Mama Bear
by Joseph Hirsch
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Flowers from the funeral and food dishes from the wake covered a goodly portion of the living room, from tables to chairs. Grace sat in one of the few uncluttered spaces—a single couch cushion between two others holding foil and Saran-wrapped bowls. In her hands was a framed photo of Josh in blue and yellow football silks, shoulder pads, kneepads, and helmet.
On her lap sat the little teddy bear, plush and with a fleecy golden pelt, amber button eyes, leather nub for nose.
Allison came into the living room, the high heels she’d worn for the funeral clacking against the hardwood.
“Mom, you can’t just sit in here like this with all of this stuff around you.” Allison pointed at the flowers and food.
Grace looked up with vacant eyes. “Why not?”
“Well, for starters, all this pie is going to do nothing but tempt you. You want to lose a foot?”
“Have you heard of this little thing called insulin? There’s some in the fridge.” Grace nodded toward the kitchen.
“Doesn’t matter. All this sugar isn’t good for you. And besides, I read something online that said some of the lots of your brand are being recalled. We don’t need two people in the same family dying by the needle.”
Grace shook her head. “How can you be so casual about all this? Don’t you feel anything for him?”
Allison took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes. “You’re not the one whose car he stole and then wrecked. You weren’t there when he shot up in front of Bobby. And don’t tell me Bobby was just a baby then, either, because that’s the kind of thing that’s going to stay with him for life regardless.”
“It’s my fault,” Grace said.
“I’m not getting into this.” Allison picked up plates. “It was his fault when he put the needle into his vein. Just like it was my fault when I put the needle into mine. You even told me as much yourself when I came to you for help. Don’t you remember? I certainly do.”
“I didn’t understand, then,” Grace said. “I learned more about addiction, so when it was his turn, I was better equipped to help.”
Allison snorted. “You giving him money to buy dope was not helping.”
“I had to!” Grace’s eyes went wide, and she raised a hand from the photo’s silver frame to cover her mouth. When she next spoke, she used a more controlled voice. “He got tetanus collecting scrap. He got shot at trying to steal catalytic converters. Heaven knows what else he was into that I never found out about. At least when he was here doing it, I knew where he was. And I owed him, because it was my fault, no matter what you think.”
“Stop saying that.”
“It’s true. When he was a baby, I could never breastfeed him. That’s more important than you think. He—”
“Mom…” Allison shut her eyes again.
“He was one of those rare babies born with teeth. It hurt something awful when he latched, especially since I was so sensitive there, anyway.”
“You told me all this before. I didn’t want to hear it then, and I frankly don’t want to hear it now.” Allison spun in a slow circle to make sure she’d gotten all the plates, at least everything spoilable or sugary. “And I don’t see what you not breastfeeding him has to do with Josh deciding to shoot black tar.”
“He never got that warmth from me, that feeling of being loved and full, that nurture. It’s an important part of the bond between mother and child.”
“I love you, mom, but I’m leaving after I put this stuff in the fridge.” Allison gestured with the plates toward the kitchen, struggling to keep hold of them.
“Take it all with you,” Grace said, standing. “You’ve got a growing boy at home and a husband who eats more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Allison’s eye strayed toward the plush doll her mother held. “Someone give you that at the wake?”
Grace crinkled her brow, confused, so used to having the bear in tow with her wherever she went that she now took its presence for granted. “No, Josh…” She trailed off, eyes blinking rapidly, stuttering before she regained her voice. “A couple of days ago I gave him a hundred dollars to get Bobby a gift for his birthday. I expected him to spend it all on dope, but he came back with this.”
“I think they cost fifty bucks at the mall to make your own. So he probably bought dope with the other fifty.”
But Grace hadn’t heard her. She was lost staring into the teddy bear’s glass button eyes, dark and liquidous, like blackstrap molasses. And there was something else about the bear she wanted to show Allison, its best feature. “Listen” she said, and smiled, pressing the shiny oval made of faux gold filigree nestled in its potbelly.
A staticky noise came from the bear, almost like a CB squelch, then:
“Hey, Bobby. This is your Uncle Josh, just wishing you a happy birthday, nephew. I’ve only got ten seconds to record this, so, you know…”
Josh trailed off, dead air crackling as he struggled to come up with more words, failed, and the recording ended.
Allison took a step back, away from the bear, tower of plates clacking and wobbling in her hands even more precariously than before. “I don’t know. It’s a nice gesture, but it might confuse Bobby to hear his uncle’s voice so soon after the funeral. He’s having enough trouble understanding death as it is.”
“It’s fine,” Grace said. “I’ve sort of grown attached to him, anyway. He likes to cuddle with me.”
Allison nodded, out of words, arms sore from the load, watching her mother snuggle the bear tight enough to compress its plush body into a dense ball. “Mom, I have to go.”
But Grace hadn’t heard her, was still too busy cuddling the little bear.
She woke in the middle of the night, still on the couch but stretched out since Allison had cleared the dishes to make space.
