standing around and get over here,” she snapped. The young woman scrambled to comply.
Shelly tugged repeatedly on her mother’s shirt.
“What?” Mommy whispered, barely glancing at her.
“What’s going on?” she whispered back.
Before she could answer her daughter, a high-pitched scream pierced the room. Shelly clamped her hands tight over her ears. On the bed, the charred remains collapsed into a pile of ash expelling a thin gray puff into the air. The scream cut off, only to be followed by muffled coughs. Buried limbs writhed frantically in the center of the ash pile. Shelly pressed herself flush against Mommy who responded by wrapping an arm tight around her.
Hands covered in disposable nitrile gloves slid underneath the wriggling creature and lifted up. As streams of soot fell away, Shelly laid eyes on the dirtiest baby she ever saw. The pink nurse held the newborn upright to her chest and patted its back. The coughs turned into continuous shrieking cries. Its tiny arm brushed against the nurse’s shirt and revealed a patch of angry red skin.
“There, there. Still warm from the fire, aren’t you?” the woman murmured; her pats turned to gentle rubs. When the newborn’s breathing settled into a steady rhythm, the shrieking calmed. The pink nurse handed the baby to her coworker. She retrieved a clipboard, a cloth tape measure, and a thermometer from under the cart and a stethoscope from her pocket.
The purple nurse placed the baby on the cart’s padded scale. Curious, Shelly drew away from Mommy’s side and stepped forward for a better view. After recording the baby’s weight on the clipboard, the pink nurse measured it, head to toe, with the tape measure. She then wrapped the tape around its tiny head like a crown and wrote down that number too. The thermometer went into its ear and the recorded temperature went down on the clipboard paper. For the stethoscope, she warmed the large flat end in her hand before lightly resting it on the baby’s chest. The nurse counted silently to herself and jotted another number down.
The bath was next. The purple nurse held the newborn over the small basin just above the water’s surface. The other woman gently poured water over it, dislodging the coat of gray soot and uncovering more red skin that was settling to a healthy peach. When they had finished and carefully patted it dry with a towel, the pink nurse held the cleanest baby girl that Shelly had ever seen.
‘No!’ she almost shouted when the nurses pressed the baby’s clean feet onto an ink pad, covering them in brown ink. The pink nurse tilted her up, her hand supporting the baby’s neck and head. The younger nurse carefully pressed her feet against a small index card which joined the other measurements. The baby started crying again when they washed her feet a second time. Finally, the pink nurse wrapped the newborn tightly in a soft white blanket and placed a knitted pink hat on her head. Her cries softened into little hiccups.
The purple nurse’s eyebrows furrowed as she searched the bottom rung of the clipboard’s papers for a specific sheet. “Are the parents...Jarod and Louise Howell with us here for the birth today?”
Mommy and Daddy rushed forward. “We are, that’s us!” Mommy said. She had outstretched her hands for the newborn girl before even finishing her sentence.
The young nurse peered back and forth between the paper and their faces, comparing their likeness to driver’s license pictures she held. She took long enough that the older nurse glanced over her shoulder.
The woman tsked, “It’s clearly them. Stop stalling.” She placed the baby in Mommy’s arms. “One of our nurses is available to give you a quick class on proper feeding and changing, as well as a booklet of infant dietary needs and development within the first two years.”
“Thank you,” Daddy said, “but she’s not our first. We know what to do.” He nudged his head in Shelly’s direction.
The nurse paused, giving Shelly a glance over, before saying, “I highly recommend the class as a refresher and taking the booklet. Just in case.” She barreled on before Daddy could protest. “The doctor has been notified of your baby’s birth. However, we’ve had an unexpected amount of births today, so there’ll be a 2-hour to 3-hour wait before she’s available to give the baby her first checkup. Afterwards, you can fill out your discharge papers at the front reception desk and go home.”
As she talked, the purple nurse gathered up the bed sheet containing Auntie Helen’s ashes, careful not to scatter a speck into the air. The pink nurse continued, “Will you be taking the ashes of the deceased with you, or is the care center sending them directly to the burial home?”
Uncle Stanley once again stepped forward. “I’m the one taking care of the burial arrangements. The funeral won’t be until next week, so we will be taking her ashes home with us.”
Uncle Stanley gave her his name, phone number, and home address. The older nurse jotted down this final bit of information on the clipboard’s papers, and exited the room. The young nurse finally finished wrapping the bed sheet around the ashes and inserted them gingerly into a large plastic container, securing its lid. “We’ll prepare the ashes and notify you when the urn is ready for pickup,” she said placing the container back on the cart’s bottom shelf.
Pushing the cart ahead of herself, the nurse rushed out to catch up to her coworker. She shouted a quick “Congratulations on your baby girl!” to Mommy on her exit, and Shelly heard the cart’s wheels squeal into the distance.
