Dark Screams: Volume Six

The Comforting Voice ^{Norman Prentiss}

“She misses her grandfather.”

Josh could barely hear his wife over their daughter’s wailing. As usual, no discernible trigger prompted Lydia’s shrill cries. They’d searched for physical causes: a rash or some undetected illness that X-rays and reflex tests and specialists might uncover. The doctors insisted she was perfectly healthy.

A happy baby, most of the time.

But any time of day or night, at home or during their increasingly rare stroller walks in the neighborhood, she’d fall into a full-throated fit of screaming. In public, heads would turn, neighbors or strangers offering help or sympathy. Some of them clucked their tongues, wondering what kind of parents would allow their baby girl to suffer such agony.

As if there was anything to do. When Lydia got like this, nothing would calm her.

Not even bedtime exhaustion. Twelve pounds now, lungs each the size of a plum, yet she could last for a full hour. Then finally the tease of calm, her parents sliding quietly under covers, heads hitting the pillows, almost drifting off, a sudden gurgle, an infant intake of breath, and then the shrieking began anew.

The same pattern several nights in a row, and Josh could barely function. Without sufficient sleep he was irritable at work, and even with his wife. He feared he’d fall asleep behind the wheel of his car. One morning he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten to his office building. The wall decorations looked different, and the eyes in the owner’s portrait blinked a greeting at him. At his cubicle, entry boxes pulsed on his computer screen; their labels changed as he clicked the cursor into them.

Josh couldn’t take much more of this.

A loving father would do anything for his daughter.

He would do anything to make the noise stop.

They’d had one solution.

He put up with it, for a while.

“Do the voice,” Michael prompted from the next table.

The request offered Josh another odd spotlight of lunchtime popularity. In a workplace where management forced staff to compete for largely nonexistent bonuses, people typically kept to themselves. Lunch was a strict noon-to-twelve-thirty routine, their office too far from Route 21’s drive-thrus, so they brown-bagged in near silence or waited to zap a Lean Cuisine. One day last month, in the tedious line at the building’s only microwave, Josh made an offhand comment about his father-in-law. He stared at the instructions for his baked chicken with string beans and said, “Jesus, this is ridiculous. Pull back film over vegetables and rotate meat one quarter turn. What am I, a chef?”

Not much amusement from the captive audience, so Josh did the worst thing you can do after a joke: He explained it. “Cheryl’s dad. He’s, uh, staying with us awhile. The old guy had surgery to remove his vocal cords, so he speaks with one of those electronic voice boxes.” Josh set his entrée on the counter, then rubbed his right hand over his Adam’s apple. “Holds the amplifier here and pushes a button.”

Did he dare? Josh wasn’t necessarily a gifted mimic, but a few times in his life he’d stumbled into near-perfect vocal impressions: his high-school soccer coach with the faint lisp; an undergraduate history professor with a thick southern drawl. And his father-in-law—not as he’s known him all these years, but the way he sounds now, after the laryngectomy.

“Oh, God, it’s too cruel,” Josh had protested. “I really shouldn’t do it.” Yet such protest, even among barely civil colleagues, couldn’t help but prompt a few voicings of encouragement, “You brought it up” and “Well, now you have to.”

He was a musician begged into an off-duty performance. Oh, it won’t be as good without the orchestra; I apologize in advance; usually I like to warm up my voice, practice a few quick scales…

Josh pressed his hand to his throat, miming each syllabic push of the button, and he found the guttural monotone at the back of his throat as he reenacted his father-in-law’s complaint about microwave cooking.

Again no response, at first, but the comical irony of it grew—at the idea of an older man’s verbose phrasings pushed through an electronic device, at his struggle to convey resentment without variation in pitch or volume—and by the time Josh hit “rotate meat,” Patti in accounts, Patti who never laughed or even listened since other lives didn’t interest her, Patti had covered her mouth, too late, because she’d done an actual spit-take of her Diet Coke. His coworkers laughed at that and at Josh, too, as he finished out the mimicked phrases.

“Poor old guy,” Josh said. “Can’t help the way he sounds. But he makes the strangest comments, in that voice. I swear.” Josh crossed himself to affirm he spoke the truth but also to hint at solemnity. He walked a fine line. Even though most listeners identified with jokes about difficult in-laws, it might seem cruel to mock someone who was recovering from a serious illness.

“Cheryl’s father is staying with us a lot, while he’s getting better. Also, he’s really happy to spend time with his new grandkid.”

Hank, one spot ahead in the microwave line, asked the obvious question. “Your little girl. How does she react to…?”

“Yeah, I was worried about that myself,” Josh admitted. “Turns out, Lydia doesn’t mind it at all.”

An understatement, really, but he didn’t feel the need to share everything with his coworkers.

