Bells jangle as I stumble through the glass door of the Wash and Go. The woman slouching in a seat facing the washers startles awake with a grunting snore. I blink in the bright light, brighter for the yellow walls, accosted by the caustic freshness of detergent.

Her eyes widen as she eyes my belly. “You OK, honey? You look terrible.”

“I just need to sit down,” I reply, cradling my abdomen with both hands. When the contractions began hours ago, I thought I could wait. But I miscalculated — I’m exhausted and drained.

She picks up laundry bags from the chair beside her, and motions to it as she stands. “Take a seat.”

I stagger over and plop awkwardly down.

“Honey, are you sure you should be here? You look like you’re ready to pop,” she says, brushing her salt-and-pepper bangs back. “Should I call an ambulance?”

“No,” I say, wincing from a contraction. “Thanks. I need to rest a minute.”

“Maybe there’s someone I can call? Your boyfriend? Your family?” She looks at me with rising discomfort, frozen, uncertain how to proceed.

“Just let me catch my breath.” I close my eyes, focusing on the warmth of her. The tumble of the dryers fades as I visualize reaching across the space between us, my fingers passing through her hair, her skull, wrapping around her brain. She stands motionless, the electric tingle as I connect to her thoughts sending a shiver through her.

And then I feed. I tease through the folds of her mind, following the paths to every good memory, like a Pac-Man gobbling up dots. A lifetime of dopamine hits. Every endorphin high. A birthday party with balloons and roller skates. The elation of scoring a soccer goal. A hug from her mother. The electric touch of a lover. Every orgasm. I run from the ghosts of her regrets, disappointments, and traumas.

I come across a memory so dear, it will fill me fully. Her toddler’s smile. I circle it. I consider her kindness towards me. She’ll survive, but leaving her with only grievances and resentments feels wrong. I leave that smile. She falls to her knees with a moan as I devour the rest.

Now I’m reinvigorated and can think clearly.

I stand and waddle over. Holding her waist, I ease her to the floor. “Sorry, ma’am,” I mutter. And I am sorry — sorry she was the one here at last wash. I am also glad she was the only one here — no alarmed bystanders to manage.

I pass by the agitating washers, towards the dryers along the back wall, grabbing a rolling cart on the way. Delicates, darks, whites. There — that’s what I’m looking for — towels.

The dryer spins to a halt when I open the hatch. I reach in. The load is still a little damp, but will have to do. I unload the dryer and roll the cart to the back corner, under a mounted TV playing a cooking show with subtitles. I lay out the towels, nearly buckling from another contraction. I lower myself to the floor, back against the wall. I take a deep breath before lifting my dress and wriggling out of my panties. And then I wait. And breathe. And breathe.

*

I thought I would have more time. In autumn, I felt the familiar sensation of twinning, something of me condensing in my mind — a seed forming. While it germinated, I worried it was happening faster this time, so soon into the life of this vessel. Not even twenty years.

The seed dislodged, passing through me, along my spine to my uterus, where seed meets egg, a new vessel forming, an unrelenting series of events set into motion like so many times before. More than I can remember.

*

The contractions strengthen and quicken. I feel the tether to this vessel weaken and snap, as I pass into the new vessel. Then there’s nothing. Just my attention, awareness floating in emptiness. And then I’m a glimmer, absorbing dulled sensations, the steady thrum of heartbeats from fathoms deep. I become aware of the suffocating darkness, the hot viscosity of it. I can’t breathe. I thrash. Unseen walls close on me, strangling me, pushing me, until I emerge into impossible light, choking for my first breath.

I wait, feeling the warm husk I’ve shed beside me, now mindless and insensible. Sensations are overwhelming after emergence. I am the dead weight of never-used muscles.

I hear the jangle of the door and a shout. And then after some time — it’s hard to know how long — an alarmed outburst. As I feel the warmth of a man approach, I remember I must be patient. He’ll need time to make decisions, to call 911. There’s always someone who will take in and care for a foundling. Once others are safely on the way, I will feed again.

***

When I shift my weight, even a little, bells tinkle, startling me. Gray shapes rotate slowly before my eyes, tracing intersecting arcs. Some sort of accursed mobile. Why do they always think this is a good idea? I close my eyes against the distraction and ruminate.

