Saturday's Storyteller: "Sheryl was haunted by the sound of the septuplets crying simultaneously."

by Belinda Roddie

Sheryl was haunted by the sound of the septuplets crying simultaneously. The plaintive chorus - unison voices gathering for the same plea - could not, and would not, let her sleep. So she spent day after day in the basement, where the din was muffled, with three dusty pillows pressed over her head.

Nothing helped to soothe their wretched music. Not even a drop of breast milk, or a simple shushing, or a sweet, out of tune song to ease the infants' red ears. No food, no diaper changing, not even a pat on the back could stop the distorted symphony. Nothing could stop their noise. She went to every doctor, every nurse, every pediatrician, with a large carriage holding them all, still crying, demanding why. Why was it that they cried so together, and so harshly? The doctors said it was normal. They always said it was normal.

Her husband, Darryl, was fairly displeased by how she acted. Why, he could sleep just fine, he argued, and babies were babies. He was an oneirologist, and therefore, he was more capable of sleeping soundly without the dreams themselves disturbing him. In fact, he'd remember all of them in the morning, lucid as can be, even though he never wrote them down. He told Sheryl that one day, he'd recite his dreams to all of their children, from memory, either one by one or at the same time.

But he could not properly analyze the inner gears shifting inside Sheryl's head. She did not view the septuplets with love anymore. Yes, she had birthed them. Nourished them. Fed them and clothed them every day. But now they were nothing but phantasmic reminders of her lost youth. Spectral jokers, taunting her every evening, as she separated herself from Darryl in order to rest.

She remembered giving birth to them. She had simply been lying on the hospital bed, legs outstretched, and then there were seven. Seven screaming, crying, beautiful boys and girls, the faint wisps of gold shimmering on their otherwise bare heads. They had not expected seven: three, perhaps, but not seven. But somehow, they had found a unity, a unity that she believed was meant to spite her.

So one night, when Darryl had embarked on his journey of subconscious fervor, Sheryl disappeared into the nursery, where the septuplets were, of course, crying. It was almost like a song now, an eerie lullaby that was meant to do the opposite of its given intention. She stooped over each child - her nose wrinkled, her eyes bulging and dry and veined from lack of sleep. The septuplets' faces, contorted by their wailing in the dim light of the space, were disgusting to her. They shrieked away the silence, the tranquility, and even the swinging moon and stars above their heads no longer shone the same way.

Sheryl had brought the knife she used for onions into the room. Six had stopped crying by the time Darryl raced toward his wife, oddly stirred from his dreams, as if he were clear enough to sense disturbances in the outside world. He carried the last of his children off with the blood streaming from his neck. He died bathed in the light of blue sirens.

***

Laurel never cried. Not since she was three years old, at least. She remembered it clearly, that she had fallen from a swing set after her aunt had pushed her a little too hard. She could feel the tears coming, streaming. But when she opened her mouth, she could not push the sound out of her throat. No sobs, no moans. Nothing mournful, or any equivalent of keening.

Yes, she could talk. She could laugh, too. And she could especially sing. At a young age, she was picked out as a musical genius - able to differentiate notes plunked out on a piano, holding perfect rhythm and tune without any accompaniment, expressing the touching vibrato and mellifluous range without receiving one vocal lesson. It was as if she had been born with the voice, matured and ripened, and teachers implored her aunt and uncle to have her perform.

And she did perform, but only by herself. Whenever Laurel was offered a duet, or a chorus piece, she froze. No sound would issue from her throat. It wasn't that she purposely refused to sing with anyone else simultaneously - it was simply that something did not feel right in her mind, and she grew petrified, horrified, terrified, at any notion that she would ever sing with other people. Like they didn't belong beside her, stringing notes together, attempting to understand the music she made versus their own.

So Laurel sang solo, and she was spectacular. She crooned arias without being in a single opera. She belted standards without performing in a single musical. She would woo the high school boys while performing with a band; however, whenever a bandmate tried to insert harmony, she simply would stop singing, alarmed. She would never grow angry. She certainly would not cry. But she would be frightened, excusing herself from the stage to drink a tall glass of water and stop her hyperventilating. Not even the adoring crowds listening to her dared to sing along to her lyrics.

She certainly wanted to cry from time to time, but it was almost as if she didn't have the strength to. Sadness exhausted her, rather than riling her up. After some years, not even the tears would fall, unless she yawned or her allergies kicked in. When offended, disappointed, or dismayed, she would simply curl up on the couch, on her bed, or anywhere where she could feel warm. Her eyes would face the wall, and she would say nothing for hours.

Her aunt and uncle would take her to psychiatrists when she lapsed into one of what she called her "sad spells," but the medically inclined could not see any reason to diagnose any clinical disorder. Laurel, for the most part, was a lively girl, remarkably enthusiastic, especially when she sang. She could not possibly be depressed. She, as the doctors would say, was only expressing negative feelings in a different, silent way, and was there anything in particular, they would then probe, that prohibited her from crying like other girls?