Mommy looked as if she didn’t even hear the comment, her attention solely focused on the bundle of blankets in her arms. The baby let loose a shriek reminiscent of a cartoon pterodactyl. Her mother shushed and cooed in response. Daddy leaned against Mommy, his arm wrapped around her back, holding both her and the baby at the same time. Shelly took a hesitant step towards her parents.
Before she could move another inch forward, the rest of the family flooded across the room like a river past a breaking dam. A wall of adults circled around her parents, effectively shutting her out. She heard more cooing, more congratulations, more shrieks of “how precious!” Her ears winced at the sudden surge in voices. She saw her Aunt Anne hold up and introduce Joey to his new cousin, but when he grabbed for the newborn’s face, she quickly snatched him away. Even Cousin Mike gifted a smile to the infant.
A chord of alarm sounded through Shelly. Adults weren’t supposed to pay the baby more attention than her. “Mommy, Daddy,” she yelled trying to recapture her parents’ attention. The clamor of family drowned her out. Tears began forming in her eyes. Was the baby Great Auntie Helen coming home with them?
She apparently wasn’t the only one who wanted the grown-ups to quiet. The baby girl screeched renewing the same high-pitched cry that she screamed before the nurse lifted her from the ashes. Mommy and four other relatives tried shushing and reassuring her, but the newborn wasn’t having any of it. She screamed louder.
Shelly clapped her hands over her ears and walked backwards away from the huddled cluster. Her back hit the far wall behind the line. ‘Do all babies make that noise or just this one?’ she grimaced at the thought.
“Everyone!” Uncle Stanley shouted above the screeching cries. “Let’s give Louise and Jarod and, above all, the new baby some breathing room. We can reconvene at my house later in the afternoon, once everyone has eaten lunch. Louise and her family will stop by after they discharge and hopefully the baby will sound asleep by then.” Each adult murmured agreement or nodded to the proposed plan and had gathered their coats and bags within minutes. Uncle Stanley and Aunt Anne ushered them from the room.
The baby quieted as the room emptied. Before he left, Uncle Stanley hugged Mommy and reminded her of the cafeteria downstairs. “It’s been awhile since you’ve had a newborn. Don’t get so distracted that you forget to feed yourself, especially since you have Shells this time around.” He turned to Daddy and held out his hand. “Jarod.”
“Stanley,” her father said, gripping her uncle’s hand hard. The two men stood there, crushing each other's hand and attempting to conceal any possible look of pain.
“Stan, give it a rest and let’s go,” Aunt Anne said, bouncing a fussy Joey on her hip. Uncle Stanley reluctantly released his grip to Daddy’s smug grin. As almost an afterthought, the couple remembered to give Shelly a goodbye hug before leaving.
“I swear,” Daddy said while flexing and massaging his hand, “your brother will never forgive me for marrying you.”
Mommy hummed and slowly rocked her own fussy baby side to side in her arms. “It has nothing to do with you marrying me. Stanley just doesn’t like you. But lucky for you, his opinion doesn’t matter.” She stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Your honesty is always appreciated,” he said dryly. He glanced at the far wall, finally spotting his daughter’s distrustful glances towards the bundle in her mother’s arms. “Shelly, would you like to come here and meet your baby sister?”
She frowned and shook her head side to side, almost in time with Mommy’s rocking. “Great Auntie Helen isn't my sister.” Mommy and Daddy exchanged looks.
“Sweetie, the baby isn’t Great Auntie Helen,” Mommy said.
“Yes, she is. We saw it happen. She turned into a baby.” Shelly wondered if she would become stupider as she grew bigger too.
Daddy walked over and knelt to her level. “I know it certainly looked like Aunt Helen turned into a baby, Shelly, but the baby and Aunt Helen are not the same person.” Her eyes bounced back and forth between him and the baby. Before she could object, Daddy swooped her up and sat in the nearest chair, plopping her on his knees.
“Michelle.” He paused for a long moment, and Shelly could imagine colorful gears turning in his head, working furiously to make the right words. “Aunt Helen’s body stopped working. She lived a very long life and her body started to shut down. She couldn’t move around anymore like you and me. And when a person’s body stops working, they…die and are engulfed by flame.” Shelly eyebrows furrowed deeper and Daddy added, “Meaning that the fire eats their body and it turns to ash. That gray dust you saw was Aunt Helen’s remains. At the same time that the fire eats the old body, a new tiny one, a baby is created to take place of the person who died.”
Questions flooded Shelly’s head. She could barely decide which ones to ask first. “I thought fires hurt people and burned them?”
Her father shook his head. “This is completely different kind of fire. And unless you’re the one being born, it will burn other people like a normal fire.”
“Where does it come from?”
“I don’t know.”
That isn’t right, she thought to herself. Her daddy was an adult, so he had to know the answer. She instinctively looked to Mommy to fill in Daddy’s explanation.