He lifted one corner of the plastic film over his frozen entrée, collected a napkin and fork from the countertop. Performance over, head down, just getting through lunch again and then back to work. On impulse, and without looking up, he deadpan monotoned the start to a lullaby.

The lunchroom echoed with rare, uncontrollable laughter.

Truth was, Josh didn’t much like his father-in-law and had initially fought with Cheryl over the decision to allow his visits.

It should have been easy to talk her out of the idea. By Cheryl’s own account, he’d been an indifferent father at best. At worst, he had the personality of a mean drunk—without needing any alcohol or Hyde’s potion to prompt the meanness. He’d slipped into rages at his wife and daughters when they failed to meet his impossible, old-fashioned expectations, and sometimes young Cheryl had hidden from him until the latest arbitrary tantrum subsided. He never apologized afterward. “I speak what I feel. Not good to keep things bottled up.”

Some of his tirades insisted that his family was “bringing him down”—trapping him in a drab home and in a small-town job with no prospect of promotion. “I wish I could be rid of you,” he sometimes said, adding an unfortunate, colorful turn of phrase: “Weren’t for you worthless ladies, I’d be farting through silk.”

And yet, when Cheryl attracted boyfriends, he deemed none of them worthy. As her relationship with Josh grew serious, her father bristled at the idea. “Get her back here in an hour,” he’d say, if they were headed to a movie. “She has house chores to finish.” After a flawlessly prepared holiday meal, Mr. Hampton pulled Josh aside for a private discussion. It was like a moment from the fifties, a father-to-suitor exchange on the family porch. Mr. Hampton lit a cigar, puffed, then exhaled a slow series of smoke rings. “Cheryl gets bored easily,” he said. “She’s ready to break up with you.”

To Josh, the spiteful phrasings were well aimed. The words would never leave him. But what bothered him more was the man’s dismissive treatment of his own family, particularly (of course) Cheryl. He couldn’t go back in time and comfort the girl who’d hid beneath the bed while her father raged; he wasn’t the neighboring schoolmate who sometimes offered shelter to a frightened teenager. Instead, he could be there for her now, moving forward. He promised he’d stand up to her father, make him treat her properly. But no, Cheryl had begged, that will only make him worse, and Josh had said (getting on one knee), Then let me take you away from him.

Surprised by news of their engagement, Mr. Hampton responded in a flat monotone that presaged the mechanical voice he’d use late in life. “That’s not going to happen.”

Josh found himself repeating those same words years later, when Cheryl first mentioned her father might visit. Not going to happen. There was no point in discussing it. Cheryl didn’t need reminders of her unhappy childhood and who was responsible. She knew why her mother passed early from their lives and why her sister moved to the opposite coast and never contacted anyone.

“Hear me out,” Cheryl said. She stood in the doorway; Josh sat in the den, the television muted, some client folders balanced on the arm of the couch. “The guest room’s all fixed up,” his wife continued, “but we never have company. It’s going to waste.”

His wife stood separate from him, like a punished child in the corner offering illogical excuses. Her request was dishonest, Josh thought at the time: An empty room doesn’t necessarily cry out for a visitor, especially a troublesome relative.

And then he recalled how distant she’d seemed of late. Secretive.

“I’ve been speaking to Dad,” she said.

Josh didn’t respond.

She stepped closer to him now, the secret out. “He’s apologized to me. For everything.”

“He hasn’t apologized to me.” Even as he spoke, Josh realized the discussion shouldn’t be about his own feelings; it should be about Cheryl, what she suffered in the past, what her husband rescued her from—and how he wouldn’t expose her to that threat again.

“Oh, he does apologize to you, Josh. He’s already said as much.”

He wondered how often his wife had spoken to her father. Wondered if she’d already offered their guest room to him.

“Think about what this would mean to me,” she said. “To be reconciled to my father after all these years. At peace with my past.”

“People like him don’t change.”

“He’s different now,” she said. “He really is.”

“I’m glad you believe that.” Such a dismissive, condescending thing to say, but Josh still couldn’t think his wife was serious. He’d experienced Lewis Hampton’s cruelty firsthand, heard countless unforgivable stories from the same woman who now posed as her father’s advocate. “I can’t talk with you about this now.” Out of guilt, Josh added, “Maybe some other time.”

“We don’t have time,” she said. “He doesn’t, at least. Dad’s ill.”

Throat cancer. The man’s archaic ritual of an after-dinner cigar had finally taken its toll. Or karma finally caught him, Josh was tempted to say.

And then his wife’s hand dropped to her stomach, her palm curved slightly instead of flat.

She’d been secretive, yes. But not only about phone calls with her father.

