The Silent Scream: a Firefly Story

Sonnet #116 was the first of Shakespeare’s that I memorized; the first I recited to Kathleen; the first reading at our wedding; and after “I love you,” they became the first words I spoke to newborn Victoria: 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

We brought Victoria home to our tiny Brooklyn apartment, where, from the very start, she slept beautifully. No colic, no ear-piercing screams, and once put to bed, she would sleep through the night. Kathleen and I thought this parenting thing might not be so hard after all. 

We didn’t understand our folly until Victoria’s two-week visit to the pediatrician. At that appointment, we discovered that our child had actually lost weight from her pre-mature birth size of 6 lbs. 6 oz. After two weeks, she was down to 5 lbs. 11 oz.

“Is she not eating?” our concerned pediatrician asked. “Are you having trouble breastfeeding her?”

“No, she eats well,” Kathleen replied.

“Does she eat every day?”

“Yes.”

“Every two or three hours?”

“Yes. Except when she sleeps.”

“Yeah, she’s a great sleeper,” I proudly chimed in. “She sleeps from eight at night until seven or eight the next morning!”

The doctor paused. She looked at me, then Kathleen, then back to me. 

“You let her sleep … all night?”

I knew a trick question when I heard it and kept my mouth shut. I mean, wasn’t it good that she slept all night?

Once informed that we needed to feed Victoria every two hours or so – yes, even during the night – our life with our beautiful child was surprisingly easy. In fact, I don’t remember Victoria ever getting difficult to handle until she was 15 months old, when Kathleen and I took her to the pediatrician for her “well child visit.” This was one of the seemingly endless series of poking and prodding sessions where she was weighed, measured, examined, and compared to the unicorn-like “average” child. 

On this particular visit, Victoria was scheduled to get her measles, mumps and rubella shot. Truth be told, like many new parents, Kathleen and I secretly hoped for objective confirmation that our child was not only healthy and progressing well but also beginning to show the unmistakable mark of genius or perhaps astonishing athletic ability.

Somehow, after a few moments of examination, Victoria instinctively knew that something very wrong was about to happen. As her pediatrician approached, Kathleen hugged Victoria to her breast. The doctor skillfully wiped Victoria’s arm with an alcohol-treated cotton swab, clearing the way for the injection to follow. As the needle pierced her arm, Victoria seized. Her eyes opened wide, and she looked at Kathleen as if she had been betrayed. Her mouth strained to form a large oval that emitted … nothing. Pain was etched into every millimeter of her face as her throat worked to form a sound. None came. For seconds that seemed like a lifetime, Victoria sat frozen in her mother‘s arms, performing this silent scream. 

My heart sank.  

Suddenly, like a World War II air raid siren sounding in another part of London, a distant call came. A thin, high-pitched wail that grew louder and closer. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn that the sound came from a less perfect child in another room. 

Victoria’s eyes, which appeared to be staring off at some horror in the distance, filled to capacity, soon overflowing, sending meandering tears down her cheeks until they began to cascade from her chin onto her mother’s left breastbone. There, they were met by Kathleen’s grown-up tears.   

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Kathleen cooed. “I love you.” 

Victoria could not decide if she wanted to be held by her mother or push herself free from her betrayer’s embrace. I put the palm of my hand over her wet cheek and began to brush away the tears – my silent apology. She now stared at me as if she had just remembered that I was in the room. “You!” her eyes knowingly accused me. “You are not blameless! You let this happen! You too have betrayed me!” 

In one of what would become many feeble attempts to feel useful, I waved one of the pediatrician’s Sesame Street band-aids in front of Victoria’s eyes, hoping the sight of a dancing Elmo might stem the tide. No luck. 

Kathleen continued to cry as she rocked Victoria in her arms. I wondered if our child would ever forgive us. And I was sure there would never be another moment when I felt so helpless. 

I was still years away from being so wrong about that.