You have too much time to think when you’re an infant. You can’t do anything. Your eyes have never seen. Your ears have never heard. Your mouth has never spoken. Training your senses, your muscles, and rebuilding the neural connections is something you can’t accelerate.

I have a head start. Once I can comprehend speech, I already know the words. Once I can focus my eyes, I know what I’m seeing. Speech is harder. Operating the tongue and mouth require so much repeated practice. Also, I’ve learned it’s best not to draw attention to myself by speaking at too early an age. You can be precocious, but only so much before they see you as creepy or scary.

And there is all the choking on food. All the vomiting and diarrhea. The inescapable smells. It’s better to not know what’s happening as you fill your diaper.

During these endless hours of floating between consciousness and sleep, I have time to consider my next steps. I curse my impatience at this inevitable helplessness. I try to make sense of my existence. And all the while I worry I am transitioning earlier and earlier each cycle. This is the second life in a row I’ve begun as an orphan. After several lifetimes of settling down with responsible men in safe homes, my gentle husbands becoming my grieving fathers, things have changed. I’ve been too young to get married and create a stable household, forcing me to depend on the kindness of strangers. I wonder if there will come a time when I’m too young to bear a child when it is time to change vessels. What will happen then?

None of these thoughts is of any use. Here I am trapped once again in an infant body facing the long years stretching before me, years without autonomy, the slow claustrophobic process of maturation. Again.

*

There is a kind woman who feeds me and holds me. I have no clue how she ended up as my caretaker, but she cares for me as if I am her own. She smells of tuberose and citrus. Her flesh is supple. I respond instinctually to the animal comfort of her embrace. I see her smile. I see her eyes. I can’t quite put together a whole face in my mind. She chatters and coos to me. I can make out words. It’s all soothing terms of endearment and enthusiastic statements of the obvious. She lovingly wipes my ass and picks my nose and cleans food off my face — accepting the occasional blast of vomit or squirt of shit with grace.

I struggle with hunger. I can’t eat her memories. I need her intact — at least for now.

There is a man in this house. The scent of sweat and shaving cream. His booming voice. For now, he is also off limits.

Obviously I can’t go anywhere on my own. I’m completely dependent on these people for everything.

While the woman is sleeping I riffle through the file cabinet of her memories, taking inventory. Just in case I’m desperate.

Her name is Angie. Her husband, Derek, calls her Ange, Angela when he’s angry. She calls me Jasmin. Any name is good enough.

Angie is in her mid-thirties. How many lifetimes ago was it when I reached that age before being reborn? She’s on maternity leave, but she told Derek she resigned, since that’s what he wanted, demanded really, for his agreement to foster me. She ultimately wants to return to work, but she knows she’ll have to resign after her leave because Derek won’t agree to put me in daycare. He doesn’t want her to work. That’s a problem for another day. Hopefully Derek won’t find out she didn’t resign already.

She worries a lot about whether the adoption will come to pass. Whether the agency will approve it. Whether she and Derek are good enough. Whether Derek will behave.

She wishes she had more support from her family. They don’t like Derek, and Derek doesn’t like them. She hopes my arrival will be an opening for reconciliation, just as she hopes my arrival will affect changes in Derek, bring out his paternal instincts. Make him softer and kinder. The jury is still out, but she is hopeful.

While she is so happy I’m here, underneath there is a sadness for all the time and money and unpleasantness she encountered trying to have a child of her own. There are a lot of painful places I can’t get near. Painful memories are hard to swallow. They bring up my own painful memories, many lifetimes’ worth, and all those I’ve consumed. It’s too much to handle. And, sometimes, with just a taste, I lose control.

Derek is a piece of work. He’ll bounce me lovingly on his lap, babbling baby talk, which clearly warms Angie’s heart. Even as he’s smiling and cooing, underneath he is angry and a little disgusted by me — the mess and noise and bother of me. The way I take Angie’s time and attention away from him. Later, after acting like a loving father, he’ll rage around the house. Breaking things. Yelling at Angie about something or other not to his liking. She tries to placate him, but it doesn’t matter what she does, he still lashes out. It’s a depressing dynamic as old as time. How many times have I seen it? How many times has it happened to me?