Josh nearly jumped from his seat, so clumsy that he brushed the stack of folders on the couch arm and they went flying, papers spreading out, and he didn’t care as he rushed to his wife, almost afraid to hug her, the idea of it so fresh and fragile, because she was glowing, really glowing, as she smiled and said: “A child should have a grandfather, don’t you think?”

“Call me Lewis.”

Josh barely recognized the man Cheryl led through the front door of their home. Seven years since he’d laid eyes on his father-in-law, yet now he looked decades older. The weight loss made an immediate impression, but more striking was the stoop to his shoulders, the frail uncertainty of his gait as if he’d lost all confidence in his body.

The biggest alteration was in his voice.

Lewis Hampton released the speaker device he’d pressed against his throat, and it dangled at the end of a plastic lanyard. The old man held out an unsteady hand.

Josh hesitated a moment, then accepted it. A handshake is a gentleman’s gesture, easy to perform without considering the implications. Mechanical, like his father-in-law’s new voice.

That evening, their guest sat at the kitchen table while Josh chopped vegetables for a stir-fry. Lewis wore an odd smile, his outdated prejudices no doubt dumbfounded to see a man of the house preparing dinner.

They spoke infrequently during the meal. The device swung loose on its lanyard as Lewis chewed his food. A flesh-colored bandage over his throat incision flapped open on one side as occasional gusts sputtered through the opening. Josh mentioned a few projects at work—the same job his father-in-law previously complained hadn’t been good enough to support a family. Cheryl explained how far along she was in her pregnancy and admitted she hadn’t yet learned the child’s sex.

“I’m not sure we want to know in advance. What do you think, Dad? Should it be a surprise?”

He shrugged and gave a thumbs-up sign—as if to indicate she’d be happy either way, that whatever his daughter decided would be fine.

Maybe the old guy really had changed.

Not enough to help with the after-dinner cleanup, though. He stayed seated at the table while Josh and Cheryl collected the plates and silverware, then rinsed them in the sink.

After a bit, Lewis stood and walked toward his daughter. He seemed like he was working himself up to offer a hug or kiss of reconciliation. Instead, he put a gentle hand on Cheryl’s stomach.

She let him. She didn’t flinch.

Lewis fumbled for the device with his other hand as he leaned closer to her belly. “Hello, little girl,” the mechanical voice said, determining the child’s sex.

Cheryl excused herself for a moment, saying she needed to fix up the guest room. She’d already prepared the room the night before; Josh knew it was a pretext to give him and her father a chance to talk.

He’d found himself puzzling over the man’s behavior the whole evening. This was the same person who, the week before his and Cheryl’s wedding, announced to the whole family, “I won’t be there.” Then added, “Maybe I’ll go to her next one.” Josh squinted for traces of that old spitefulness. Previously, he’d have sworn it was a deeply ingrained personality trait. Could Lewis Hampton really have changed?

They stood in the living room, a handshake’s distance apart. Lewis lifted the device to his throat, pressed his thumb against a side button with each rhythmic syllable. “It can’t be easy having me here.”

Josh nodded. “Cheryl seems glad about it.”

“[You are] good for her.” Lewis misjudged the button presses and the first two syllables didn’t amplify. “Good for her,” the other Lewis might have said, but the artificial voice couldn’t convey any hint of sarcasm.

“I was [wrong] about so many things.” An understandable flub. Many people choke on the word when they admit they’d been wrong.

Josh nodded again, civil. “Cheryl’s going to be a terrific mother,” he said.

“Father, too.”

“Yeah,” Josh said. “I’ll work hard at it. I won’t let Cheryl be disappointed.”

Lewis struggled with the speaker device. A difficult conversation on an emotional level, made even more awkward by illness and technology. “So much. I know. You [can’t] forget. But maybe you can [for]give?”

The man’s eyes sold it. They brimmed with sincerity and barely repressed tears. But he was asking a lot.

“I’ll work hard at it. For Cheryl.”

Lewis seemed pleased by the answer. “I see clear now.” He leaned forward as if he wished to whisper, but there was no volume adjustment on his amplifier. His words echoed through the house, and Josh knew his wife could hear everything as easily as if she’d been in the room with them. “Cancer [is] the best thing. That ever hap[pened] to me.”

And Josh wanted to feel generous, then. Not just to please Cheryl but for his own sake. Anger is poison. If his wife could make peace with the past, he could, too.

Yet he couldn’t shake the sense that, with this unexpected reunion, Lewis had stolen something from him: that long-ago act of heroism seven years ago, when Josh played the knight in shining armor who rescued his wife from a fierce dragon. Now the dragon was age-stricken and feeble; he no longer blew bluster and smoke and fire but sputtered sad phrases from a hole beneath his chin.