Her mother shrugged, “Scientists and other very smart people are still trying to solve that mystery.”
Shelly’s eyes widened at the thought that all adults didn’t know how people were born. “Why can’t they solve it?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“How does the fire create the baby?”
“We don’t know that one either, Sweetie,” Daddy said, turning her attention once again towards him. “It just does.”
“Does every person get eaten by fire and turned into a baby?”
“Most of the time but not always. It only happens after a person lives a very long life, like Aunt Helen, and their body stops working on its own.” His eyes narrowed as the latter half of her question caught up with him. “And the person who died and the baby are not the same.”
“Will Aunt Helen and the baby look the same?”
“Well, in a way, yes--”
“Then how do you know they’re two different people?” She had him there; she knew it. Her parents and other adults didn’t know the answer to this mystery, but Shelly had it figured out.
Mommy walked over. “Baby, looks don’t determine who you are. It’s the people around you, and your different life experiences that shape who you are. You remember your Play-Doh, right?”
“Yeah.”
“People are a lot like your Play-Doh. We are all made out of the same material, but depending on our surroundings, we become molded into different shapes. When we play together, you and I make very different animals and people with the Play-Doh even though we both started with the same clay. So the baby will start with the same materials, the same Play-Doh, as Great Auntie Helen, but because she’ll grow up with us, with our family, she’ll be molded into a completely different person from Auntie Helen. Do you understand?”
She nodded slowly, and her answer was almost honest. Mommy and Daddy had no idea where this baby came from, but she was now a part of their family and apparently Shelly’s new little sister. She didn’t need an explanation on what that fact meant.
“Shells, as her big sister, you can help shape who she is going to be. Don’t you want to show her Frozen or teach her how to do a somersault on the floor?”
She was hesitant but murmured a small, “Yeah.”
“You were so excited to be a big sister this morning. Remember?” Mommy prodded. She lifted the baby even closer to her daughter’s face.
Shelly thought the baby’s scrunched face was kind of cute, as long as she wasn’t crying. “Yeah.” A lost thought from that morning trickled back into her head. “Will she listen to me when I talk? And do everything I say?”
Daddy laughed. “It depends on how nice you are to her. If you’re a nice big sister, then your little sister will follow you around and probably listen to everything you say.”
“I’ll be the best big sister ever. We can play dress up and build snowmen together.” Shelly gasped at an idea, “I can be Queen Elsa and she can be Princess Anya!”
“Slow down. She has to grow bigger before any of that can happen,” Mommy said.
Shelly frowned at the tiny baby. “When will she grow bigger and stop being boring?”
“Michelle.” Mommy’s warning tone made the third appearance that day.
“If she’s not Great Auntie Helen anymore, what are we going to call her?” she asked, interrupting before the woman could follow-up her name with an actual warning.
“Heather,” Mommy answered. “Heather Malory Howell.” Shelly scrunched her nose up at the name’s sound. She didn’t like it.
Before she could voice the thought, Daddy picked her up and placed her feet back on the ground. He walked to the room’s doorway and reached outside, plucking an object from the outer door frame and returning to them. He held out his open palm to Shelly. Resting in the center was the butterfly magnet she had tried so hard to grab.
“Here,” he said. “Now you can take this, as a memory of your Aunt Helen.”
Shelly didn’t bother replying and snatched the butterfly up, careful not to crush or tear its wings. She didn’t want it to end up like the magnet at home, missing a wing.
She kept the butterfly cupped in her hands for the rest of the day and refused to let it go, even when Mommy and Daddy let her hold baby Heather for the first time. For that brief moment, Mommy didn’t quite relinquish her hold, supporting the newborn’s head while Heather rested on Shelly’s lap. Six hours from their initial arrival, the family left the care center and drove to Uncle Stanley’s house. They were mobbed again by relatives who were just as loud and annoying--fawning over the baby and ignoring Shelly--at the end of the day as they were in the beginning. The baby started crying. Again. Worse was Joey joined Heather in the tears and shrieking.
Finally, finally, they returned home. Shelly’s eyelids drooped in the car ride back and Heather was sound asleep. Inside, Mommy climbed the stairs and laid the baby down in the nursery’s crib. Shelly kicked off her shoes and mustered up a burst of energy, running to the kitchen. Daddy followed and lifted her up by her armpits in front of the fridge. She placed Auntie Helen’s butterfly magnet close next to the one named Margret. Its right wing covered the other butterfly from its injured side.
The two butterflies looked like sisters hugging for the first time in six years.
A/N: Thank you for reading to the very end! And see, I didn't burn any children alive which I know is the first thought that comes to mind when reading the title. Feedback is appreciated. Since I know [PI] posts receive very little foot traffic, I will check back in a week to respond to any comments.
Submitted May 15, 2016 at 04:18AM by Al_Stecker http://ift.tt/1VX6zlJ WritingPrompts
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