Derek calls me “Jazzy.” In part this is because he’s uncomfortable with the name “Jasmin.” He agreed to this name for their first girl while they were trying to conceive. It was Angie’s favorite grandmother’s name and the stakes seemed low at the time, since there was no actual pregnancy and because he was certain they’d have a son. But they didn’t. They didn’t have a baby at all until they took me in. Now Derek feels he isn’t in a position to retract his former agreement. His main discomfort is Jasmin is a family name and maybe an olive branch. He has a reflexive dislike of everything about her family, but since my arrival, their icy estrangement has threatened to thaw. “Jazzy” came out of his mouth spontaneously when he was holding me the first time. He thought it was kind of catchy and, besides, he recognizes it bugs Angie because she wishes he’d use “Jasmin” but she can’t bring herself to say anything about it.

I gently probe his mind to figure out how he ticks. He’s bad food. His good memories, or at least those that give him pleasure, are often bad memories where he has taken creative license to reorient them to make them good for him. Is there a way for me to edit his memories that will change his behavior? This has never worked in the past. He’s got nothing but skeletons in his closet and a lot of shame. I’m the indirect focus of his shame, his insecurity around whether his defective sperm was to blame for their fertility struggles. He believes he probably damaged his sperm, with all the drugs and drinking, or that time he had the clap. You wouldn’t know this from his official record: all the blame he heaped on Angie for her barrenness, for the hassle of fertility treatments and counseling and adoption interviews. And now the hassle of me.

So I carefully investigate each groove in the record of his mind. I trace each path and quickly know more about him than about Angie. It would please him if he knew so much of my attention is focused on him — because that’s always what he wants from everybody.

*

There’s a point where you can’t not cry. It’s overstimulation. The infant nervous system responds reflexively to any powerful sensation. Loud noises. Sudden brightness. Something too hot or too cold, especially food. I quickly realize Derek doesn’t tolerate this. He blames Angie. He yells and menaces her.

I try not to cry, but it’s almost completely out of my control. When I do, I can’t even think clearly enough to explain why I am doing it — even to myself. Each time I wake in the middle of the night, bawling, I hear Derek’s angry grunt before Angie creeps to my crib to soothe me. She is kind and loving, but I realize I’m contributing to her exhaustion. I keep trying to do better.

***

After what feels like an eternity but is probably just a few months, things click into place. I can focus my eyes. I can see colors. I can interpret sights and sounds more clearly. I can hold up my head and sit upright and move a little under my own power. I can mumble a meaningless babble that mimics the cadence of language. Damn tongue. So hard to master.

Cradled in Angie’s arms, bottle in mouth, I see the smiling Derek. A dark anger washes over him. He faces the flickering light of the television, talking loudly about whatever it is. Probably sports. The haggard Angie responds with positive affirmations, automatically, offering feigned interest, while feeding me. Nasty stuff, formula. But I need food for my flesh as much as I need memories to feed my mind.

I begin mentally mapping the house. We spend most of our waking hours between the kitchen, me in my highchair while Angie cooks or cleans, and the living room, with Derek’s chair in front of the TV and the couch where Angie sits. I mainly sleep in their room at night, but there is a nursery adjacent to their bedroom, down the hall from the kitchen, past the bathroom and laundry room. I try to imagine how I’d escape if I needed to. I catalog the doors and windows. Really, I’m so far from being capable of anything so elaborate.

We leave the house occasionally — which is essential. Sometimes Angie takes me to the doctor or out shopping. Mostly she pushes my stroller down the street to the park near the house. She finds a shady spot. I watch the sun flicker between the shifting leaves and hear the distant murmur of children playing.

These are the places where I have access to other people, to feed. I’m not ravenous. I’m selective and take only what I need — maybe a little extra just in case. Nothing anyone would notice. And the kids at the park are the best. They have so many small moments of oversized joy. A ride down a slide. Blowing bubbles. Splashing in a pool. These kids are young. They won’t remember 90% of this stuff in three years anyhow.

*

This morning when Angie picks me up and cradles me in her left arm, as she usually does, she winces and shifts me to her right arm. She struggles to handle the bottle, to find the right angle. Her eyes are red and moist. As I reach out to learn why, I immediately recoil from the sharp sourness of it, understanding what the yelling of the night before signified. I withdraw and ponder whether there is something I can do for her, something I can do to Derek.