At first, Lewis visited once a month. He’d drive out on a Saturday, then leave Sunday afternoon.

As Cheryl’s due date loomed, she raised the possibility of an extended visit. “He might be a bit of help once the baby’s born.”

Yes, Josh thought. Your father’s parenting skills were so noteworthy in the past. Out loud, he said, “Lewis would have you waiting on him hand and foot.”

“I don’t think so.” Cheryl had recently taken over Josh’s traditional end of the sofa, with her legs propped on the coffee table. “He’s made more of an effort to pitch in. Haven’t you noticed?”

“If you mean cleaning up half of his own mess, that still leaves the other half for us.”

Cheryl laughed. “You’re right.” She absently scratched the side of her leg. Her skin got so dry during this third trimester, and Josh often had to remind her to use lotion on her legs and on her stomach. “But my school’s being so generous with maternity leave, and I think I’d like some adult company during the day. Your parents are so far away.” True enough. Josh’s parents had transferred to an army base in Arizona. And his own stingy employer would only grant him two days’ leave once the baby was born.

“I never thought I’d have cause to say this,” Cheryl continued, “but I like my father. I like the person he is now.”

“You’re scratching again.” Josh lifted a bottle of Lubriderm from the small wicker basket his wife used as a makeshift medicine caddy. “Let me put some on.” He squeezed some lotion into his palm, then breathed over it so the lotion wouldn’t be too cool on her legs.

As he applied the skin cream, Cheryl asked, “Do you like him now?”

Josh focused on his task, giving himself time to measure his response. When he was done, he said, “I can’t find fault with him.”

An honest answer, since Josh had been looking for faults. Each encounter, he sought some terrible subtext hidden within those monotone phrases, some residue of spite from the earlier Lewis Hampton—the real Lewis Hampton, Josh couldn’t help but think. But he could never prove it.

He tried another tactic. “I’ve been worried about something. His mechanical voice. Do you think it might… frighten the baby?”

Cheryl put her hands over her stomach, as if shielding the baby’s ears. “Lydia will be fine.” They’d learned they were having a girl, had already settled on her name. “She’ll meet Dad right away, so she’ll get used to his voice.”

One day, Josh came home from work to find Lewis had pulled a kitchen chair into the den. He’d placed it next to the couch so he could sit close to Cheryl’s eighth-month belly. Lewis held open a storybook Josh’s parents sent from Arizona, an Old McDonald type of book with lots of pictures.

He was reading all the text to their unborn child, including sound effects for the animals. Moo for the robot cow. Baaa for the robot sheep. The same loud tones for the gobble-gobble of a robot turkey.

As he and Cheryl got ready for bed that night, he protested. “You don’t think it’s strange?”

“It was practically your idea,” she said. “I mentioned to Dad how you thought the baby might be frightened by his voice. He’s helping us get a head start.”

Josh sighed. He mentioned how other families play Mozart to their baby in the womb. The child hears whispers and soft cooing from the parents. “We should do that instead, don’t you think?”

Cheryl gave him a cool stare. “Lydia kicks when she’s upset, and she was perfectly still while Dad read to her. She’s more upset right now by your raised voice, to be honest.”

The birth went smoothly. They rushed to the hospital only a few days earlier than the due date. The epidural did its work—though Cheryl had a few rather expressive moments during delivery.

When Josh first held Lydia, the moment was indescribable. He wanted his daughter all to himself. He didn’t want anybody else to touch her.

The hospital towel seemed unworthy—too rough against Lydia’s fresh, pink skin. Josh supported the back of her head, the way he’d learned from the parenting DVDs.

How long would he get to cradle his daughter in his arms? Cheryl had her for nine months; now it was his turn.

Josh brushed aside his selfish thoughts. “Let’s see Mommy,” he said in a soft, childish voice he didn’t know he had. Saying “Mommy” out loud, having it be true, overwhelmed him with unexpected warmth and love.

Cheryl looked exhausted but content, too excited to rest. He brought Lydia close, and she smiled at child and husband equally.

“Where’s Dad?” she said.

Josh lifted his daughter to his face, then whispered nonsense syllables into the tiniest ear he’d ever seen. He took his time, waiting to cradle Lydia in the crook of his arm before answering his wife. “He’s in the waiting room. I was going to call my parents in a minute, share the good news with them and Lewis at the same time.”

“Get Dad,” Cheryl said. “He should be here now.”

“Okay.” Reluctantly, he lowered his daughter onto the hospital bed beside Cheryl, then left to find his father-in-law.

The old man was grinning ear to ear when Josh found him. Neither of them had to say a word.

Lewis followed him to the delivery room, his usual weary gait replaced by an enthusiastic scramble. His ever-present limp had nearly disappeared.

