Symbiosis
by M.C. Schmidt
The baby continued to cry. Its mother, raw from feeding, had grown used to the nuisance sound (it was warm, dry, full, and safe, so what better characterization was there for its wailing?), but she couldn’t bear the waste of its tears and spit. Her body alchemized nutrients and energy into sweet milk to grow its brain and body, to set it on a course for physical agility and a high-percentile SAT score—not to squander those calories on red-faced tantrums. She allowed herself to be drained (disfigured, too, probably) so the baby could live a healthy life, succeed in a stressful, high-paying career, have a family, a swimming pool, a sharp and stylish haircut. Instead, its angry eyes leaked her nourishment into an insulting puddle on her sleeve.
***
She found the glass eyedropper in their bathroom junk drawer, sterilized it in boiling water to the droning of the baby’s atonal screams from the other room. Returned to the thick-padded recliner, with the heaviness of the swaddled thing in her lap, she blew on the eyedropper’s applicator, closed it in her fist to take in its heat, storing it inside herself, safely away from delicate skin. Once cooled, she placed it gently in the corner of the baby’s eye, pinched the stopper, then let it go. A fat tear was sucked into the glass tube. The baby blinked and scowled, a distrustful look beyond its experience.
The droplet swirled when she held it up to the light. Something within it seemed to recognize her, pulse for her, ache for reunion. The mother lifted the dropper to her mouth and squeezed it onto her tongue. The baby wriggled, intolerant, in her lap.
***
The popsicle molds were on clearance. It was fall, and they’d fallen out of season. She pulled them into her cart harum-scarum, just as she did with their regular groceries—glancing and tossing them in, barely slowing in the aisles, making the trip as expeditious as possible, ignoring the judgement of other shoppers, smiling to soothe the constant caterwauling of her bucket-seated baby.
It took a full day of tears to fill one mold and another for it to freeze. It tasted salty to her, familiar, correct. Cold and delicious. She consumed it slowly, lick by lick, then chewed the remainder off the plastic stick. Her breasts swelled; the baby’s cries grew urgent. With it latched on, the fluid felt thick, doubled in goodness from the path it had taken through both their bodies and now through them both again. She reclined her head, closed her eyes. The pain was exhilarating. After, the baby slept, sound and quiet, for the first time she could remember.
***
There were six popsicle hollows in the mold, but the baby’s improved temper meant that she only needed one of them. She made a mental schedule, cycling through each of them, never using the same one twice in a row. Once a hollow had been used, it retained a slickness that would frost as the next mold froze, requiring her to wipe it out with a wet paper towel before using it again. The mother had time for such things now that the baby was better about sleep. Mostly, she spent her newly-won free time standing in its bedroom doorway, watching the steady rise and fall of its body.
***
The baby grew fat and smart. As its tantrums decreased in frequency and fervor, it became stingier with its tears. She would sometimes sit with it on her lap, her dropper poised, appraising its face for the slightest sign of moisture. Frequently, she would push the applicator too heavily against its skin and leave a tiny red circle beside its eyes. “Crib rash,” she would say.
The molds now took four or five days to fill, sometimes longer. On the last day, she scraped a lowly ice chip from one hollow with greedy fingers.
***
“Just about time for solid food, don’t you think?” the father asked of the baby. She saw delight in his eyes at the thought of her body being returned to him. He didn’t know about the popsicles, but he understood how it might feel to no longer be needed. He squeezed her hand. The baby gummed the french-fry he had given it.
***
The child went to school, made friends, got moderately good grades. It was all little boy, suddenly. He was sweet to her in his way, but he didn’t remember the shared secret of their feedings. She was devastated to learn that one can’t miss a closeness they don’t remember. She was sometimes grouchy, chewed ice, but would never say what was wrong. Her son enjoyed popsicles made from cardboard cans of orange juice concentrate.
***
Girlfriends and summer jobs. A driver’s license, sex, college, adulthood. She remembered through it all.
***
Over the current holiday, her son brings his family to visit. Work is demanding, and time has long been his scarcest resource. He ignores the wailing of his child.
She bounces it, her grandchild, on her clasped knees, coos to quiet it, feels a visceral hunger. In the corner of its eye, she perceives the faintest discolored circle. She wipes the meat of her thumb across it, mindful of her nail. It’s raised, slightly, and damp to touch. The grandmother looks up, through the crowded room, and finds that its mother, her daughter-in-law, is intently watching her. She’s pretty but harrowed. There’s a damp stain on her blouse. The hunger is in her eyes too. The grandmother waits until her son pulls his wife away to some corner of the house, then she places her thumb in her mouth and tastes her.
M.C. Schmidt's recent short fiction has appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Southern Humanities Review, EVENT, Coolest American Stories 2024, and elsewhere. He is the author of the novel The Decadents (Library Tales Publishing, 2022) and the forthcoming short story collection, How to Steal a Train (Anxiety Press, 2025).