The Blue Door

Arthur had seen something he shouldn’t have seen. He had been curious, as eight year old boys often are, and had little interest in following his father’s orders.

            “Do not disturb your mother when she is in the baby’s room.”

            Those had been the instructions and there were to be no questions asked. Like always. But his father had left to run an errand, shutting the windowless door with his briefcase in one firm fist and a handkerchief folded in the other. Once Arthur had heard the car’s drone disappear, he crept up the stairs towards the nursery.

            The door had been painted blue to welcome the new baby. There was a fresh bouquet of flowers on the table beside the door frame. Arthur had taken special care not to tip the vase as he pressed his ear against the door.

The first thing he had heard was the wind, which struck him as odd since the baby would be getting cold. His mother and father had been so careful not to let anything happen during the last wintery months of pregnancy. His mother, her hair long and grey, had not left the bed for weeks. Everything in the house had been quiet and still.

The wind inside the baby’s room picked up and shook the blue door. Arthur scratched at the fresh paint as he listened for his mother. Shouldn’t she be singing to the baby? That was what his aunt had done when his cousin was born. Everything was light and musical and happy when his cousin was born. Why was it not that way for this new little baby? Arthur hadn’t even been allowed to see him yet and it had been two days now.

Finally, between gusts of wind, Arthur heard something else. Was that the baby crying? It sounded like a cry. It reminded Arthur of the sound he made when his throat caught after he threw a tantrum for too long. Like a gasp, a pitiful gasp for air.

Troubled, Arthur turned the door knob he had been forbidden to touch. He had only looked for two seconds, really. And he shut the door before his mother saw.

There was a word to describe what she had been doing. He had read this word in a botanical text in his mother’s library. Then he had looked it up in the family dictionary, but he couldn’t remember it now. Whispering? Wallowing? Wandering?

He needed to know. Arthur went to his mother’s parlor and traced the spines on her bookshelf. He spied the book he was looking for on the very top shelf, a fat peach-colored book with descriptions and drawings of plants. That word, the word for what his mother was doing, was in that book.

He dragged the chair from the desk and pushed it against the shelf. Even standing on the chair, he was not tall enough to reach it. He began stacking books from the lower shelves onto the chair until the pile swayed like his father after too much brandy. He climbed up, gripping the shelves for support. On his tiptoes, he could touch the spine of his prize. What was the word, what was the word, what was the word?

As Arthur reached out, his tower gave way and the books underneath him toppled. He fell hard to the ground and was still there when his father returned.

It was clear to his father how Arthur had hurt himself. The boy awoke, blinking and stiff, to his father already shaking his head with disapproval.

“What were you thinking, Arthur? That was reckless – and very unintelligent. If you wanted a book, you should have waited until I was here to get it for you.”

Arthur didn’t hear the concern in his father’s voice. He only heard the anger. Tears welled in his eyes as he mouthed silent excuses.

“Stop that, Arthur, and speak. You know I won’t have my son weeping like a baby.”

Weeping. That was the word. That was what his mother had been doing. Hunched over the bassinet, her arms folded across her belly, weeping.

Arthur’s father softened his voice when he saw his son’s wide eyes. “Come on now, you’ll be fine,” he soothed, sitting uncharacteristically beside his son on the floor. “Everything will be fine.”

The tears in Arthur’s eyes spilled over and he too began to weep.