ANIMAL BEHAVIOR — MELISSA BOWERS
/Overheard at the mommy and me group: I left him alone for two minutes—two minutes, swear to God—and suddenly there was Sharpie all over the walls and also on his face. Oh yeah? Well last week I ran upstairs to change clothes and my youngest ripped the stuffing out of our pillows like a fucking puppy. Okay, once, I went to the bathroom and by the time I flushed she’d cut her brother’s hair off. We’re literally not allowed to pee, you know? You can’t ever turn your back. They are wild and unpredictable. Most accidents happen in sixty seconds or less.
They told you it would be innate, a roaring primal thing that shakes you alive by the neck as soon as you’re split apart and stitched back together. You would lift vehicles to save them, they said. You would throw yourself in front of a train.
But one morning you go to put away the cooking oil and your toddler spins a knob on the stove and the pan catches fire, and you duck and run first, remember her second. She stands alone in the kitchen for only a blink, not long enough to scream a full scream, and then you are back, reaching for her, shielding her body from flames that lick at the ceiling. A hero—you, and your damp dish towel flung over top.
Later, your friends’ eyes will widen and one of them will flutter a hand above her heart. They will take turns saying things like So lucky you were right there with her and Imagine what might have—. They will point to the blisters bubbling up along your pinkie finger and shake their heads with relief. It’s your job, you’ll tell yourself, To absorb the oxygen if it becomes a hazard, to suffocate dangers even if you are afraid.
When your toddler grows into a big kid, she will bring home intermittent facts from friends and books: Polar bear moms are prepared to battle the largest, scariest males. A gazelle draws attention to herself so predators won’t notice her young. Orca whales never leave their calves longer than a few hours, not for the rest of their lives.
Every once in a while, your child will talk about the time she accidentally cornered a hissing mother raccoon in your backyard, or the geese that chased her away from a nest by the lake. If she asks, you will pull her close and list the ways you’ve rescued her—bloody scrapes bandaged and kissed, feverish cheeks cooled, tantrums tamed, lice and nits picked carefully from a tender scalp—but all the while you will think of your split-second failure in a moment that truly mattered, the shame and the smoke, and wonder about your instincts.
Even a cold-blooded crocodile carries her babies gently between her teeth and deposits them in the water, where most fires will not survive.
Melissa Bowers currently writes from California, though she will always consider herself a true Midwesterner. She is the first-place winner of The Writer magazine’s personal essay contest, a multi-prize winner of Pithead Chapel’s 2019 Short Story Award, and a finalist for the 2020 Lamar York Short Fiction Prize as well as the 2020 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. She was shortlisted for Barren Magazine’s inaugural Flash Fiction Prize this year, and Susanna Kaysen recently awarded her the 2020 Breakwater Review Fiction Prize. Melissa’s work has also appeared in Writer’s Digest, HuffPost, and The Boston Globe Magazine, among others.