He hunched over Cheryl’s bedside. His arms reached out.

No, Josh thought. Don’t touch our child. You haven’t seen the DVDs.

“Go ahead,” Cheryl said.

His hand reached closer to their infant.

You don’t belong here, Josh thought. This place is sacred. You’re not worthy.

Instead, Lewis closed his hand around the dangling speaker device. He held it to his throat and said to Cheryl, “She’s perfect.”

Then to his granddaughter he said, “You are beautiful. [Beau]tiful tiny girl.”

Josh wondered what his wife must be thinking. This was the kind of praise the earlier Lewis Hampton had never bothered to bestow upon his own children. She should resent him, even now. Especially now.

Cheryl smiled. On her back on the mattress, the baby waved her arms. She reached blindly for the strange, familiar sound.

“I could [just] eat you up,” Lewis said.

Many parents brace themselves for competition over the new baby’s affection. When PopPop visits, he’s not at work or finishing home projects: He can devote all his time to playing with his grandkids. Same for Mee-Maw, who bakes cookies instead of steamed broccoli and lets the kids stay up late when she babysits. Grandparents never have to punish their grandkids. Their visit is always a special occasion, while parents—with the tougher, permanent job—get taken for granted.

But Josh hadn’t braced himself. His parents lived on the other side of the country and he knew they’d rarely visit. Cheryl’s mother had passed away, and her father… well, he was supposed to be out of the picture.

He’d always assumed he and Cheryl would be the sole important adults in their child’s earliest years. No competition.

So he let himself indulge in some resentment at his father-in-law’s unlikely return. He grew angry, almost, at Lewis’s stubborn refusal to revert to former behaviors—a crude or cruel comment that would justify denying him further access to their home and child.

I knew you hadn’t changed, Josh would say, and Cheryl would stand firm in agreement. They’d usher Lewis to the front door and slam it after him. Banished.

But he never slipped up. He’d actually mellowed into a sweet older man. He was even funny sometimes, the comical effect typically heightened by the strange contrast of his voice to the content of his words. Although he stayed even-tempered with people, and was perfectly tender with Lydia, he frequently got flustered with inanimate objects.

The voice device itself was a frequent target. “Holy mother. Can never get this damn thing to work,” he might say—of course, during a rare moment he managed to pulse out each syllable flawlessly. “Out [of] my way, darn table,” after he barked his shin against the furniture. “Fort Knox bread ties,” he said, then handed the sealed package to Josh for help. An awkward battle with disposable diapers was especially funny: “evil stick tape,” he said, then tried to buzz out a word that sounded like origami. Especially memorable was that diatribe at a Marie Callender’s TV entrée, the time he’d tried to fix his own meal.

Josh grew to appreciate the occasional bits of amusement his father-in-law provided. Those first weeks at home with Lydia were exhausting. Such a beautiful child, a joy most of the time, but needing so much attention. The feeding, the changing, the lifting and singing to, the dancing distractions of rattles and colored lights and bean-bag animals. Josh had never imagined life could be this full and this challenging.

Because when their daughter began to cry, almost nothing could stop her. Without warning—no flash of mischief in her eyes or even a slight downturn of her tiny mouth—Lydia would launch into a marathon stretch of wracking sobs and shrieks. Josh and Cheryl always checked first to see if she was hungry or if her diaper was wet, then would wear themselves out trying to calm her. Among the trial-and-error amusements they paraded before their daughter’s attention, none could be guaranteed to work. Lydia didn’t have a favorite blanket or toy, and the rubber-tipped pacifier rarely lived up to its advertised function. During such moments, she sounded like she was in agony: It pained them to hear their daughter’s cries, both from the siren-shrill piercing that drilled headaches through their eardrums and from the overwhelming fear and emotional empathy that affected parents of any newborn.

Only one thing worked with any reliability: the mechanical, strangely comforting voice of Lydia’s grandfather.

“Let [me] try.”

“No, Dad, we’ve got to learn.” Cheryl reached up to flick the mobile above Lydia’s crib, then cupped the hand back over her ear. Josh wore a brave smile, his fingers plugged in his ears. “Look at the butterflies, Lydia. Pretty colors.”

Lewis moved to the crib, leaned close, and pressed his speaker device to the hole in his throat. “Butt [-erflies], Lydia. Pretty [butter-] flies, Lydia.”

The infant fell immediately quiet. Her eyes turned to her grandfather, small arms lifted, tiny fingers grasping his mechanical words from the air.

“I don’t believe it,” Cheryl said. “She’s actually cooing. Isn’t she, Josh?”

The comforting ability of Lewis Hampton’s voice was an undeniable gift. It brought rest and routine back into the household. Sanity.

“Aren’t you glad now that he’s staying with us?” Cheryl would say, and Josh couldn’t deny it.

