Member-only story
FICTION
Baby Doesn’t Cry
Mama taught her that
Baby doesn’t cry. Mama taught her that.
When Baby was four, she came home with wet cheeks. The girl next door had broken the head off her Barbie doll.
“That’s just how you play murder,” the girl remarked flatly, patting her Barbie’s head — still firmly attached to its thin, plastic neck. “If you don’t like my game, then just go home, crybaby.”
Baby carried the decapitated doll in her tiny hands, delicate as a bird. Barbie’s perfect arms and legs stuck straight up in rigor mortis, her plastic flesh hot from the afternoon sun.
She entered the trailer, wet and blubbering. Mama was standing in the kitchen — which was also the living room — a cigarette perched between two plump, peach-toned lips.
Without a word, Mama picked Baby up like a feather and plopped her on the old wooden stool by the table. Its hard surface was sticky from the ghosts of breakfasts past.
Baby’s lip quivered as Mama inhaled smoke. Her red-taloned fingers silently took duct tape out of the broken drawer by the sink. She gripped the tape between her canines and ripped a piece, leaving a peach-colored kiss smudged on the gray.
