Tan Pequeño

When Maricruz was still a baby, her mother accidentally dropped her, and she ended up with a cut-up lip and a giant bump on her forehead. Her mother told her this the first time Giovanni fell while she looked away for a second. He’d crawled over to the living room coffee table while she was fussing over the spilled orange juice on the couch. Her little one still didn’t have complete control of his grip, and he tried to lift himself only to slip and bang his head right on the edge of the table. There wasn’t much blood from the cut, but it had been enough to send her heart into overdrive. She reached for him as if he was a breath away from falling into the center of the earth.

“I’m so sorry,” she rocked him in her arms as he wept. “Oh, I’m so sorry, baby.”

“Todos nos caemos mija,” her mother reminded her that everyone falls as soon as she was done, calling herself an awful, terrible mother for looking away from her son for a second.

“Ma lo se,” she told her mother she knew, but she should be doing more. “Pero no siento que estoy haciendo lo suficiente.” It was her job to keep him as safe as she could for as long as she could.

After that, Maricruz was even more glued to her boy than she had been before. Her husband, Alejo tells her she needs to let Giovanni breathe. He tells her you won’t always be there, as if that is not the thought that holds her sanity captive.

“Míralo amor,” she tells him to look at their boy. “Tan pequeño.” So small, anything could hurt him.

Alejo joins her at her next therapy appointment. Her therapist has seen him before. It’s not the first time he’s joined them in a session. When she first found out she was pregnant, she was happy—before the depression took hold of her thoughts.

You’ll make a horrible mother, it whispered to her as she stared in the mirror at the baby bump starting to form. You’ll ruin him just like your father ruined you.

By the time Alejo got home from work, she had been forced into a corner by her own mind. Maricruz had squeezed herself into the space between their nightstand and the wall. Her doctor had told her that continuing to take her anti-depressants would be bad for the baby. They have a new doctor now.

“Tell me what’s troubling you,” her therapist asks them.

“I’m concerned,” Alejo tells her, squeezing Maricruz’s hand to remind her that he loves her. “She has him sleeping in bed with us.”

Her therapist nods and looks at Maricruz. “You’re afraid for your little one.”

"He fell, hurt his forehead,” Maricruz tells her. “The bump is still there, small but there.”

"Tell me your fears,” the therapist asks. “This way, we can name them. And if they have solutions, solve them.”

"And if they don’t?” Maricruz asks. She holds her husband’s hand so tight she feels him wince.

"Then we will discuss how to cope, how to continue living. For you and him.”