His father-in-law had become a crucial part of their home. If he’d wanted, Lewis could have blackmailed them: Get me a new color television for my bedroom, or I’ll stop speaking to Lydia. You wouldn’t want that, would you? A protection racket with the looming threat of siren days and sleepless wailing nights. Lewis could have run the household according to his own petty whims, demanding elaborate meals or a nicer lounge chair in the den. He could kick his feet back, smoke his favorite cigars, slip into the Hydelike cruelty he favored during Cheryl’s youth and teenage years. He could insult his son-in-law mercilessly, insist that the marriage was a mistake and that they deserved a screaming child. Lydia knows how worthless her father is. That’s why she’s so upset. He could say or do whatever he wanted. They needed him now.

But Lewis never lapsed into tyranny, never asked anything in return. His baby granddaughter’s love was its own reward.

Josh couldn’t help but reflect bitterly on the irony—this hated figure from his past now cast in such a generous light. Cheryl’s voice was melodic, so why wasn’t it enough to soothe their daughter? Or why not her own father’s goofy smile and charming, ineffective singsong? Their baby girl, too young to make a choice, had somehow decided to favor Lewis’s voice over those of her own parents.

A reluctant gratitude usually overwhelmed his resentment. He began to believe, like Cheryl, that his father-in-law had become a different person.

He couldn’t imagine raising their daughter without Lewis’s help.

“He’s not going to be around forever.”

Cheryl’s comment seemed to come out of nowhere. Minutes earlier, the baby’s cry had startled them from a sound sleep. Paternal instinct tensed through him, and a residue of dread from their infant’s earliest days fluttered through Josh’s drowsy thoughts: Whose turn is it? How long will she cry? How long will one of us sit and sing by her cradle or rock her in our arms, the senseless agonized wails continuing oblivious to our efforts—as if we’re not there, as if we don’t matter to her—and Josh would know tomorrow’s workday would be a sleepwalking disaster, like the day before, and the day before that. But then, a sputter and mechanical buzz from the guest room recalled the current arrangement: the baby’s crib beside their father-in-law’s bed, the old man’s robot tones quieting her almost instantly. No need to worry: Relief washed over him, and the pull of peaceful sleep beckoned.

“It’s what you wanted.” Josh lifted the covers tighter to his neck, practically burrowing his head into the pillow. “I’m happy your father’s here to get us through this rough patch.” He knew Lydia’s crying phase wouldn’t last; once their daughter learned to sleep through the night, they’d revisit the old man’s visiting privileges.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Cheryl said, “but I can’t stop thinking about it. Dad’s cancer is worse. It’s spreading.”

Josh pushed his elbows against the mattress and sat up. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.” He put an arm around his wife and hugged her close.

A malicious thought occurred to him, explaining how his father-in-law could maintain the saintly behavior. Lewis knew he only had to keep the act going for a limited time.

The old man seemed especially frail the next day. His sleeves looked like they didn’t have arms in them, and his legs were almost as thin as broomsticks. Josh wondered why he hadn’t noticed the change.

“Cheryl told me.” He put a gentle hand on Lewis’s shoulder. Oddly positioned knots of bone seemed to shift beneath the fabric.

Lewis raised the device to his neck. “I’m [at] peace,” he droned. “Ready to go [when] my time comes.”

“That’s a good way to look at it,” Josh said.

Another night, Lydia’s cries again woke them. Josh endured his familiar pattern of panic, followed by relief that Lewis would calm her, drifting back to sleep, head pressed hard against the pillow, blanket pulled up over his head, the fabric fisted into a knot and pressed against his ear—because she’s still crying, an end-of-the-world wail, a primal expression of fear and abandonment. Josh brought his knees closer to his stomach, buried his head between blanket and pillow to block the sound.

Cheryl shook him. Gently at first, then more urgent, her voice drifting from the end of a long tunnel: “Honey. Something’s wrong.”

He rolled out of bed, stumbled toward the beacon of their daughter’s cries. His wife followed behind.

They’d woken in the middle of an air raid. A fire alarm blared a deadly warning.

They reached the guest room to the right, across the hall. A closed door partly muffled Lydia’s wail.

Josh was afraid to open it. The sounds would be even louder on the other side. They would hit him like an explosion.

Cheryl shouted through the door: “Dad? You okay?”

Josh put his hand on the knob. He hesitated.

