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W hen Flora wakes, her mouth is so dry that the inside of her cheeks are stuck to her teeth. She carefully opens her jaw— POP! —and the hinge releases with a jolt of pain to her left ear. Her legs and torso are heavy, weighed down.

blankets

these are blankets

Flora is in bed.

She lies still, eyes darting for answers on the ceiling, and wills her brain to catch up to the present moment. When she tries to sit, her left shoulder screams a pulsing protest. She rolls onto her right side and pushes herself up with her palms. The room spins, and she closes her eyes to avoid hurling, though it might be inevitable given the hangover-like headache that pounds at her temples and tugs at her raw throat.

How did she get in this bed? She tries to remember. Needs to remember.

It’s there—the memory—surrounding Flora like a mist, escaping the fingers of her brain as they attempt to grasp it. A word traveling rapidly along synapses until it pops onto the tongue like a gumball landing in the cup of a machine.

water

so much water

She was in the bathroom. She had desperately needed a bath. Desperately needed to get clean. She was so dirty and so, so tired.

Crying. There was crying. She remembers pulling baby Iris into the bath with her.

Iris where is Iris

Flora jerks her head toward the other side of the bed and sees that the bassinet is empty. The house is quiet, the surrounding silence oppressive. This isn’t right. She should hear her six-week-old baby crying or complaining or grunting. She should at least hear the whir of the sound machine from the nursery. But in the absence of all that, she is left with a silence that only gets louder and louder as the unspeakable truth finally wiggles its way out of hibernation and blasts like a severe weather alert.

oh God what have I done to my baby