It’s a tricky calculus. In the past I’ve tried different approaches. Eating the angry memories, shameful memories, memories of powerlessness and powerfulness. I’ve nibbled at the bitter memories and devoured the sweet. And it has never seemed to matter. I’ve never been able to correlate my choices to results. I wonder if there is a different way. Something that can work.

It’s impossible to remember the first time I did anything, let alone the first time I tried to change a cruel person’s behavior. I can no longer trace my life backwards in a linear fashion. The overhead of absorbing and storing so many memories — the mind can only hold so much. Or maybe it’s more correct to say that the way it stores memories causes them to overlap and blend. Even just the act of remembering rewrites stimuli and impressions, forming narrative to compress and sort.

But I do believe that even from the beginning it must have been similar. Consuming traumatic memories somehow transfers the trauma to me, causing me to lash out, to gorge. It’s a little like how any animal, given access to an endless supply of sugar, will eat until they die. It’s the way I’m wired. As I gorge, the length of my reach extends, further and further. Back in the days when so many more people lived in the same dwelling, a full extended family, eating negative memories would create a chain reaction where I’d consume all the memories, from everyone, leaving a dozen people or even more stripped to the floorboards, empty and insensate. The rush of the power it gave me, like I could touch the minds of everyone for miles, like I could go on and on, swallowing a city whole. Even just thinking about it triggers an echo of that feeling. Like I could hold the memories of all humankind, leaving only me.

How many times have I ended up surrounded by the collapsed bodies of my mindless family, mindless neighbors in adjacent apartments? I’ve learned to avoid consuming those memories that leave me orphaned, which, in turn, leads to the question: why am I the only one that didn’t succumb to whatever afflicted everyone else? Which leads to scrutiny. I’ve learned to be very careful. To try to only eat just one. But that doesn’t always work.

Maybe I’m doomed to try and fail. Today, as Derek Dereks in front of the TV, I consider my options. Do I go deep into his childhood? Do I look for a pivotal moment during adolescence? Do I start at the present and work my way back, excising petty slights or obvious failures that deform the story he wants to tell about himself? I have to balance each against the likelihood that a specific memory will be so triggering that I can’t stop. Just skating over these memories fills me with unease. With a fight response, because I am incapable of flight.

Briefly, I consider whether I should edit Angie instead. Remove positive memories of Derek, so that she’ll leave him. I rule that out almost immediately. If the memories she has already aren’t enough to convince her to leave, then what chance do I have? So I’m feeling stuck. I don’t have any way to balance the equation, the possible rewards of action versus the risk. A risk that extends to Angie, who could so easily become collateral damage.

I am habituated to choosing inaction in the face of this uncertainty. Or in the face of the certainty that I can’t make a difference. Erasing what’s written in the ledger of memory isn’t enough to change behavior. There is some other property I can’t perceive, etched in the body itself or the folding structures of a mind, a property I can’t affect.

If that’s the case, that there is no action that will certainly work, really don’t I just need to weigh the possible risk of dire consequences versus the guaranteed risk of known consequences? Shouldn’t I make whatever move seems intuitively correct? Except my intuition has always failed me before. Which is why I’m trying to puzzle it out in the first place.

Stymied and frustrated, it occurs to me to take two bites. Two bites every day. Try a little bite of anything, perhaps almost at random. Or one good and one bad. Although that approach may be as hopeless as anything I’ve tried before, it feels novel.

Starting slow seems wise, so I hunt for a low stakes appetizer. Derek is maybe thirteen, out of breath, chugging around the soccer field to start gym class when suddenly he feels hands graze his hips before he trips, falling face-first into the grass. The sniggering of boys as he lifts his head, stunned, his shorts at his knees, ass in the air. The embarrassment and anger.

I follow that immediately with a moment on a clear, warm day, when his stern grandfather is uncharacteristically generous and gentle, handing him an ice cream cone. Two scoops. Chocolate and vanilla, because Derek couldn’t decide. In the park around the corner from the hospital where his mother is about to give birth to his sister. The sticky drip of ice cream on his fingers.

Then I hold still, my mind buzzing. Feeling the compulsion to forage further, for one more taste, resisting with all my will.

*

I practice saying “Daddy” quietly in my crib at night. Really it’s still more like “Dabby.” This is a strategy for self-preservation.