The photo of Josh was on the glass coffee table before her, bathed in blue light coming from the TV. The bear had been in her arms when she first drifted off, snuggled close to her bosom.
But now…
Grace sat up, looked down at the floor. It wasn’t on the hardwood, nor had it fallen under the table or beneath the couch skirt. In a panic, she patted the couch cushions to her left and right, groping the way Josh once did when scrambling for fallen coins.
Still, no bear.
She stood, faint and wobbling, almost falling over before catching herself on the couch arm.
“Bear?” she called, before laughing in the dark. This was ridiculous, calling out to it as if it could answer. Even funnier was that she had failed to name it, had just called it bear.
“Teddy?” That sounded better but not much; too generic, not personal enough. She would have to work on it.
She walked the rest of the way through the living room and into the kitchen.
It was a little colder in here, the chill of the linoleum seeping through her thin socks. It was dark as well, except for a shaft of light spilling through the cracked refrigerator door.
Grace walked over there, stared inside. The replacement meal shakes were all lined up in a row, strawberry and vanilla four packs. The shelf below those was dedicated to her medicines, her “Beetus” paraphernalia to paraphrase Wilford Brimley from the old ADA ads. The glass containers of insulin were next to the syringes, needles thin and plugged with orange plastic stoppers. There should have been three, but there were only two.
A thump sounded from the back of the house, near the guest bedroom.
“Hello?”
Grace closed the fridge and went over to the knife block on the counter, pulled a heavy butcher’s blade free of its slit. She kept its carbon fiber handle in a loose, underhand grasp, trying to control the tremor growing in her arm.
“Bear? Teddy?”
Nothing, no more sounds. Then another thump. Grace shifted toward the guest bathroom; that seemed to be the source.
“I’ve got a gun,” she said. A woman with a gun would likely intimidate the intruder more than one with a knife; a knife he could slap out of her hand when he got close. A gun she could use before he closed the distance. “This is your one chance to leave peacefully. Open the window and jump on out. There’s enough room for you to fit through.”
That part wasn’t a lie, as it was a double-hung job with two wide panes in a lead sash. A man could easily slide out, unless he were especially big. The size, say, of Wilford Brimley.
Grace giggled in spite of herself, letting some of the fear discharge. If someone were in the bathroom, he would hear the giggling fit, think her crazy.
Good.
She reached the door, which was cracked, the bathroom dark except for what moonlight shone through the window. She grabbed the doorknob, a cold crystalline cutglass bauble, turned and pushed hard, intending to startle him.
Something stopped the door, though, preventing it from fully opening.
She shouldered her way inside, turned toward whatever was blocking the door from the bathroom side, ready to disembowel the prowler. But there was only a terrycloth robe dangling on a hook, its flamingo-colored fluff shedding in mangy tatters.
Grace heaved a deep sigh, stared around. The bathroom looked much as it had months ago, when Josh had used this side of the house as his personal crash pad: ersatz marble countertop; faux golden gooseneck faucet; frosted glass shower door pulled back to expose loofah, sponge, and shampoo all in their soapy cradles. It smelled slightly of mildew and body funk, a holdover from Josh’s poor hygiene habits and general messiness, but otherwise nothing was amiss. Except for on the toilet.
There was something there, a small and dark clump of cloth or fabric, maybe a bath towel balled up on itself.
Grace flipped on the light switch, the soft bulbs in their flower-shaped sconces coming to life to illuminate the object.
It was the bear, furry head downturned, glass button eyes fixated on his left arm. A leather belt was cinched tight around the bicep region. Grace’s missing needle pierced deep into the fluff near the wrist.
She went over to him, less worried about an explanation for his presence here than about immediately undoing the obscenity perpetrated against his helpless form.
Who would do such a thing? Clearly Allison, still harboring a grudge over Josh spiking up in front of her newborn son. She had some right to resent her brother even in death, and her mother for other reasons, but not to take it to this extreme.
Grace would call her in the morning, apologize for not being there for her when she needed her. In return, though, Grace would demand Allison apologize for this terrible and tasteless prank.
Grace picked Teddy up from the toilet. “Poor baby bear. Mama was worried sick about you, you know that?” She set the knife on the counter, undid the belt from his arm, pulled the needle from the stuffing, chucked it into the trashcan.
After taking up the knife again, she carried Teddy out of the room, closing the door behind them. In the hallway, she stopped and squeezed him tightly, nuzzling his little tummy with her nose.
“Bobby…” the bear said, the entirety of the original message made by Josh mangled by already-depleted battery life. Grace had pressed the belly so many times that the little voice box was running down. Soon, her son’s voice—the last part of him—would be gone for good.
It was too much, Bobby sounding so much like mommy.
“Baby!” Grace shouted, kissing the little golden oval nestled at the stomach but softly so she wouldn’t startle the voice to life again. Tears formed in her eyes, and she began spinning with him in circles. In her spinning though, she moved heedlessly into the corner of the nearby kitchen counter, its sharp edge poking her hipbone.
