“Congratulations! It’s a boy! He looks very healthy; let me go clean him up.” The father watched his wife take some deep breaths, then smiled as he kissed her on the forehead. She looked up at him and smiled between breaths. The doctor came back in the room quickly and gave the boy to the mother. The boy had already stopped crying, but it still had that scrunched up baby face. Both the parents wanted to say something to the other, but neither could think of anything worth being said. Silence was the suiting sound for the situation.
________
Sometime after the child had passed a year’s age, something unusual happened during one of his temper tantrums. When the mother came to the sobbing child to comfort him, she could not pick him out of the crib. Every time she touched him, she was burned. She was nearly about to panic, but the child stopped crying soon enough now that she was in the room.
She sat there with him for a little while, not touching him, watching him lie in the crib. After a couple minutes passed, she tried to pick him up again. This time the child was a cool, normal temperature. She walked him around for a while, but also decided to call her local doctor.
“I have a question.”
“Absolutely.”
“About half an hour ago my baby was very hot.”
“Um. Well, babies can get warm sometimes I gue-”
“No,” she pushed, “Really hot. Like, burned-my-fingers-hot.”
The doctor took a moment, and then said, “Well, how is he now?”
“He’s alright now, but-”
“And your fingers are alright?”
“What? Yeah, it’s just a burn, but-”
“Well I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”
The mother scrunched her face and paused for a moment, as if the doctor could see the expression on her face. “You’re not listening, I burnt my fingers on my baby’s skin.”
“I’m listening perfectly fine Mrs…. Um…”
“Granite,” she managed to say without moving her lips.
“Ms. Granite, it sounds like neither of you are harmed or ill. I understand your concern, but it sounds like everything is fine.”
The doctor begins to sound as if he’s reading from a pamphlet. “Thank you for calling Vernicle Hospital, if you have any other concerns, please call us anytime.”