This evening Derek is in front of the TV grumbling about whatever, rambling on and on as usual, when he asks to hold me. This makes Angie immediately nervous and me nervous vicariously. I clench. It’s not something he’s done before.

I sense his dark thoughts as he plays pattycake with my hands. I feel Angie’s anxiety rising as she watches attentively from the couch. It’s now or never I think. So when Derek is silent for a moment, I belt it out. “Dad-by.” Close enough. And I laugh explosively. I mean, it’s a fake laugh. Can anyone tell if a baby’s laugh is fake?

Derek stares at me with a reflexive smile and looks over at Angie. “Did you hear that, Ange?”

Before she answers, I say it again. An even better “daddy.” Another squeal of joy seals the deal.

“That’s right,” he says to me, disarmed. He kisses my forehead. “Jazzy’s daddy’s girl.”

I’ve handed him a gift. In his mind this gives him power over Angie. I’ve chosen him. And now he likes me more. It’s a dangerous gambit. I’m hoping it will protect me, at least for a while. It’s risky to be the object of Derek’s attention. I do feel bad for Angie. It would have meant so much to her for me to say “mommy” first.

*

I’ve been cranky all week. Editing Derek is souring everything. Even the joy of lounging at the park is tainted. I take too many memories from the children.

Today as I trawl for memories, I discover a thorny one. Many memories connect to others in elaborate and unexpected ways, but this memory truly leads down a rabbit hole. It starts with a failed tryst when Derek was twenty. There was flirting and dating such as it is at that age. The object of his affection was out of his league. Or made him feel he’d entered a new league, that he’d graduated to a new level. One night they were both very drunk. He walks her home. She invites him in. They tiptoe to her bedroom, careful not to wake her roommates. They kiss. She tells him to fuck her. But not to cum in her. He’s been waiting and wishing for this moment. But not exactly like this. He has never been given such a command. He wishes he had a condom. They undress and begin slowly. But he can’t dismiss his mother’s repeated admonition to always use protection from his thoughts. Even as he’s thrusting, building up a rhythm, he hears his mother’s voice. And he can’t climax. He can’t finish. He’s a little freaked out. He stops and lays next to her, staring at the ceiling. When he looks over to her, there’s a question on her face. He kisses her and gets up. Tells her he should go. As he bumbles around her room, hunting for his clothes, she watches him with a look of — what? Disappointment? Puzzlement? He leaves and, as he returns home, he feels shame that he couldn’t enjoy what he’d been so excited about, what had filled his waking thoughts for weeks. Anxiety about the inadequacy of his performance. Anger at his mother for erecting this weird obstacle. He ached for this young woman and then he couldn’t even look at her without reliving his failure.

I imagine this might be a memory a young man might return to, might linger on. But for Derek it is more complex. Even as the nascent relationship petered out, he continually fantasized about how it could have gone differently. The carefully drawn porn-like recreations of her gasping and moaning, telling him how it was the best ever. How the constraint freed him to improvise, discovering more exotic forms of pleasure. And this fantasy persists even to this day. It touches nearly all of his sexual experiences. He cringes with embarrassment at unexpected moments recalling this completely out of context. At work. In line at the grocery store. While driving. While watching TV. It is more than a regret. It is a humiliation that he subjects himself to over and over.

It seems like too large a gift to relieve him of this memory. I like that it hurts him. He deserves it, even if maybe he should give himself some grace. Young men know nearly nothing. Hell, neither do men of any age. But, it also seems so foundational, like extracting it could make a real difference.

It’s not like eating a typical memory. With its interrelated fantasies, some feeling more real than a memory, tendrils reach out and link across his mind. It’s like a bowl of spaghetti, where you can only get so much in your mouth with your first forkful. You need to suck in the loose noodles that extend every which way, your mouth sloppy with marinara. So I scrutinize it, tracing the connections, trying to assess whether I can slurp in all those strands without choking. Without starting the chain reaction. It’s such an elaborate structure and so mixed up with shame and self-loathing that I feel like I have to try. I brace myself and begin. It takes a little while. The threads uncurling and unravelling and retracting. When I’m done, Derek emits an audible sigh. I feel nauseous. I close my eyes. My muscles tighten. I remain still, tensed, trying to hold it all in.