“Oh!” She recoiled from the pain and lost her balance, tumbling toward the floor with the knife still in hand. She was careful not to let Teddy get hurt in the fall but less careful with herself. Her head smacked the linoleum, a flash went off in her skull, and everything went black.
Grace coughed, braced herself on her hands and knees. Blood trickled down the front of her nightshirt, falling in beaded trails from her neck. She reached up, felt a jagged slash across her hand, sticky and warm.
She had probably fallen so that she slashed herself with the knife edge. But maybe there was an intruder, someone who had composed the scene in the bathroom to send a message. Someone besides Allison. Someone who hadn’t planned on her waking up to interrupt them, and in their panic had overpowered her and slashed her with her own knife. She didn’t know everything about Josh’s world, but he probably owed people money, had burnt them on deals and stolen from them. They might not even know he was dead, or even if they did, they might have intended this morbid message for his surviving family members.
Pay his debt or else.
Grace stood, fought through the headrush to reach the table, sat down before the pile of condolence letters spread out in a giant paper fantail. Next to the letters was her cellphone.
She picked it up, powered it on, and with a trembling, blood-stained finger, pressed Allison’s image under Contacts. In the profile’s accompanying thumbnail, Allison and Jake were at the Grand Canyon, both wearing jean jackets, Bobby a mere pajamaed baby held between them, expression blank.
“Ma?” Allison’s voice was slurred with sleep.
“Did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Wuz going on?” Jake muttered in the background, voice even groggier than his wife’s.
“It’s my mom.” Then, “Ma, are you okay?”
“The bear,” Grace said. “Did you put the needle in its arm or was that some drug dealer trying to tell Josh something?”
“Mom, I can’t even begin to make sense of what you just said.”
“I’m bleeding.” Grace lifted her hand in front of her face, staring at the dried red smears, thick as paint. “I might have cut myself. I haven’t bothered looking around for the knife yet, so I don’t know.”
“Mom! Stay right there! Call an ambulance! I’m coming over but call an ambulance, just in case you can’t wait.”
Grace dropped the phone and it hit the floor with a clatter. “Teddy?” she asked, standing up from the table, balance gone, vision blurry, the angle of everything canted to the side.
She laughed, giddy from the buzz of blood loss, shuffling in her socked feet through the kitchen.
The bathroom door was open again, the light still on.
She staggered back over there, pushed the door the rest of the way open. Once more the bear was perched on the toilet seat. Again, he had the belt tied around his arm, needle jammed deep into the fiberfill polyester of his chubby limb.
Slowly he turned his neckless head to fix her with those glistening honey eyes.
“Baby!” She began walking toward him, holding out her blood-stained hands for an embrace. “Why do you keep running away?”
“I thought I was supposed to be a gift to Bobby.”
“Mommy’s right here,” Grace said, slightly confused.
She started undoing her striped nightshirt, the pearlescent enamel buttons glowing in the light from the bathroom sconces.
“I want Bobby,” the bear repeated.
Grace nodded, let her nightshirt drift down from her shoulders onto to the plush pink bathmat, then reached back to unhook her cotton bra’s worn snaps. “This time we’re going to do it the right way, I promise. And you’re going to feel so loved you’re never going to want to touch that wicked little needle ever again.”
Allison parked her jeep in the driveway so hastily she almost tagged the bumper of her mom’s sedan. She used her old housekey to get inside, where the only sound was her mother singing some soft and warbling song. It didn’t strike Allison as the noises someone would make when bleeding out. It sounded like someone singing lullabies to a baby.
She followed the sound to the bathroom, found her mother inside sitting on the toilet. A ring of blood encircled her throat, a coagulated and stippled line, with fresher wounds decorating her bare, pale chest. The fresh wounds were only pinpricks, but there were so many that the red flowed out in myriad streamlets, like rain over glass, to become one wet crimson wall.
“Mom?”
Grace stopped singing, switched to humming the melody of the same song.
Her nightshirt lay on the bathmat, her slack and gravity-ravaged breasts a cradle for the teddy bear nuzzled there.
“Mom?”
Grace stopped humming, lifted a finger to her mouth, mimed a shushing sound with a wet, red finger.
Allison leaned down to the floor to get her keys, saw the needle and belt lying near the toilet plunger. Blood dripped from the needle’s bevel, staining the white tiles, flowing through the grout work in dark purple channels.
Grace lowered her finger from her lips, now stained with blood. She nodded at the floor while lifting the bear from her breast, carefully, so neither mother nor babe got hurt in the detachment. Then she spun him until his honeyed button eyes were fixed on Allison. His furry muzzle was red with blood, the dark and glistening smudges making his wet leather nose look like a burst blackberry.
“We’ll be done in a minute,” Grace whispered. Then she pressed the bear’s mouth once more to her breast so he might drink his fill of both blood and milk, now one and the same in his mother’s mind.
Want another gripping story by Joseph Hirsch? Read “Red in Tooth” from Horrific Scribes, June 2025.
| EXHIBIT FOUR: Return to “Christmas Angel“ | Proceed to the first Gallery Two: Leeches attraction, “Swimmer“ |