Because an awful image flashed into his mind. Lewis Hampton, that frail old man, wasn’t in his bed. He’d somehow found fresh strength and agility, and had leaped over the bars of the baby’s crib and climbed inside. He crouched over Lydia, his stick legs bent like an insect’s. An awful curve distorted his spine, ridged bumps appearing along his naked back. Dark bristles sprouted from his thin arms, and the pincers at the end snapped menacingly over their baby’s head. A black ichor dripped out of the opening in the old man’s throat and plashed in curdled drops onto Lydia’s cheeks. The child took a breath, opened wide to scream anew, and a gurgle as thick as chewed tobacco fell from the hovering throat hole and into her mouth.

Josh threw open the door.

He immediately put his hands over his ears, then waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

Their daughter lay on her back in the crib, eyes open, arms and legs flailing as she cried out.

Lewis was sprawled across the guest bed. One arm dangled off the edge. The other reached to his throat, an index finger hooked inside the wound as if trying to clear a clogged drain.

Cheryl flipped the light switch, then ran to her father’s bedside. She shook him, waved a hand over his unblinking eyes. She tugged at the finger he’d stuck into his throat wound, but it wouldn’t budge: His frail body lifted slightly from the bed, then dropped.

Josh took their daughter from the crib, tried bouncing her, sang “Hush Little Baby,” kissed his finger and touched it to her mouth. His wife dialed 911.

Lewis looked tiny in the bed. As if, even now, he was shrinking into insignificance.

The baby continued to shriek.

Josh’s family was his own again.

Lydia cried nonstop at the funeral. She was too young to understand grief, but everyone in attendance agreed the child expressed genuine loss.

His wife explained the baby’s behavior with a phrase that became all too common in the weeks that followed: “She misses her grandfather.”

Cheryl returned to work after her extended maternity leave and the bereavement days for her father. The daycare center beside her school quickly decided Lydia was too much for them. She “upset the other children.”

Josh offered the babysitter earplugs. “It’s okay to wear these, as long as you can see her.” He then pointed to their Bose stereo system. “Music sometimes helps. It helps you, I mean. Not the baby.”

They worried that the fits were getting worse and more frequent. The next doctor visit, they both took off work to attend: Two adults could present a united front. There is something wrong. Isn’t there some test you haven’t done? This can’t be normal.

Josh was actually grateful their daughter slipped into one of her fits during the visit. Good. He can hear this, too. Now he’ll have to believe.

Lydia wriggled on the examination table. “My,” the pediatrician said. “Oh, my.” He shone a penlight into the baby’s eyes, prodded her stomach, felt the pulse along her wrists and ankles. “She’s got a powerful set of lungs on her.” He tried to disguise a wince as he removed the sound-amplifying stethoscope. “Maybe she’ll turn out to be an opera singer.”

More like the victim in a horror movie, Josh considered responding.

“I don’t see the point in ordering further tests. Her behavior is within the normal range.” The doctor had to shout to be heard, which undercut the intended calm of his diagnosis. “This pattern will stop eventually.”

“When?” Cheryl asked. “At four months? Five? Next year? And are you sure there isn’t something wrong with her? Something terribly wrong?”

The doctor offered a measured response, ending with a quick, shouted summary: “She’ll be fine.” As they compared notes afterward, Cheryl recalled him saying, “I predict she’ll be better in no time.” The way Josh heard it was: “I can’t predict. These things take time.”

Nights continued to exhaust them. They had moved Lydia’s crib back to their own bedroom to monitor her better. When it was “Josh’s night,” he’d scoop her up, with the blanket bundle and a rattle toy, and would take her downstairs to a rocking chair he’d moved to a corner of the kitchen.

He’d tested that spot as the farthest from their bedroom, hoping the sound would diminish over distance. He’d be a zombie at work tomorrow, but at least Cheryl might get some sleep that night.

He had the pacifier, too, but Lydia turned her head if he attempted to push the rubber tip into her mouth. He took a bottle of her formula from the refrigerator, then tried to feed her, but again no effect.

As often happened, Josh blamed himself. He wasn’t inventive enough, or he lacked simple fatherly skills that came so naturally to others.

He realized he didn’t often describe his daughter with love: compliment the shape of her nose, the way her cheeks puffed up when she smiled. The wispy golden silk of her hair, now just beginning to curl. That kind of praise, expressed with a father’s genuine pride, might be what was needed.

“You’re so pretty.” He gently poked at her stomach, made a tickle sound. “You’re my pretty girl.”

Even as Lydia’s face scrunched tight, mouth open, eyes flashing with rage and cheeks blister-red.

It’s like she just wanted to cry.

Josh lifted the corner of the blanket. Soft cotton, a pretty pattern of pink and white stripes. He crumpled the corner into a ball, judged the size of his daughter’s open mouth.

A gag, only. He’d remove it if she had trouble breathing.

He was so tired. What if he pushed the blanket into her mouth, pressed his hand over it to further muffle the sound, and what if he accidently covered her nose as well? And what if he fell asleep?

