Flash Fiction Second Place Winner

A few weeks ago, I learned that my short story, "The Weight of Seven Pounds", won 2nd Place in the California Writers Club of Marin's Left Behind contest.

It's an honor to have been recognized for such a truthful piece spoken from the thoughts of a baby.

These words just tumbled from my hands onto the keyboard when I thought about the theme. Hmm, Left Behind. When was a moment in my life when I felt left behind? Little did I know that a single question would reveal this...

“The Weight of Seven Pounds”

by Monique Rardin Richardson

It’s the second day of fall. I was born yesterday under a waning crescent moon.

Mama could’ve named me Autumn, but she didn’t. A nun at her Catholic school inspired my name. French, my mother asked for, and French it was. Maybe someday I’ll appreciate it. I bet I will.

Outside the hospital, the cool wind howls, lashing my newborn cheeks. Mama’s thin jacket snaps like a whip, and her long, dark curls cling to her mauve lips, damp with unspoken fears.

I won’t cry. My skin feels like stretched silk, cool and tight. This new world, a vast space, frightens me, but not now. I can’t cry now.

A tremor in her arms, a frantic drumbeat in her chest. I know, as I had known in the enclosed thrum of her heart, that she needs me.

We’d been on the sidewalk forever, or at least, as long as a baby could measure. Mama shifts me, a restless weight in her arms, swaddled in blue. She’d hoped for a boy, someone to rely on, to take care of her. I will too.

She doesn’t know it yet, but it’s who I am.

Her gaze fixes on the empty street. Eyes, usually soft when placed on me, dart from all directions. She paces, tracing cracks in the pavement, searching for headlights that have yet to arrive.

“Where is he?” she whispers. The breeze swallows the sound of her voice. She doesn’t expect me to answer, but her eyes plead for a response I can’t give. A frustrated ache settles in my chest. If only I could form the words, push them past my infant lips, explain the truth fluttering just beyond her grasp.

A single tear slips down her face, landing on her red blouse. Her shoulders slump as if my seven pounds are already too much to carry. The hospital that’s perched on a hill beckons us back. Mama asks the lady in white at the pristine desk if she can use the phone. Fingers trembling, she dials Abuela and Abuelo. With a shudder, she forces herself to speak. In Spanish she says, “He didn’t come. You were right.” Her head drops. “Can you come get us?”

Mama thinks he didn’t come, but he did.

A tall silhouette of a man peered through the glass into the nursery. He didn’t smile, just stared at me and my name tag on the crib. Then, in haste, he slipped inside. A sharp, chemical scent filled my nose. I didn’t like it. It stung my eyes and made me squeeze them shut. His hands reached for me, the scent growing stronger. I wiggled my arms, tried to block it, but it pressed in.

His somber voice rumbled in my ear: “You’re better off without me, kid.”

It lasted only a moment. A beat, a second. He placed me back down, then slinked into the hallway’s shadows. If I could talk, I might change his mind, but I can’t. Not in a way he’ll understand. It’s all just babble, even to me. Mama will never know.

Soon, this memory, vivid as a pinprick, will vanish. Fade like his blonde hair and good looks. I’ll forget this.

But one day, as an adult, the truth will claw its way back. I’ll learn that months before I was born, my father and a friend stopped a man near the bridge. They stole his car—with him inside.

Drove two hundred miles, desperate, wired. Held up a gas station at gunpoint, faces masked by fear and adrenaline. Got caught when they crashed the stolen car in a high-speed chase. A violent, screeching end to their foolish night. Was it for me?

And when I learn all that, I’ll be glad I forgot. Thankful he left us both behind.