Baby Blue

Baby Blue is gathered at my ankles when I wake up in the indigo darkness. The blue yarn is soft like the skin on the underside of my arm, right where joints meet to let it bend. Crocheted by my grandmother, its stitches are infused with the heat my body diffuses. Baby Blue swathes the bends of my body when I lie in sleep or sleeplessness, draped over my hip, wrapped around my arm, enveloping my legs. I don’t even let boys who are lucky enough to share my bed, share my blanket. The folds remind me of my grandmother’s forearms, the flesh supple, like rice paper, bathing me in the temperate beat of blood pumped through her body. In my twenties now I am still am constantly told it’s cute that I’ve named my blanket. I hate being called cute.

It’s hard to tell if the dampness on my cheek is from saliva that escaped my open mouth in deep sleep, or from leaking eyes. Searching for my cell phone lost in the furrows of the afghan, my fingers get tangles in the looped stitching but I find my phone and flip it open. The familiar cinch in my gut coils my torso in on itself as the ache of anxiety moves to my throat. I raise my head far enough off the pillow to confirm that my roommate’s bed is empty, un-slept in. The ache in the back of my throat turns into a dull burn. It’s quiet, too quiet for a college dorm suite and the repressed fear of abandonment begins to rise like froth on the surface of polluted waters. My blanket always lures me back to the loneliness of an empty room, as if the seclusion has become part of me, a thirst, and Baby Blue satiates it. A faint hiss and beep of a walkie-talkie moves past the other side of the door leading to the hallway. I pull Baby Blue over my head and curl into a fetal position.

***

As a young girl, falling asleep at night was a nightmare all its own when I was younger. When I finally did succumb to heavy eyelids, I’d wake up hours later with the legs of my pajamas wrenched up to my knees, purple with ruffles on the ankles. Those nights my bed felt too big, drowning in the swells of sheets. Teddy, my stuffed bear, would be missing so I’d have nothing to nuzzle under my chin for comfort. dart around the room. Unidentifiable masses and shapes creeping closer in the splotches of shadows on my walls every time I blinked, feeling misplaced. The cheap fabric of my pajamas stuck to my back.

A sound just short of silence during those restless hours was what terrified me the most. The echoing whirrs, pings, scrapes, the wails, moans and howls. I commanded my ears to recognize some sound, any sound: my mothers quick padding around the hallways, scurrying from one room to another, or my fathers, slow, methodical gate that paused every few seconds. I wanted to hear my mother’s sneeze that sounded like an exclamation mark or my fathers grumble as his pager stirred him from his sleep, rustling around to hurry to a 2 AM emergency room call. But when time ticked by with no familiar shuffles, sneezes or murmurs, worry balled my little fists around the bed sheet until my knuckles went numb. Finally, my legs would untangle themselves from the blanket and make the 10-foot journey to my parent’s bedroom door.

***

I still tiptoe into their room when I’m visiting home. The white blue wash of light from the digital clock reads 3 AM and it mixes with the wash of moonlight through my bedroom window. The pale glow is cold somehow, as if a draft has made its way through invisible crams in the wall. The edge of Baby Blue barely reached the crook of my knee- joint and I make my way down the hallway, pausing there in the open doorway. My father still snores like a motor in water and my mother is somewhere next to him, secreted by his large frame. The don’t touch and I make my way back to my room. Climbing into bed, I pull Baby Blue closer to the crook of my chin, feel childish and crawl back into a bed that’s missed me almost as much as they say they have.

***