Josh, what are you doing?

Cheryl, in her nightdress, stood in the kitchen doorway. Her voice carried loud and clear. He was afraid to look in his lap.

She misses her grandfather. Are you taking her to him?

Josh heard himself say, “Yes, Yes, that’s what I’m doing. Would that be so bad, really? Our daughter favors him over us. We get proof of that every day, every night…”

Then Lydia’s scream came back, full force.

It had never faded. Josh looked at the wailing baby in his lap, then back to the doorway where he thought he’d seen his wife. Her voice had been too clear. He never could have heard her over Lydia’s cries.

A political prisoner suffered similar distress: sleep deprivation, continual loud noises to interrupt rational thought. His will was broken; hallucinations prompted him to consider the unthinkable.

But what if…? What if that vision of his wife had proposed the best solution?

Josh didn’t know why the idea hadn’t occurred to him earlier. Take Lydia to her grandfather. She misses him.

Or rather, Bring Lewis here. Through mimicry.

He’d never brought home his imitation of Lewis’s mechanical voice. His wife, certainly, wouldn’t have seen the humor in it. And now that his father-in-law had passed on, the idea seemed to be in especially poor taste.

But now he was alone with his inconsolable daughter. Her grandfather had been the only one who could comfort her. His strange voice, at least.

Could he still do the imitation? And what should he say?

Josh cupped one hand behind his daughter’s head, and he brought his mouth close to her ear.

“Hush, little girl,” he said in a slow monotone. “Quiet, little Lydia.”

Josh couldn’t hear himself very well, but he knew the voice didn’t quite come out right. Lydia kept crying, but a hint of interest crept into her eyes.

“Recognize me?” Josh buzzed and droned. “Who does Daddy sound like?”

Lydia seemed fascinated, but she didn’t stop crying.

Josh figured out the problem: His imitation lacked authenticity. He was an actor who didn’t believe in the character he portrayed.

Because he’d never believed in this current incarnation of Lewis Hampton: the same man who, while raising his own daughter, insulted her on a daily basis. When Josh courted Cheryl, witnessing the oppressive atmosphere Lewis created in their home, he had always wondered: How can a father treat his own child this way? His own beautiful, innocent daughter? A parent isn’t allowed to think such things, let along speak them aloud, yet Lewis hadn’t seemed to care.

That part of Lewis was missing from Josh’s attempt at mimicry. But he didn’t dare incorporate such awful messages into his imitation.

Then he remembered a joke he and his brother used to play with the family dog. You could say anything to Prince, as long as the tone of your voice remained sweet and loving. Would you like to go back to the pound? We can take you there, and have you put to sleep. And the dog would run to the front door, excited to go outside. How would you like me to cut off your tail, boy? Slice it clean off with a kitchen knife? And that same tail would wag happily.

Josh realized it didn’t matter what he said.

It would be okay to talk to his daughter with Lewis Hampton’s robotic, cancer-ravaged voice, and to evoke the real Lewis with each word choice.

Stop crying now, he buzzed near Lydia’s ear. Or I’ll beat the living daylights out of you.

The baby gave a quick hiccup, then took a sharp intake of breath as if ready to enter a fresh bout of screaming.

You’re ugly and useless, his version of her grandfather said. You’re ruining this family.

Lydia grew instantly calm.

The next morning, Josh opened the bedroom curtains and blinds to let some sunlight through. Cheryl was still in bed, waking gently before the rude shock of their alarm clock.

She rolled in bed, blinking, a raised hand blocking the light—obviously surprised to find herself feeling so well rested. A sudden rush of fear washed over her: The night had been silent, too silent. “The baby?”

“Sleeping.” Josh crossed from the window and stood beside the crib. “Last night, your daughter and I came to a kind of agreement.”

As if in answer, Lydia’s shape stirred beneath her pink and white blanket. After a familiar intake of breath, she began her signature wail.

“Oh, here we go again,” his wife said. She winced and began to get out of bed.

“No, no,” Josh said. “Allow me.” He lifted the baby and brought her head close to his mouth.

Josh had one particular advantage over his father-in-law’s voice box. He could lower his volume, practically whisper into his infant daughter’s ear.

The baby would hear him, but his wife would not. Cheryl wouldn’t know that he imitated her father. She wouldn’t know the exact words he spoke.

I wish you’d never been born, he whispered.

The mechanical buzz cut beneath the child’s shrill wail. Lydia stopped crying.

“That’s amazing,” Cheryl said. “What did you do?”

“I guess some of your father finally rubbed off on me,” Josh said. He set the calmed baby back down, then gave a token shake to the butterfly mobile above her crib.

Josh took comfort in the fact that his infant daughter couldn’t comprehend his words.

But someday, she would.