The crying had gone on so long that it no longer sounded like crying. It was a long, threadbare echo that filled every crevice of the house—thin, high, and desperate, like the final note of a fading violin.
Mom Penny stood frozen in the doorway to the nursery, one hand on the light switch, the other pressed to her temple. Her shirt was damp from earlier attempts to nurse. Attempts she had ended with shaking hands and silent prayers. Pinky had cried since noon. Now it was nearly 2 a.m., and the sound had not changed, only softened—less powerful, but more haunting.
Seriously. This was a warning, Penny thought.
Not to the world. To her. From her baby.
“Why do they call it weaning?” she muttered. “As if it’s something natural.”
In the crib, Pinky thrashed gently, her fists curling into the loose blanket, her cheeks blotched crimson. Her eyes, bleary and confused, searched for the face she knew so well. Penny stepped closer, biting her lip so hard it bled a little.
She tasted iron.
That was when she thought of the bite. Not literal—at least not yet. But the pressure of rage and guilt rising from somewhere ancient in her chest. The image of biting—something, anything—flashed in her mind. Like a wolf mother trapped between instinct and civilization.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered. “I want to hold you. I want to feed you. But they said I had to stop now. For both of us.”
The silence that followed wasn’t silence. It was just Pinky catching her breath before the next storm of wailing. It struck Penny like a slap. The house seemed to tremble with the grief of it.
From the hallway, Thomas appeared. He looked sleep-deprived, holding a lukewarm bottle of pumped milk.
“She won’t take it,” Penny said before he could speak. “She doesn’t want it. She wants me. She wants skin and heartbeat and milk straight from the source.”
Thomas rubbed his eyes. “What if we just—try again tomorrow?”
Penny shook her head. “No. We’ve already gone this far.”
In the corner of the room, Grandma Lila’s old rocking chair creaked with memory. Penny remembered how her mother sat there with her, singing songs in a half-forgotten tongue, never weaning her until she was nearly two.
“She needs to learn,” Penny said again, but the words felt empty.
Inside her chest, something clenched. Then something… snapped.
