Hug Me

My son…he’s a good boy. I hug him as often as I can. Casey is almost five now, but he’s small for his age, so he feels more like a three-year-old. I want to hug him like this forever. I want him to hug me back like this forever – with both arms and legs and all of his little body. He won’t hug me like this when he’s older. I know it. He will want to hug someone else – someone prettier, someone younger, someone his age. And then I won’t have anyone to hug.

I moved to the suburbs three towns over from our old house. I want to be far away from Joe, so I won’t run into his friends and relatives. I don’t want anyone to ask about our situation. All I can rely on now is the Voila! app on my phone. Everyone loves this app. I use it to make duplicates of my favorite donut. I snap a picture with the app, press send, and voilà, a copy pops out of the Duplicator I have at home. Making duplicates feels good. I can make as many copies as I like until my stomach feels satisfied. One more chocolate-glazed donut and one more glass of wine before I go to bed. Joe is not here to remind me I’m not supposed to have any more or tell me I need to lose weight. One is fine. The duplicates don’t contain the sugar or the alcohol, so it’s no big deal. Slightly less palatable, but the satisfaction is real. They fill me up every time.

The bakery down the street doesn’t mind people snapping pictures of their pastries inside the store as long as you buy a dozen to go. They know the experience cannot be duplicated entirely. These are just copies. They look the same but don’t taste the same. Not quite.

Casey and I used to choose together which donuts we wanted to duplicate. I always had a clean plate right by my Duplicator. I would snap a picture of the donuts and out popped the extra ones onto the plate. We had such a great time. Once in a while, I also made copies of Casey’s stuffed animals so he could have more friends. Casey craved hugs like me. He told me his arms would ache if he didn’t have anything to hug. Seeing him surrounded by friends made me feel loved, too. It made me feel like a good mother, especially when I was at work and I couldn’t wrap my arms around my boy to comfort him.

I did it at my last supervised visit. Casey had fallen asleep on the couch while watching TV. Joe told me they needed to head out soon. Casey had a play date at four so it was better for me to leave now before he woke up. Joe said all this with his back toward me as he climbed the stairs to get Casey’s stuffed elephant for the car ride. He didn’t even look me in the eye. Seven years of marriage! As soon as he was out of sight, I snapped a picture of Casey. God knows when Joe would suddenly stop letting me come over for visits, supervised or not.

The duplication took much longer than I expected, but it worked. After putting it together limb by limb, my copy looks just like our Casey. He doesn’t say or do much, but he is with me and he is happy. When we go for walks, I dress him up warmly and let him ride in the stroller. We go shopping and we go to the park. When we get home, I let him fall asleep on my tummy, and I hug him nice and tight through the night. He doesn’t mind if my tears spill onto his pajamas. He knows how much I love him.

I wish I could make a copy of Joe, too, but he never falls asleep on the couch. He keeps his eagle eye on me at all times. He locks his fridge and his wine cabinet. He always positions himself between Casey and me as if I’m going to do something bad. I’m not a monster. He doesn’t have to treat me like this. Mothers would never harm their children. Joe should know that. He said I was scaring Casey. I wasn’t. I just wanted to hug him. Who is going to love me now? Joe told me I needed to pull myself together. He said he still cared about me, but he couldn’t be with me anymore. I told him that was bullshit. If he loved me, he would have helped me instead of kicked me out. I yelled at him to prove his love and he turned his face away to wipe his crocodile tears. He said he wished he could have the “old me” back.

I know he has a copy of me somewhere in his house because he used to love me. I don’t want him to love a copy of me. I want him to love me and keep me.

Tomorrow, I’m going to sneak inside his house and get rid of that copy. Then I’ll stay. I’ll make myself huggable without all the unhealthy ingredients, so both Casey and Joe will love me again.

Just hug me one more time. Just one more.