It wasn’t a bad baby, she just liked to make it cry. They called the baby Star Shine because that was its name and Lesly thought that was a joke—her older brother not known for his humor but for his surprises, which remained true when she saw the birth certificate and the letters as there and smudged as her own uterus: Star Shine Razzle Oginson.
Lesly didn’t hate kids, not at all, she just didn’t know how to interact with things that couldn’t hold a conversation. She would never tickle a chair or play peekaboo with a rock. It wouldn’t make sense and she knows that a baby isn’t a chair or a rock but it might as well be. Lesly preferred preteens and angst and watching her students copy each other’s homework and ignoring it because they’re probably wrong anyway. And she understands why students copy homework—why Johnson didn’t finish the vocabulary assignment because his mother is an alcoholic who talks too much or how Millie couldn’t read The Pearl because it reminded her too much of her little brother who died before he could walk. And Chance was dumb and thoughtless more than anything, sure, but no point in busting him when he’ll end up working for his dad’s business in the next 5 years anyway.
It wasn’t Star Shine’s fault for being young, Lesly knew this, which helped her love it as much as she did. She played with it—set blocks on its head, offered plastic farm animals for the taking—and pretended she didn’t hear her brother and his wife whispering to each other in the kitchen, “Why is she so weird with our Star” or “It’s like she doesn’t even know how to play.”
Lesly knew they were right. Star Shine had eyes like water bottle caps, a body like a gallon of milk. Lesly poked at it, tickled, did all the things she saw parents do to children to make them smile but Star Shine never budged. No grin, no chorus of giggles, not even a goo. It was old enough to goo, Lesly knew.
Despite Lesly’s animosity, she liked hugs. When Star Shine was 16 months old, it would toddle around and hug whoever was nearby. It hugged chairs. The dishwasher. But never Lesly. Her brother and his wife found this hilarious, laughing like lullabies, while Lesly smiled politely and simultaneously tried to control Star Shine with her mind.
When the parents were out, Lesly on Star Shine duty, she held it. Tight. Star Shine tried to break free, go soaring, began to scream and cry until Lesly let go. Lesly always let go. Lesly did not want to hurt Star Shine—she was not a psychopath, despite what the girl’s third bathroom stall said in the handwriting of Sabrina Rider, the only student to dislike Ms. Lesly for her bright orange hair and relentless vocabulary quizzes—but she wanted a reaction. As close to a conversation as she could get. Something to signify: I’m here, you’re here, we exist together now.
So Lesly always hugged Star Shine despite whatever Star Shine wanted and she pinched her toesies when putting on its socks—baby socks, so preposterous, she’d think—and when Star Shine screamed and wailed for a binky, Lesly shoved the stupid thing deeper in her pocket. The wailing did not bother her. It had quite the opposite effect. It was an acknowledgment of sorts. It made Lesly smile.
When Star Shine was 2 and stomped around the house with intention, harnessing foot power for more than kicking during diaper changes, Lesly started tripping it. Not hard, and not in a mean way, she reminded herself. In a way that taught resilience—that served as a reminder that the ground is real and there and you will hit it or people will make you hit it, the details don’t matter, what matters is getting back up. Lesly thought about this as she watched Star Shine sob, folded into a puddle on the wooden floor.
How many of her students would Lesly have liked to stick her foot out for? How many young kids needed to be taught lessons their parents were too soft or too stupid to teach them? Lesly was lucky to grow up without care. She wasn’t like her brother. Coddled at every slight misstep. It was her job—self-appointed, sure—to ensure Star Shine would be different. She was doing all of this because she loved Star Shine, really loved it, and Star Shine wouldn’t know how good her aunt really was, how kind and considerate and good at playing she could be, which was okay with Lesly. It was a sacrifice worth making. A sacrifice every good teacher had to live with. She patted herself on the back, picked up Star Shine and held the little ball of fat close, so close, until she wasn’t sure whose tears were whose.
Star Shine is five now and she knows there’s something she doesn’t like about Auntie Lesly, she knows it the way she knows how many letters there are in the alphabet, toes on her feet, and ways to tie her shoes, but she doesn’t know how to tell anyone about it. She doesn’t have the language. Only the urge to weep and combust. Her parents make her hug Auntie Lesly goodbye and hello, and she has no known reason to cry and beg not to, though her body burns bright and her vision blurs and she wants to collapse on the floor wailing like a baby. But her mouth? Her mouth and her words and her voice float far from her, somewhere else, lost in space.
