Benny Pierce lied in his bed, trying to go to sleep. Funny, five-year-old thoughts (that never did leave him) were swimming through his brain. They weren't really thought but words, combinations of words. Words that rhymed or just sounded good together. He didn't make up meaning for those words; the way they sounded was enough.
"Hawk talk, I Spy," he chanted. This was how he fell asleep, but with a new mantra every night.
Not soon after Benny's eighteenth or nineteenth stanza, he heard the front door of his home open. Papa.
The young insomniac pulled his blanket up to where it was right under his shoulders. Slow footsteps clamored on the stairs from the door to the first level.
"It's OK, darlin'," a voice whispered.
His father's sound grew closer. When the din passed his door, Benny gathered his blankets and peered out, from his bed. Papa was carrying Mama to hear room; she must be having the baby!
As excited as he was, Benny stayed in his room, in fear that Papa would scold him for being up so late.
He could Papa lay Mama on their marriage bed. When Papa and Mama got married all Papa was only working at the hospital for a few months and could only afford that small rundown farmhouse at the edge of town, and nothing else, not even a bed. They fixed the house up, to what it is now, and as soon as Papa got enough money from his job at the hospital, and Mama from her job taking care of the Fitzgerald's every afternoon, they bought a bed. And they kept that bed, even though the spring creaked and the headboard half fell off after the window behind it caved in on it.
Benny knew all that from the numerous times his Mama would tell it to him as a bedtime story. Benny also knew that he was born in that bed, and now his little brother or sister would be. This made little Benny smile.
Ever since he heard about the baby, Benny was pretty happy. Pretty restless, too, but aren't all five-year-olds? All the time he would find himself wondering if "it" were a "he" or a "she". Benny wanted "it" to be a boy, because he was a boy and boys are better than girls. Girls have cooties, too. Then again, he would be fine with having a sister, just as long as she listened to what her big brother said.
Benny asked his Mama once if she knew if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl. Mama tapped on her belly and spooned more cookie batter onto the pan.
Mama sure did a lot of strange things now that she was pregnant. Before she would give him an answer but it really didn't make too much sense to him. Benny liked it, just the same.
Benny ducked all the way under the covers, trying to cover up the giggles of excitement. His baby brother or sister was going to be born any minute! He lied down there for about four minutes, fully expecting to hear a baby's first cry and his Papa say "It's a. " at a moments notice. Benny got bored.
He knew that birthing babies could take a while. His Papa was the only doctor in Crabapple Cove and when a baby needed to be born he was the man to be called upon.
When that happened or any medical emergency occurred (which wasn't very often, Crabapple Cove is a very small town) it was like a free day for Benny and Mama. They would get all the blankets out of the linen's closet and build a fort in the living room. They would stay in the fort until Papa came home and would only leave to get more cookies and to make a trip to the bathroom.
In the fort, Mama would tell Benny her secrets. Like, sometimes, when she clears the table after dinner she pretends to be dancer and twirls and spins, like she did when she was a girl. Benny always wondered about that.
Mama had always been a secret to Benny. Not a bad secret. In fact, the more he encoded her secret the less magical she was. That was her fault and it was killing her. It was wonderful to see her mysterious idiosyncrasies but to hear the depth, pain, truth of them is another story. That scared her.
A scream broke the air.
Benny walked the short distance to his parent's doorway. "Mama?"
Nobody could hear him.
Wasn't true. It wasn't true.
Benny stood at the doorway. "Hawk talk, I spy. Hawk talk, I spy. Hawk talk, I spy. Hawk talk, I spy," he chanted. He said the words like a witch's incantation; maybe if he said it enough times the truth would become a lie.
If there was someway Benny could save them, God give it to him.