It wasn't until she was sixteen, during one such psychiatric session, that Laurel finally noticed the pained looks on the faces of the man and woman that she accepted as parents rather than relatives. Her uncle would look as if he had bitten something hard, and he would shake his head feverishly, like trying to ward off a buzzing insect. Her aunt, doing something Laurel could not fathom, would whimper as if ready to cry. She did enough crying to make up for the days that passed when her niece wouldn't.

Laurel wondered if she would ever pluck up the courage to ask them why. Why were they so silent when the psychiatrists asked why she wouldn't, or couldn't, cry like a normal person? She did not believe their shaking heads when given the yes or no question, but she never considered ever asking. In fact, she didn't believe she'd have to. If all went well, she'd be going to one of the best conservatories in the country, and she would meet a fine young cellist or violinist, and they would get married and have two children. Or maybe three. Twins or triplets would have been lovely.

She came home from school one day, exhausted from a girl's intrusive and bitter remarks about her talent, and walked into the living room to see her aunt and uncle frozen in front of the TV. She didn't have to say anything. The television told her everything.

Sheryl Rivera, now forty-nine years old, had been released on parole from prison for murder. The murder, which Laurel would finally force her uncle and aunt to reveal two months later, of her father and her six siblings.

***

"You seem more tired than usual, my dear."

Laurel stirred from the window of her penthouse, feeling the premature wrinkles crease her chin and forehead. She was a twenty-five-year-old diva reaching her prime too soon, though her voice remained pure and ecstasy-inducing. Her husband - an acclaimed cellist, as expected - hovered over the nearby couch, holding two glasses of Pinot Noir.

"I suppose I am tired," she replied. "Very, very tired."

Her husband raised an eyebrow. "Tired, love? Or sad?"

She certainly was enduring another "sad spell." He walked toward Laurel and guided her to a chair, his hand gently pressed against her bare back. The red dress that she wore, the one that her tailor had sewn her, gave her the appearance of a refined garnet - a modest glow to her slender frame, complementing the remaining youth she had on her face. Laurel accepted the wine from her husband, but when she sipped it, it tasted like vinegar.

"I saw that you had left the newspaper out on the kitchen table again," her husband reported. "Opened up to the article that I thought you would be reading."

"She died yesterday. Brain hemorrhage."

"That's what I heard," he confirmed, drinking a large quantity of red wine. "That being said, you won't have to see her face in the news any longer."

Laurel said nothing, so he proceeded.

"Your mother was a crazy old bat. She didn't deserve your beauty. Or your love."

"Stop it," she hissed.

She set her glass down, refusing to look at her tactless husband. She was patient with him, for the most part - he was sterile, and he hadn't desired children in the first place. Laurel had been waiting to retire from the theater at a younger age, always worn thin from the continuous praise and fame. No one seemed to tire of her. The Oscars for Original Song, Grammies for albums, and other prestigious opera awards told her that.

"I apologize," she heard her husband say. "It was very bad of me to speak like that."

He sat down beside her and stretched out a hand for her to hold. Laurel looked at the rough skin extended to her and did not touch it.

"Sometimes," she murmured, "I wish I could just cry. For my father. For my brothers and sisters. The siblings I never got to meet."

"Not for your mother, I see," her husband chuckled.

"She can burn in Hell."

The Pinot Noir looked purple in the mahogany room. Laurel stared at the nearest light and felt her eyes burn.

"Perhaps," her husband suggested, "if you simply let yourself...go. I mean, release what's pent up...it's maybe best, I mean, if you..."

"I get it," she cut him off. He was far better with a bow than with words.

He smiled. "So try it, then," he said. "Try crying."

Laurel closed her eyes. The aching she had become so accustomed to for eight years was fairly hollow. The image of her mother, released from prison, haunted her. She had of course made moves to contact her, most likely knowing of her fortune and status in the musical world. Laurel had cut her off. The woman who had severed her from livelihood. From feeling real, true emotion. So instead of fear, or exhaustion, Laurel was willing to cry.

The tears came first, large with a strangely greenish tint. Perhaps due to the lamp that glowed a faint yellow against her blue eyes. She let her body shake and shudder, as the pictures her uncles and aunts finally showed of her father came to life. The bright, adventurous oneirologist. Studying the unknown, or the misunderstood, parts of human minds. No pictures of her siblings. No pictures of the septuplets.

She did not dare look at her husband as her shoulders heaved. She pressed her hands against the coffee table, trying to steady herself. The crying spell was almost violent, threatening to throw her against the cushions of the couch. And finally, finally, after years upon years of nothing - a dry, wolfish sob escaped from her throat.

It was met with the music of six phantasmic reminders of her lost youth. Spectral jokers, wailing with her, crying with her. Laurel did not hear the strangled noise of alarm erupting from her husband's throat. She did not hear his evening slippers skid across the floor as he backed away, disturbed by the sudden, mysterious cacophony of voices. His wife, the love of his life, was changing before him. Her wails were more primitive, child-like, now. Her face was contorted like that of an infant's. And if he looked very closely, he could barely discern the silhouettes of six other babies crying with her, as Laurel curled into the fetal position and succumbed to the chorus.

This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.