Scream Queen
By Melanie Dale
@melanierdale
She’s a screamer.
I’ve tried everything but two-year-old Evie just needs to yell it out.
I pick her up. She screams. I set her down. She screams.
Her daddy comes over to help and the screaming increases. He slinks away, big-antlered buck in the high beams of her screams.
So, no rescue then.
No pinch-hit from Daddy, and I’m stuck –
I mean blessed –
with her continual presence.
I pick her back up and look into her glaring eyes. It’s you and me, babe. Thunderdome.
We establish a relative calm—relative, because she’s still screaming but the volume is slightly lower and therefore this scenario feels successful—with me holding her and walking and bouncing. Not too much bounce.
Just a little bounce-walking,
and pacing,
and moving,
and as long as I keep this up until I die we should be okay.
I’m sweating so hard I can smell myself. I haven’t slept or showered or eaten in days. I’m just a walking, bouncing, anti-screaming device.
I text a friend and autocorrect changes “Evie” to “evil.” I stifle a hysterical laugh.
As an ardent fan of horror movies, I love scream queens, from Jamie Lee Curtis to Janet Leigh, Neve Campbell to Vera Farmiga. Scream queens provide countless hours of entertainment on my TV. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Drew Barrymore and Sissy Spacek. I love the run-and-stumble. The don’t-open-the-door. The he’s-right-behind-you. The difference between what happens on my TV and what happens in my home is the volume control. Also, none of those nice ladies see me as their personal psycho vampire ghostface. I don’t even own a big knife.
[movie announcer voice]: In a world filled with Evil Evie, this time it’s personal.
I hike up my sagging stretchy pants and wipe the sweat out of my eyes. Bounce bounce bounce. Today she’s louder and the bouncing has ceased to work. Hmm.
I look at Evie.
Evie looks back, winds up, and lets loose. She releases the Kraken right in my eardrums.
I’m out of ideas. Well, maybe just one left. I mean, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?
I scream.
She startles and looks at me.
She screams back.
Then I scream.
Then we both scream,
and now the screaming is a game,
and now the game is over and she’s back to just screaming.
Now what? Lightbulb!
The bath. I’ll try the bath. Surely the water will soothe—nope, no. The volume increases. Makes sense. Any good scream queen knows that Jaws lurks beneath the surface.
You’re right dear. The water is evil. What was I thinking.
I wear earplugs in the bathroom to keep from going deaf. I set a stool in the water for her to sit on and as I lower her onto it the screaming intensifies. She grips the edge of the stool and screams at her feet in the water like they’ve betrayed her body for touching lava without her permission.
A friend sent an entire box of Lush bath bombs and I frantically root through the box choosing a bath bomb to diffuse my child bomb.
I set off a sparkly pink one in the water at her feet. It burbles and Evie hesitates. The screaming dissolves to a whimper. She sticks her finger into the pink bubbles. We play with the bath bomb and my bleeding ears rest.
After the stool bath I wrap her up and she screams in the room while I lotion her body and screams while I wiggle her into her jammies and screams as I read her a story and screams as I rock her and screams as I put her in bed. It’s like she thinks Freddy Krueger is waiting for her in her dreams.
I lay next to her crib as she screams through the bars. Her long lashes flutter over her deep brown eyes. She’s almost screamed out for the day, but she’s vigilant and senses every time I move to leave. I raise my head and her eyes fly open, accusing me of abandonment. I lower myself back down to the floor. Her eyes close. I lift up, they open, I lay back down.
An hour goes by. Her breathing slows. I army-crawl away, slinking out the door like a shadow.
At the threshold, I pause and look back. She’s so peaceful when she sleeps. Sweet dreams, scream queen.
Photo by Lottie Caiella.