By Sophia Krich-Brinton
I noticed it the night my first child was born. I was nursing her, in awe of her tiny hands, my stomach rumbling but no food in reach, when I realized I could see the blue hospital blanket right through my fingers.
Turning my hand forward and back I could see bones, muscles, tendons, and beyond, the blue patterned blanket.
It wasn’t clear like glass. More like an early morning mist, so thick you can only see rooftops, the hint of a window, but you know there’s a building there.
It got worse as my child grew. By the time she was six months old, both my hands were transparent. On her first birthday, my arms were completely see-through. I could still hold her, which was the oddest thing. I kept expecting her to fall through my embrace, but she didn’t. She gripped my arms with her tiny hands, chewing and sucking on my invisible fingers as if nothing was wrong.
And maybe nothing was. Nobody else seemed to notice. When I held up my arms for my partner, he shrugged and said, “Everyone gets that way with the first kid.” No panic. Just a smile as he turned back to his computer. “Give it a few more months and you’ll feel better. Everyone says this part’s the hardest.”
Maybe they did. I didn’t know a lot of people with kids.
We had another soon after that. We’d always wanted two, as close in age as possible, and though I had second thoughts when the time came to push, it was too late to back out. Soon we had a son, a tiny, mewling creature as different from our first as he could be. She’d been quiet, an easy sleeper, but he came into this world screaming as if he knew his mother’s see-through arms weren’t right and he wanted everyone else to know it too.
Within a day, it spread to my waist, then into my chest. I felt constantly chilled, as if the foggy autumn air had pierced my skin and settled in my bones.
When my jaw went clear, I woke my partner up. He was asleep in the living room now, otherwise the kids kept him up. We’d agreed that since I was staying home and didn’t need to be alert, I could deal with them at night.
And during the day, too, apparently, since he left before breakfast and came home after they were asleep.
He woke when I shook him, sitting up with a frown. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me. I’m really worried.” I held my arms out. “It’s way worse. All the way to my chin.”
“Hello?” He looked around, his eyes moving through me. Then he lay back down and rolled over, pulling the blankets up.
I glanced at the mirror over the couch. Fear shivered through me.
I was completely gone.
I rushed back into the bedroom and over to my son’s crib. He looked up at me with those huge eyes, not blinking.
“Can you hear me?” I whispered.
He cheeped.
Relief barreled through me so hard I had to sit down on my bed to catch my breath. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know how to make it stop.”
My daughter sat up in her crib. “Mama sad?”
“Love, can you hear me too?”
“Hear Mama,” she said, nodding.
My son cheeped again. He raised a tiny arm, reaching for me. I bent down to kiss him and he grabbed my invisible chin and squeezed.
In the morning, my partner woke up, made coffee, and packed his bag for work. He kissed each kid and left the apartment without a word. He didn’t feed them, or call a sitter.
I chased him down the stairs, shouting his name. He brushed his hand across his face as if he’d walked into a spider web, but didn’t seem to feel me grabbing his arm or beating on his back.
Life wasn’t much different after he stopped seeing me.
He left for work early, came back late. I spent my days with the kids, as always. We couldn’t go out in public, but I took them into the small green space out back and we sat in the sun together. The heat felt amazing on my invisible body. I took my shirt off and lay back. Why not?
I watched the kids enjoy the bright, quiet day, and smiled. “I love you both so much.”
They looked up at me with their large eyes, so like my own, almost as if they could see me.
Sophia Krich-Brinton (she/they) lives in Colorado with her partner, kids, and cats. They write weird stories at dawn when the world sleeps and the cats try to sit on their keyboard. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in HAD, The Argyle, Moss Puppy Mag, and more. When not writing, she boxes, plays the banjo, and goes backpacking. Find them at sophiakbrinton.com or on Twitter/Instagram at @sophiakb_writes