Kira was lying on the couch playing some kind of game on her phone. Her daughter wasn’t walking yet, but she was crawling fast enough. Arina caught up with the cat and clawed at her tail; in response to such boorishness, the animal clawed the baby with her claw. The child began to cry loudly.
– Why are you shouting, it will pass, there is nothing wrong, and you yell like a madwoman – indifferently told her daughter Kira.
The baby had a tiny injury, but she screamed as if her arm had been torn off. We need to calm her daughter, and it’s time to go cook spouse. Kira took the baby in her arms and said: “The doggie hurts, the kitty hurts, but Arina does not hurt! All gone? Then the mother put her daughter in the playpen and went to cook dinner. Kira put headphones in, but the cries of the baby could not drown out even the music.
For unknown reasons, Kira’s maternal feelings never woke up. The problem was that she had never wanted a baby. Kira was brought up in a full family, her parents always had problems with finances. In the nineties everyone thought a hundred times before having even one baby. The girl’s parents had a one-bedroom apartment, so they did not risk having a second child. A girl’s childhood was not very posh and consisted of playing pirate with the neighbor’s children in the yard 24 hours a day.
They had a quiet yard, only after her parents bought a two-bedroom apartment closer to the center of the city she learned how loud children’s laughter and hubbub could be. She was fifteen at the time. From the windows of her room she could see the gorgeous playground. When it was summer heat outside and she had to pore over her books, even the closed windows couldn’t save her from the children’s squeals. The playground would be quiet by nine p.m., but then the neighbor’s newborn baby would start screaming, keeping her awake for hours.
Dreams of travel evolved into the fact that Kira decided to study to become a tour guide in order to travel around the world. After her studies, she began working at a travel agency, though her internship was limited to working in the office and selling trips. One day a couple walked into their office: an overweight bimbo and a good-looking guy. The couple bought a trip to Egypt, but three days later the man came in and gave up the trips, and then bought others, just for his companions. Fife could not keep the guy, but Kira did.
Kira and Arthur began to travel together. Such travels ended in marriage. The girl immediately warned her beloved that she had no plans to have children yet. However, after the wedding Kira’s relatives started pestering her with the question: when will she have heirs?
Kira did not think that the meaning of her life is to have a child. She perfectly coped with the role of a spouse and a housewife, happily worked and took birth control pills to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
But then the pandemic changed her plans: travel agencies began to close one by one, and relatives began to shout with renewed vigor about the need to have a baby. As soon as Kira stopped taking her anti-seizure medication, she immediately became pregnant. During her pregnancy, Kira felt nothing good; even the baby’s movements irritated her. Even after her daughter was born she never awoke her maternal instinct. When her mother-in-law and mother-in-law saw her granddaughter, they clucked:
– Now you feel it…
– All I feel is that my lower back feels much lighter! – Kira said.
The grandmothers were still smiling for a little while, then they promised that they would help and disappeared. They occasionally visited the little girl and gave her presents from Arthur. Kira had no maternal instinct, she did everything mechanically and tried not even to take the baby in her arms unnecessarily, and tenderness was out of the question. Kira was sure that she had never been able to love her child, and because of this she was constantly angry with herself.
Arthur came home from work and said:
– Where is my beauty? Where is my princess? Where is my greatest love hiding?
The father took the crying and half-asleep daughter in his arms:
– Mammy, did you miss that we almost fell asleep in the playpen again? – at this very moment the daughter looked reproachfully at her mother.
– I do not know myself! – She could not admit to her husband that she has no feelings for her daughter.
– We all understood and flew to bed! – The husband started making the sounds of a flying airplane and carried the laughing daughter into the other room. Kira crouched on the edge of the kitchen nook. She was burning with shame. Maybe if she had had her little girl seven years later, things would have been different. The girl felt nothing but frustration and emptiness. She was glad that her husband turned out to be a wonderful father, so at least he would truly love their little girl.
