Loni
Loni came out premature, weighing just under two pounds. Jamie couldn’t even hold her, and that killed her. All she wanted was to hold that tiny infant close to her chest to warm her, to save her. But a mother wasn’t what the baby needed. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now.
Watching her in intensive care, Jamie cried every day for her little Loni, hooked up to machines and tubes and rid of real human contact. She was so small, so helpless, and unknowing of what was happening to her, of what the world even was. Jamie wanted to feel what Loni felt. Was she in pain? Did she know that her little lungs should work better than that, that she didn’t need to struggle to breathe in this world? She worried her baby wanted back in the womb, wanted out of the cold and machine-humming world. That worry should’ve gone away later; that’ s what the other parents of premature babies had said to her. But it didn’t go away for Jamie.
After intensive care, the first year of Loni’s life was the best year of Jamie’s life. She got to hold Loni, teach her to smile, take in her belly laugh, and watch those first normal milestones happen to her daughter as if she’d never spent her first weeks on Earth in a plastic box. Loni crawled, Loni laughed, and Loni was loved.
Loni was normal.
Jamie will never forget the date; it was July 24, two hours before Loni’s third birthday party.
“Clean up your toys, and then we’ll put your party dress on,” Jamie told her.
“No!” Loni’s favorite new word.
“Just put three toys away for how old you are now, and Mommy will help you with the rest.”
“No! I don’t wanna put toys away!”
“Don’t you want to get ready for your party? It’s gonna be so fun.”
“No! No! No!”
Loni screamed, throwing herself on the ground, thrashing her little body around.
Jamie picked her up, the toddler still thrashing. There was something about the way she was thrashing this time. Jamie stopped and looked at her child. Loni didn’t just try to squirm away from her; her little arms aimed for Jamie’s face.
“I hate you!” Loni cried as her small, angry fist bopped Jamie’s nose.
Jamie calmly put her daughter down to get a tissue and wipe the nosebleed Loni caused. She worried Loni wasn’t normal. But then again, Jamie was always prone to nosebleeds. It probably wasn’t as big of a deal as the blood made it seem.
After that date, Jamie became numb to the word hate.
Hate when Loni lost a soccer game at age 7 and Jamie told her she played well.
Hate when Loni punched another little girl at summer camp.
Hate when Loni quit swim team and Jamie told her to stick with it.
Hate when Jamie wished her luck before cheerleading tryouts.
But Jamie loved her. Anytime she made Loni laugh, it was like Loni was 11 months old again, happy and carefree, and the laugh was just as new and rare as it was back then.
Jamie didn’t think Loni actually hated everything. She knew Loni’s anxieties were to blame, and she saw Loni’s love in how she cared for her little black kitten. And in how she treated her father, even. Wasn’t it just always mothers who got the worst from their daughters?
So how could Jamie respond when she got that call?
A child was dead? Gia was her name. Jamie knew her since those soccer days. Gia even rode in her minivan. And now Gia was gone, is that what he said to her?
And why was she receiving this call? She braced herself for the answer.
Wait, did he say attempted suicide?
Loni. Bullying. Videos. Taunting. Suicide. Attempted. The words spun around Jamie’s head, dizzying her.
“Mrs. Noll?” said the voice on the other end of the call.
“Yes. I’m here. Sorry, is Gia okay? You said attempted?”
“Gia is recovering in the hospital.”
Jamie’s sigh of relief could have knocked over a small toddler.
Jamie knocked on Loni’s door. She felt her muscles tense as she did, not because of what she had to tell her and ask her, but because she just now realized she always tensed when she disturbed Loni.
Loni opened the door, saw her mother’s grave face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Sweetheart, I think you should sit down,” Jamie said in her most calming mom voice.
The two sat on Loni’s pink flowery bedspread, a nod to her innocence as a still-young girl, a young woman allowed to make mistakes. Jamie watched her hold her sleeping kitten, petting the small furry face with a gentle tenderness that melted Jamie and crushed her core.
“Sweetheart, Gia Notting tried to kill herself tonight. She’s recovering in the hospital right now.”
Jamie searched her daughter’s eyes. She didn’t know it yet, but she was searching for regret. Or maybe empathy. Something.
Loni’s eyes were as dead as World Series of Poker player. Was she trying to hide her guilt so much that she hid everything? She must be scared, Jamie thought. That’s it.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“You know I hate when you call me sweetheart.”
“Listen, Loni. They want to talk to you. About some video you made about Gia?”
“Oh my God! Is that what she’s saying? She’s blaming me? That little bitch. She has so many problems. I’m not her biggest, I promise you that.”
Tears crept to the corners of Jamie’s eyes. Her heart fell, weighing down her body.
“Loni,” Jamie started, “she tried to kill herself.”
“I heard you. It’s not my fault.”
“I’m not saying it is, Sweethea-, Loni.”
“Kay.”
“Well. We have to go in an hour and a half, okay?”
“Kay.”
Jamie left the pink girl’s room and broke down. Crying for Gia, crying for herself, crying for Loni in intensive care as an infant. Crying. Crying. Crying.
But that’s not what Loni needed. Loni needed a mother. Loni was denying her guilt, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care. Jamie had to get herself together. She had to be there for her daughter. She had to think of how. She had to.
Jamie went to knock on Loni’s door again, to hold her and tell her it’s okay. Right before her fist hit the wood, she heard a shrilling, screeching shriek.
Her instinct was to barge in, but she stopped herself. She listened.
The sound pierced her eardrums again. It wasn’t human; it was the kitten.
Jamie knocked once and entered. Loni looked up, the frightened cat in her hands.
“She ran into my desk lamp. It burned her,” Loni said.
Jamie stared at her daughter, searched her eyes for the lie. She found it.
“Loni, we have to go through all of your social media accounts. Anything you said to Gia, it needs to be deleted. Now.”
“You don’t think I’m actually to blame, do you? You don’t think I’d do something like that, right?”
Loni stared at her for a long time before speaking. She wanted to hold her, to tell her it’ll be okay, but she didn’t think that’s what Loni needed.
“I’ll help you do it.”