***

Something is different tonight. I don’t notice at first because Angie is spooning nasty carrot paste into my mouth, or trying. A lot of it is on my face, which would make me cranky enough, but also my gut feels like it’s going to rupture. Can it only be gas? So I’m fussy. She wipes off my face, extracts me from my high chair, and cradles me. She begins bouncing me and walks towards the hallway, leaning into the laundry room. “Can I get you anything, hon?” she asks. I note a little anxiety in her voice. I burp.

Derek is sprawled out on the floor, tools scattered around, nuts and bolts lined up before him, a rubber ring in his hand. The washing machine is flipped onto its side with the underside exposed. “No, thanks.” He seems pleased with himself. “I’m making progress. I think it’s this belt. It’s worn. See,” he says, holding it out towards Angie. It is slightly frayed.

“Let me know if you need anything,” she says.

“Shouldn’t be too much longer.”

I disgorge a tremendous crap, feeling instant relief — the pain in my belly vanishes. I’m dewy with relief. Angie recognizes I’ve filled my diaper and takes me to the bathroom to change me.

Afterwards, Angie places me in my highchair and begins straightening up in the kitchen.

What’s different is the quiet. Occasional clinks as Derek tinkers. No TV. None of Derek’s constant commentary. It goes on like that until it’s bedtime. Derek is still working as she puts me down. Is my plan working?

*

“I’ll stop by the hardware store after work,” Derek explains over breakfast. “I thought I could make it work, but we need a new belt.”

Angie is silent for a moment. “I could call the repairman if it’s a bother,” she offers.

Derek frowns. “No need. Can you hold out for another day?”

She ticks through a mental inventory of my clothes, trying to remember what remains clean. “I think I can make it one more day.”

“You could go to the laundromat if you’re desperate,” Derek suggests.

Angie winces, a sharp pang of unease flooding her thoughts. She’s about to explain she’s worried because I was found in a laundromat, and she thinks it might be traumatic for me. But she dismisses this thought. Derek will think that’s stupid. I’m just a baby.

“It can wait until tomorrow.”

Bile rises in my throat as I consume the memory of Derek watching two other boys explode fireworks. Each blast excites and terrifies him. He imagines how much trouble he’ll be in if his parents find out. One of the boys says “Check this out.” He’s caught a lizard and the firecracker is lodged in its mouth. The boy lights the fuse and tosses the lizard into the air. Derek braces himself for the concussive bang. Half the lizard falls to the asphalt of the playground. The boys shout joyfully. The boy picks up the half lizard, displaying it proudly on the edge of a water fountain. The next day, Derek will see the charred lizard there and have a pang of sorrow that they killed it. Later he will regret this whole experience. Later still, he will think of his reaction as a sign of weakness. The whole episode spoils my appetite. It’s too much to find another memory.

*

Tonight after dinner, Derek returns to the laundry room to resume his tinkering for the balance of the evening. All the while Angie’s anxiety rises.

“These new machines are all computer chips now,” Derek complains. “I’ve been watching some YouTube videos. I have an idea that should work.” Angie puts me down for the night.

I remain careful and cautious. The bitterness of being bullied and his father’s reaction as Derek explains the black eye and scratches. The sharp clap of his father’s hand striking his head accompanied by a primordial sense of unfairness. Then a party where he didn’t know anyone, but had an expectedly good time, where he ended up making out with a stranger on the back porch. He doesn’t remember her face and never knew her name.

*

The next morning, after Derek leaves, Angie packs a roller board with dirty laundry and drags it into the garage. She loads the suitcase and a basket holding a jug of detergent into the trunk, then settles me in the child seat, fastening the belt. We drive several blocks and pull into the parking lot of Suds Spot. As we enter, she is nervous about my reaction. I don’t much care. The churning machines are soothing, and I fall asleep. But Angie remains anxious and tries to wrap it up as quickly as possible.

Tonight it’s a little more tense. Derek grunting in the laundry room. Angie only speaks to me.

I take an acrid bite of when he shit himself in his third grade classroom and got the nickname “Stench” that followed him through elementary school. Then the strange cloying flavor of the first time he cheated on a test, the thrill of getting an A.

*

In the afternoon, the doorbell rings. Angie greets a cheerful repairman. She explains the situation sheepishly. There’s a short stretch of clanging and banging, followed by the rush and chug of the washer running. After maybe half an hour, the repairman sticks his head out of the laundry room. “Ma’am, I’ve got it working. Come take a look.”

