Glimpse-Catching
by Nicki Youngsma
From across the hallway, I hear my eleven-year-old son saying to my younger, seven-year-old son, “Did you know fifteen species go extinct every day?” I don’t know if it’s accurate but don’t interrupt; it’s not my conversation, not my moment… Even though my younger son is seven, calling him eight feels good enough, more true even, given his birthday is in a matter of weeks, but I don’t… I’d become a liar if I were to skip ahead, claiming he’s already crossed the finish line, and would have to explain myself if asked, Why are you saying I’m eight when I’m only seven? The air goes still and I still with it, listening to what happens next, where this will go between brothers… These are conversations kids have while sitting on a bed with crisp, winter light pouring through the window that strikes the eyes. From here I can’t see them; I can only hear their voices, imagining the scene while the eleven-year-old tells the seven-year-old that fifteen species will perish by sundown. The younger pauses, his expression masked by textured drywall, timber, and white latex paint… Maybe it’s best I’m not there to see him, or for him to see me, though he knows I’m one room away, but being down the hall means I’m not there to verify the claim, to intermediate the truth, to stand in for order, to guard against the notion that whole lineages will have no more birthdays, no more births… Soon he’ll be eight but calling him so now will deny a badge, a rite of passage (diminishing that is a small crime against the young), so I hold myself back, staying true. As true as I can manage… I don’t know what his face looks like while taking in what he’s just heard, what his older brother revealed about the world beyond our home. The younger one is silent; I imagine what he sees, what he glimpses, trying to make sense of the void and its vastness, the unrelenting turbulence quaking the ground, the air, the fibers of the cosmos that’re fraying at an alarming rate… Does he already get what I’m talking about? He doesn’t know anything different because he’s a COVID kid after all, born and raised in lockdown… Developmentally, his memories from the before-time have already scattered like sand in the wind, having held little purchase in his mind, and he’s acclimated to the atmospheric pressure created by news rushing forth with fierce edges (broken barriers, herd immunity, zoonotic spillover, wildlife markets, bats). Days before my younger son’s second birthday, the order came: Stay home and don’t go out—we still did though, warily, to the urologist for my partner’s vasectomy the day after sheltering in place had begun because, by then, we’d already decided no more babies for us… Masking wasn’t a thing yet when I dropped my partner off, or when I picked him up, and the medical staff hadn’t cleared the sheets from the procedure room when I entered, witnessing the aftermath of surgery. Tears muddled my sight, and for a moment I forgot about each of our children’s frail, precious bodies ripping through mine to emerge, to greet the world, and this was a sunset to an era, nothing more. Nothing less. The doctor assured everything was fine, so we went home and stayed there, guarding our family, not knowing what the future held—I still don’t when I sit quietly, stealing myself to step into the void that’s right there, yielding, hanging inside-out, stripped bare before eager, blistering heat that forecasters warn is transforming the world as we know it, the Cassandras bidding Godspeed as the wasteland unfolds before us—but for our younger son, we cancelled his party after the stay-at-home order was issued. Instead, we gathered around the kitchen table, just the four of us… I plunged two hot pink candles into one of the cupcakes I’d already bought from the bakery. My partner lit the wicks with matches. Smoke lingered in the air as we sang, “Happy Birthday,” and after the song ended, we clapped. Our younger son glanced between us before returning his gaze to the fire in the darkened room, light glinting in his toddler eyes… He wanted cake, frosting; the time had now come. “Wait,” we said, pleading with him to hold on, to listen—listening is hard for a two-year-old, but there was something he needed to know, something urgent to take in, a lesson that could not wait any longer… We know there are gobs of things to teach him, and so many seem impossible to talk about, to entertain, to lay out for such a young soul, but there was something we could do: we showed him how to breathe deeply, to purse his lips, to lean forward just enough to focus on the flames, putting the small pyres in his path… We showed him how to blow the candles out.
Nicki Youngsma is a writer and illustrator, and her service work includes stewarding educational nonprofits and raising young people. Her narrative essays and prose poetry have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Gravity of the Thing, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a memoir project. Find her at nickiyoungsma.com.
“Glimpse-Catching” is her first appearance in The Itch.
