When Moths Fall Asleep

1.0 - care

"Bowie, Bowie, Bowie," Dewey called. "Bowie, Bowie."

He didn't really know what that round noise meant, spherical like a marble rolling around in his mouth. All he knew was that when he made the sound, "Bowie!" the big shiny dog would come bounding and his mother would smile.

She looked at him so little, trapped in her world of needles and thread. Sometimes, Dewey liked to put his fingers on the floor next to the rockers on her chair and wait until she tipped up far enough that the wood cut into his knuckles. Then he'd cry and she would hold him and kiss him and apologize.

Mama wasn't like Dada. There were things Dewey hated about Dada -- the way he smelled, smoky and dusty, a heavy scent that made him sneeze. He didn't like Dada's eyebrows, too thick and dark like the scary Count on the cereal box that Mama always said was just "make believe". But Dada's eyebrows weren't make believe -- they were right there, close enough that Dewey could touch them. He hated the way they felt, too, coarse like the bottom of a broom. He hated, especially, how he couldn't go onto the big bed when Dada was sleeping. And it seemed that these days, Dada was always sleeping. He didn't get up early and put on his big boots and coat anymore. No, he just stayed inside and sometimes went to get groceries.

But there was nothing he hated about Mama. She glowed to him. She smelled like sugar and milk and her eyebrows were thin rows of silk. Dewey loved the smoothness of her skin, the cinnamon freckles that colored her cheeks. He loved the sound of her low, reedy voice and the whistle of her breathing after she'd fallen asleep.

Most of all, he loved her smile. Though she had to do everything else for him, making Mama smile was one thing Dewey could do himself.

"Bowie!" He called. Mama sat in the living room with her sewing in her lap, pins caught between her teeth like a coat rack for little tiny people. She didn't look at Dewey and she didn't smile, but the dog came anyway.

Every time he loped into the room, Dewey would be once again overwhelmed by his mass and his shine. The sun and the recessed lights in the ceiling lit up his golden coat, a million stars twinkling Dewey's way.

Bowie barreled into the kitchen today with too much energy; he hadn't been out for a walk yet. Dewey shrieked as the dog knocked into his stomach, pinning him to the ground with his wet snout. As the world blurred by, he caught sight of his mother looking over. She watched Bowie nose around on Dewey's buttons, snuffling at the folds in his chin. He felt warm and soft as the thick comforter on Mama's bed, a stiflingly heavy weight. Dewey giggled and she looked away. He heard the pins clack into a pile on her lap. "Bowie!" she called, a voice sweeter but more powerful than his own.

The dog abandoned him without a second thought. What's a flimsy baby when there's a belly rub to be had in the other room?

Dewey laid on the floor, feeling Bowie's slobber go cold on his skin. He didn't really know what had happened. He didn't like the way that the cold floor bit the back of his neck, nipping at his fingertips. He rubbed his eyes and began to cry. He heard Bowie panting in the other room.

Tears turned clammy on his face and snot solidified around his nose, and still no Mama. He listened to the minute sound of her fingers grazing through the dog's hair, her gentle whisper saying, "That's a good boy. Mama loves you, yes she does." He didn't like that. That was his voice, words meant for him.

Two loud raps at the door startled a shriek out of him. "Dewey!" Mama yelled. She didn't seem to realize she'd done it until her footsteps tracked her into the kitchen where she found him lying silently on the ground, so utterly distressed that his sobbing mouth opened to no sound at all. He heard a long strain of creaking come from the back of his throat, the product of too many hours spent in attention-hungry tears. "Coming!" Mama called to the people at the door.

She pulled him into her arms at last, hands cold, neck warm. He turned his face against her shoulder and let her shirt absorb his tears. Against his cheek, her heartbeat throbbed steadily.

"Alright, alright," Mama muttered. "You're okay. Why don't you play with Bowie for a minute? Say your goodbyes."

If Dewey had been able to process her words, perhaps he would have been confused. But as it was, he only knew that he was being put back on the floor again and that the dog, beside him now, had relaxed into a fuzzy, amorphous mass on the floor. He whimpered at his mother, but she stood up again and went to the door.

The living room felt empty without his presence. Dewey dug his fingers into Bowie's fur like he always saw Mama do. He closed his wet eyes, leaning into Dewey's hands. The dog's skin felt leathery, pulsing and breathing moisture from beneath a forest of fur. Dewey settled his face into the fur, digging in so that his nose touched Bowie's skin. The dog didn't move and neither did he. The heat began to surround him and air was scarce in the recesses of Bowie's hair, but Dewey could hear the door opening and people coming in, so he stayed hidden away.

"You look great!"

"What are you talking about? You look amazing!"

It was someone and his mother, but his mother in her other voice, that harder, thinner voice that meant she was talking to someone else, not Dewey or Bowie. That was the voice she used for Dada and Gran, when she came around. Dewey didn't like it as much as the soft, sweet tone she used for him, but he liked to listen to how subtly her cadence changed between sentences.

Footsteps, lots of them. Not just two steps but, perhaps, a herd.

His mother was saying other things, now. "Oh, Alex! look how big you are! I swear, every time I see you, you grow a foot! Sandra, let me take your jacket." These things she said in a voice closer to the one Dewey loved so much. He kept his face cloistered in the dog's fur, moving up and down with Bowie's stomach as he breathed.

And finally, the voices were upon them. Loud and flat, too harsh. Dewey felt tears building up again.

"Would you look at that! He's so big!"

"Isn't he?"

"Mommy, can I hold him?"

"Ask Auntie Angelina first."

Dewey let his scream rip. Mama was so close he could smell her. The sweet vanilla of her drifted closer, a comforting hum settling over him. She pulled him Dewey to her chest, detaching him from the dog. "What's the matter, little man?" she said. It was her sweet voice, but there was something strange about it, something forced. Dewey blinked and looked at the people around them.

A woman with a big smile, two little girls with shy red cheeks, and a boy squatting beside Bowie with a hand waiting to be sniffed.

The woman leaned close to him, taking one of his tear-slicked cheeks between her thumb and index finger. A sharp pinch of pain, then release. "Aren't you as cute as a button?" she squeaked.

They went on like this for awhile, Mama balancing Dewey on her hip while she chatted away with the woman, always in that voice with the false edge, and the three children crowded around Bowie and poked his stomach while he gave Dewey bleary eyes from the floor. Dewey tried to tell them to stop, but when he cried, Mama only got upset and put him in the bassinet. It was from there that he heard Mama say, "take good care of him!" and the family say, "We will!" as they led Bowie out of the house on a new purple leash.