Angie twists the dial and presses the button. There’s a whoosh as the barrel fills. She turns the dial to the end of the cycle. We listen to the water drain. She smiles and thanks the repairman. She’s pleased but also tense as she writes him a check at the kitchen counter. Her palpable tension rises throughout the remainder of the afternoon, reaching a sort of frenzied climax of dread right as Derek arrives.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” he says as he enters the door.

“Ah, it’s OK. I called the repairman,” she explains. “It was under warranty — so it didn’t cost anything,” she adds with hope this lie will mollify Derek.

Derek doesn’t say anything. They eat dinner in silence. They watch TV in silence. After she puts me to bed, there’s yelling for a long time.

***

Angie buckles me into the child seat and begins driving. Today, being strapped in makes me feel trapped. I try not to fuss.

Light swims across the ceiling. The sounds of traffic and thrum of the car. The changes in angles, the sense of motion. A car ride is a curious cross of soothing and alarming.

When she takes me out of the seat we’re in the dim light of a parking structure. She carries me against her left shoulder. Over her right shoulder hangs a bag, filled with food and diapers and whatnot. We descend in an elevator and walk through a hall, emerging in the lobby of a hospital.

This isn’t unusual. There are any number of doctor visits along the way when you are an infant. They weigh you and poke you and jab you with needles.

Angie chats with a woman at a desk and we take a seat in the waiting room.

After an indeterminate, but seemingly lengthy spell, a harried woman flops down in the seat next to us. “Sorry, I’m late,” she apologizes as she struggles with a stack of files and her briefcase. “They say it should only be a few more minutes.”

Angie nods. I reach out to understand what’s happening. Angie’s roiling anxiety. There are stakes here I don’t understand. I reach out towards the woman. I know it will have to be quick. She’s Linda. She is here in some capacity to protect me or assess me. She’s a little nervous about what’s to come. She has many delicious tidbits in here and I’m hungry. Seeing as she’s nominally on my side, I resist. There will be plenty of opportunities with all these people around.

A man approaches us and guides us through a door past several examination rooms. He’s a nurse. I don’t think his name is important here. Running through a sprinkler on a hot day, laughing. Just what I need.

We enter a hospital room. Pressed up against Angie’s shoulder, I struggle to see. I sense a void and become suddenly queasy. I sense … no it can’t be … I try not to cry. It’s my old vessel. Laid out on a bed. Skin, flaccid and sallow. Wires and tubes. The small beeps of machinery.

Angie is filled with conflict; her fear this discarded vessel will wake up and reclaim me; her sadness and empathy, feeling this mother should be with her child and be filled with love like she is. These feelings flicker across her mind and my mind. I tremble.

“My understanding is there’s been no change in her condition,” Linda explains.

Angie nods and puts down her bag. She holds me up with both hands and approaches the bed.

Nooo. Nooo! I’m repulsed. This is a dead husk. A shed skin. Something to discard. It’s just a bag of meat. They are keeping it alive.

“She still has autonomous nervous system function. She breathes and her heart beats. But the EEG shows no higher brain activity.” Linda pauses as Angie lowers me into my old arms. I immediately squirm, trying to escape. Angie tries to settle me. And I shriek and shriek and try to free myself.

The two women make noises of concern. Angie coos anxiously, hoping to calm me. I vomit. Angie looks both ways for anything to clean it up. I continue shrieking and wiggling. And when I’m gulping breaths, I have a moment of clarity. “Mmmmomma,” I sputter, raising my arms towards her in the universal sign to pick me up. She does.

“Did she say ‘momma’?” Linda asks. I say it again, and she shakes her head as Angie rocks me against her chest even though my face is smeared with vomit. I calm down a little bit.

“She’s barely six months,” Linda says.

Angie stares blankly at Linda.

“That’s really young for a word.”

Angie fetches a cloth from her bag and wipes off my face and both of our clothes. “She said ‘daddy’ the other day,” Angie says with pride, even though she still harbors a kernel of resentment and maybe concern about that.

“Amazing,” Linda exclaims. “Well, you’ve clearly bonded. Let’s take her out of here so we can talk. She is obviously distressed.”

