Charlotte rolled over in the light, stretching toward the sun as much as the bed would allow. She liked the mornings. The sun was warm, and it made everything seem bigger and nicer. She’d slept through the dawn again, but she was still happy to wake up in the sun.
She propped herself up farther in the bed and grabbed Jim off her nightstand, stroking his head as she looked out the window. Jim didn’t mind it here, but he was a bear, and bears were very good at not minding things, but Charlotte wished she could go home. Everything was different here. Her sheets were icky and white instead of her animal sheets, and her mother never made her breakfast, and she wasn’t allowed to walk around, and the doctors kept giving her shots, and… Charlotte’s lower lip trembled and she snuggled Jim harder. She wasn’t supposed to cry. It made everyone else cry when she cried now.
Jim stared at her with consoling button eyes. He smelled like home, and like cats. She never understood why he smelled like cats, but he always did. He was a very strange bear, but he was her bear. She sat that way for a while, snuggling Jim and waiting for the sun to get higher and warmer. She was tired already, but she didn’t want sleep through another day. She always woke up alone when that happened, in the dark. The darkness was scary here; it filled up all the cracks and turned the white walls into ghosts. It made her window into a mirror, and she hated that most of all. Her big sister used to say she had hair like a princess, but that was before. Now her head looked like an egg. Not even the nice eggs in cartoons, but a slightly squashed one, like you bought at the store when there was only one box left. In the light, with Jim, she could pretend that she could go home, but seeing herself in the window broke the pretend.
Charlotte sniffled and hugged Jim closer. The nurse would be here soon, and then her mother. She didn’t want her eyes to be red then, it wasn’t ladylike.
***
Charlotte’s mother had been talking with the Doctor. Charlotte could always tell, and she didn’t like the doctor much. He smiled like grown-ups did when they lied and thought you didn’t understand, and her mother’s eyes were always red after he talked to her.
“Hey love,” Charlotte’s mother said softly as she settled over the bed, hugging her as if she were made of glass. “How are you feeling today?”
Charlotte reached up to give her mother a real hug, clinging to her neck for as long as she could manage. Her mother smelled like the home, but more like cinnamon and bread than like cats. Which was good. Her mother shouldn’t smell like Jim.
“I’m a little tired,” Charlotte replied honestly. “But Jim has been helping. He tells stories, and he keeps the doctors from giving me all the shots they want to.” The first part of that wasn’t quite true, but she needed it to get out of trouble. The second part was very true; no doctor tried to give her a shot unless they had to, not when they had to get through a bear.
Her mother smiled and laughed, rubbing Charlotte’s shoulder gently. “I’m sure he does,” she said, using the same tone she always used to refer to Jim.
They sat like that for a while; her mother talking about home while Charlotte worked up the courage to ask her question. “Mommy,” she began seriously when a lull in the conversation presented itself. “I want something, but I have to ask you a question first… What’s an ounce?”
Charlotte’s mother looked surprised for a moment, and then she chuckled. A real chuckle, like the ones she used to make when Charlotte asked this kind of question. “It’s like a pound, sweetheart, it tells how heavy something is. Why?”
Charlotte ignored the counter question for the moment. “Is it bigger than a bird?”
“It’s bigger than a little bird,” Charlotte’s mother replied, still smiling. “I think it’s about as big as a sparrow.”
Charlotte nodded. That was what she’d hoped for. “Mommy, can I have a birdcage?”
Her mother’s smile quirked. “But you don’t have a bird, sweetheart, what do you need a cage for?”
Charlotte breathed deeply. She didn’t like lying, but she’d get in trouble if her mother knew she’d been listening to the grownups talk. “Jim was telling me a story, and he said that when people died they got an ounce lighter, and that the ounce was their soul,” Charlotte said in rush, not stopping to breathe. “So if I had a birdcage, and I… I died, you could put my soul in there with Jim, and you could take me back home.” Charlotte sniffled. “And I wouldn’t have to stay in here anymore.”
Charlotte’s mother stared at her daughter, her eyes wide and her mouth caught open. “Charlotte, baby, I-“
“Please,” Charlotte interrupted, young eyes serious.
Her mother bent down and kissed her forehead. “I- Of course, love. Whatever you want. I just… Mommy is going to get some air, but I’ll be back, okay?” Tears leaked out of the older woman’s eyes. Charlotte was ashamed to feel the same tears on her own face. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry.
***
The cage was beautiful, and Jim looked quite the gentlemen inside of it. It sat on her bedstand, facing Charlotte. Charlotte took a deep breath and propped the cage door open. It looked small inside, but she imagined it would be very big when she was an ounce. And it would be a palace if it was at home.
As darkness began to descend outside her window, Charlotte snuggled into the sterile sheets, keeping her eyes on the birdcage. It was time to sleep, and she was very tired.
Author
Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 314177 times)