My Parasite Child

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I’ve always been one of those girls who was obsessed with becoming a mother.

I would spend hours playing with dolls as a child.

I made lists of baby names as a teenager, and when I got older, I decided to write letters to my future child.

I can remember exactly what I felt while writing each letter—the happiness I let show through simple words with some old pen and a few colored papers, the amount of love I felt for someone who didn’t even exist yet.

I always wanted to have a boy.

Not that I wouldn’t have wanted a little girl, on the contrary—I would have loved a little girl to shower with accessories, pretty clothes, and perfumes—but having my little boy was my greatest desire.

In the letters, I wrote about my own childhood, my favorite songs, how I felt about him, and mostly questions.

I asked all kinds of questions to my baby.

Had I been a good mother?

What did he remember about me?

Had I done some things he always wanted, and those things?

Besides the letters, I also loved making little handmade gifts. Some flowers, paper hearts, drawings, and silly little things like that.

After a while, I kept them all in a small box that I would give to my son someday. I carried this box with me to every house I lived in—losing it would mean years lost, so I never wanted to risk it.

I only thought about the happiness I felt when I became pregnant.

It happened on an ordinary day, and I just knew.

I just knew I was pregnant.

I bought some tests and cried in my husband’s arms when all of them came back positive.

A few days later, we went to the hospital to do the proper exams to be sure, and we quickly received confirmation.

Yes, I was truly carrying my little life.

Everything seemed perfect.

Everything about the pregnancy made me radiant.

The morning sickness, the constant exams, buying clothes and toys, cravings, even the pains of carrying a body inside me—it all seemed perfect.

After a few months, we finally went to find out the sex of the baby.

I, anxious as always, never considered the idea of a surprise—I needed to know right away what the sex of the love of my life would be.

And to my great happiness, it was a boy.

I had never felt so happy in my life—my little boy, the boy I had waited for so long, was finally confirmed to me.

My boy would soon be in my arms.

Every day seemed better.

We went out to buy clothes for him, more toys, and finally, a personalized blanket with his name, Anthony.

When I saw the name written in green on the blanket, which looked so much like my old blanket, I felt the tears coming.

I couldn’t hold back—my Anthony.

The day of delivery was far from ideal—he was supposed to be born two months later, but he wasn’t.

There I was, almost pushing him out of my body.

We rushed to the hospital.

I stayed there for 37 agonizing hours, suffering through everything to get my son out, who seemed to not want to leave my womb at all.

When they finally got him out, my eyes widened.

He wasn’t crying.

They tried slapping him gently, bringing him close to me, but nothing worked.

He just didn’t cry.

My heart felt heavy in my chest as I begged him to cry.

“Come on, Anthony, Mommy needs you to cry.”

“Come on, do it for me.”

“Come on, my son, you’re strong, you can do it.”

I repeated it almost like a mantra, but nothing worked.

Hours later, it was declared.

My baby was dead.

The doctors entered my room sadly, after hours of examining the small, thin body that had come out of me.

My despair showed in my voice.

I asked what had happened to him. If he was okay, and where my son was.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said, and I quickly understood what had happened.

My son hadn’t made it.

I hadn’t been able to take care of him, protect him.

The depression after his death was perhaps the strongest thing I’ve ever felt.

I couldn’t get up.

Every day felt like a nightmare.

My family was constantly worried, my husband was supporting me, but nothing—nothing was helping me.

My son had been taken from me, after so many nights thinking about him, waiting for him—nothing could help me.

Only a year later, I realized I hadn’t had my period in a while, along with many bouts of nausea.

I never thought I would be pregnant.

After all, my husband and I were doing things far less often.

I was in too complicated a state to have any energy.

The tests I did showed only one thing:

Pregnant.

I cried a lot when I found out, not because I was happy, but because I was scared, afraid of going through the same horror I had with my first angel.

Every day felt worse than before, because now everything that used to make me happy only reminded me of my old dream that had ended.

I didn’t want that baby, that reminder of how weak I had been and how I hadn’t been able to save my own child, my true one.

Nothing could convince me that what was growing inside me was really a child.

It felt like a parasite consuming everything that was meant for my son, taking my energy, making me fat.

Whenever I vomited, I felt like I was throwing away the true me.

And whenever it moved, I felt assaulted.

That parasite was hurting me.

Everything fell to my husband to take care of.

I didn’t even like going to the exams.

And on the day to find out the sex, I didn’t want to hear what it would be.

I didn’t care what that demon would be.

I just wanted it out of me as quickly as possible.

But, to my dismay, it spent the full nine months inside me, consuming me, trying to take the place of my angel, who never got to enjoy life.

The birth was quick, much to my relief.

In less than an hour, it was out of me, like a piece of blood.

And unlike Anthony, it cried louder than anything in the world, as if wanting to rub in my face that it had succeeded.

It was a girl.

My husband decided to name her Lucy.

I accepted; I didn’t care enough to have an opinion.

From the first day that thing was with me, I couldn’t hate it enough.

That parasite kept me awake and didn’t even accept my breast, as if rejecting me, despising me.

My husband tried to tell me several times that a baby would never think of doing such a thing, but I knew that thing only wanted to hurt me, to show me it was there and Anthony wasn’t, that it didn’t need me and didn’t want me.

The more that girl grew, the more disgust I felt toward her.

She was malicious, vomiting on me, crying whenever I held her, breaking everything I tried to give her. While with her father, she was the sweetest angel on earth, a calm and loving girl.

I saw her hugging my husband lovingly while looking at me with malice, as if to say she was stealing more from me.

My husband grew more hurt every day because I didn’t like her, but it wasn’t my fault.

I didn’t have to like something that wasn’t mine, not even a single cell of it was mine.

“Lucy is a great child, and I won’t accept you mistreating her because of Anthony,” he shouted at me one night after she cried to him that I hated her.

“Never say my son’s name when you speak about this demon—he doesn’t deserve that disrespect.”

I shouted back, and he just left our room with a disappointed look.

One afternoon, alone with her, I realized I didn’t see her anywhere and couldn’t even hear her breathing.

For a few moments, I felt relief, as if she had disappeared, but I knew she hadn’t.

So I went looking for her.

When I opened the door to my office, I saw her, and next to her, the box with the letters for Anthony.

My eyes widened as I noticed pieces of paper torn up on the other side.

Without thinking, I grabbed her by the arm and threw her across the room, crying desperately as I saw she had destroyed almost all the letters and gifts for my son.

I picked up everything in despair, trying to see if anything was intact, but nothing.

She had destroyed everything in the box.

I turned to look at her, and that demon looked back at me with a malicious smile while holding the arm that had hit the wall.

I had never felt such rage toward anyone in my life.

She knew what she had done, and she had done it just to hurt me.

Before I could go there and… end her, my husband arrived first.

Standing in the doorway, seeing the scene, he shouted, and as soon as Lucy noticed him, she began crying uncontrollably.

He grabbed her quickly and began calling me crazy.

And I swear I could see a smile among her tears as her father yelled at me.

When he returned from the hospital, he sent me away.

He said he couldn’t live with someone as crazy as me anymore—not after I broke his daughter’s arm.

I just looked at him, realizing my whole life was over.

As I packed my things, I caught sight of her in my peripheral vision, standing there.

And when I drove away, she waved at me with her unbroken arm.

I drove off, leaving my house to the demon that had destroyed it.

But, even from a distance, I know she is watching me.

And a part of me knows that, in some way, Lucy will never truly let me go.