Angie sits down across a desk from Linda in some office. “I don’t know what the head office was hoping for today. Maybe a fairytale ending where Jasmin would bring her mother out of this coma. Apologies. I didn’t think it would have such an effect on Jasmin.”

“I feel terrible for the mother,” Angie says sincerely.

“Her name was Gwen. She has no family. She was in the foster care system too. No father we can find.”

Angie shakes her head and sniffs.

“I think you and Derek can move forward with the adoption. Did you receive the forms I sent?”

“Yes,” Angie says. “I’ve mostly filled them out.”

“Well, if you have any questions, please call me. Let’s get them filed as soon as possible.”

***

Raised voices rouse me from my reverie. There’s a crash and Angie cries out. “Look what you made me do, Angela,” Derek fumes.

I struggle to focus my eyes. Angie lays crumpled on the linoleum floor where the kitchen borders the living room. Derek paces and mutters, eyes wild. He steps towards her, raises his arms before circling back across the living room carpet, briefly lit blue by the TV screen.

He is talking non-stop. I reach towards him. Whatever he’s saying, the real thing in his mind is that he’s lost control. Not of the situation before him. Over the trajectory of his life. With the adoption imminent, maybe the checks from the system will stop. Angie will have to return to work. He likes knowing she is at home. His mind is racing in circles of shame and anger.

Derek tells Angie to get up. She remains prone and moans. But when I reach out, she’s muffled, her mind dark.

My heart races and my own blood pumping creates a sort of rising white noise.

I don’t have time to face my failure. To wallow in the deflation of hope. To curse the inevitability of the outcome. But even so, I see flashes of the consequences. Poor Angie, spoon-feeding Derek, wiping his ass, trapped in the endless cycle of caregiving. Derek in diapers, playing with blocks, learning to dress himself.

But I can’t let that stop me. In the here and now, fearing for Angie’s safety, which my safety is so intimately wrapped up in, I press into Derek’s mind.

It’s the same minefield I’m now so familiar with. The rat’s nest, a maze filled with unexpected switchbacks and dead ends. And now it’s even less clear where to turn.

Can I appeal to his better nature? No one wants to be a monster. But who am I kidding? With him staggering around cursing, the flashes of anger and regret, so long as he’s imagining himself being led away in handcuffs — good luck.

I make a decision. I eat the last six minutes of his short term memory. He’s disoriented. He sees Angie on the floor as if for the first time, and falls to his knees next to her. “Ange? Ange?” he wails, shaking her shoulder. Touching her head. Screaming, “What happened?” And he is afraid.

He should be. Those memories. The nastiest stuff. Infectious. Intoxicating. Can I keep control? Can I resist cleaning him out from attic to basement?

He still isn’t making the right decision. So I go for broke.

“DADDY,” I shriek, the shrillest sort of baby scream. That catches his attention. He remains frozen. Do I have to spell it out?

“9-1-1!” I shout it as clearly as I can.

He stares dumbfounded at me. His gaze returns to Angie on the floor. He swears. He glares at me, and seems like he’s about to speak, as his hand feels for the phone in his pocket. Then he freezes, his mind whirring, and he withdraws his hand and takes a step towards me.

I belt out one more “Daddy!” And he stops, takes a labored breath, and this time he pulls out his phone and dials. But he doesn’t hit the button. Frozen again, eyes locked on the screen, he lowers the phone and turns, taking a step towards Angie.

Certain my stratagem has failed, and seething with the desire to drain him dry, I try to think clearly. I imagine him drooling on the floor. Angie out cold. Me, trapped here in my highchair until — what? How long before someone will come? He swivels his head back to me, his lips twisting into a grimace, eyes fixed on me for what feels like an eternity. He lifts the phone and presses the button. The phone rings and, as the call picks up, I bore into his mind.

Acting fast, I burrow to the deepest stratum, beneath emotion, his most fundamental memories, to undermine the foundations. I devour each letter of the alphabet. Every number. I eat the days of the week and months of the year. I eat all the colors. I erase the basic knowledge Derek needs to function.

Derek steps back into the living room, clearly shaken, drops his phone and slumps onto the sofa. He groans. After I’ve polished off the geometry of every face he’s known, he falls into silence. Eyes agog. Mouth agape. Gurgling like a newborn.

I cry. I cry loud — so the 911 operator can hear.