It was one of the few times I felt true fear behind the walls of the City. It stole the warmth from my body, made me feel like I was back outside, right in the middle of the endless blizzards. And you know what? I didn’t like it one bit.
Monica’s first laugh occurred sometime in what would’ve been the spring of 2021, right around Stone’s birthday. Mia was passed out in bed with a snoring Chewy snuggled up next to her; Eleanor could barely hold her eyes open; Stone was in a sour mood because he'd burned his mouth on some coffee (I don’t know, don’t ask); and I was lost in my thoughts. Monica lay in the crook of my left arm, drinking a bottle.
It was a quiet night off for me—then again, most nights in the City were. One thing I loved about the place was how you could barely hear the wind blowing outside whenever you walked through the tunnels. As for the barracks, that wasn’t the case. Despite being made of brick, when the wind shrieked, you heard it not only in your ears, but in your mind too. It was shrieking that night, the way it always was, and like always, I was doing my best to ignore it.
“This is gonna be the weirdest birthday ever,” Stone mumbled during one of the quiet spells.
“You’re usually in Tokyo or Berlin around now, huh?” I replied. “So I bet it is gonna be weird actually being home.”
This was the truth. Stone never paid much attention to his birthday. He instead opted to bury himself in his work. Once, while we were both pretty drunk, I asked why that was. I told him he could come back to Ohio and spend his birthday with my dad and I. It certainly wasn’t Tokyo, but it beat being alone. Stone had leaned forward, pushed his glass of whiskey away, and looked up at me. His eyes shined with tears.
“I can’t be home. If I don’t stay busy, Grady, I start thinking about my mom and dad. So I take on a few extra projects. The corporate bigwigs love me for it and I get a nice bonus check, plus I don’t have to think about missing another year without my parents. It’s a win-win.”
“Well, no business trip this year, buddy,” Stone said now. He fiddled with his bottom lip. “This year, I feel like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.”
“That isn’t good,” I said halfheartedly as I lifted Monica, laid her against my shoulder, and patted her back.
“Nope. It ain’t good at all, Grady, my man. Happy frickin’ birthday, har-har-har!”
Monica suddenly giggled. A high and sweet sound none of us had expected to hear. I froze, thinking it had to be a wraith messing with our heads.
I turned from Eleanor, whose eyes were now wide open, to Stone, who was arching an eyebrow at me.
“Grady,” he said, “why did you just laugh like you’ve been sucking on helium?”
“That…that wasn’t me…” I held Monica up in front of me. She was all smiles. Little dribbles of milk hung around the corners of her grin. “I think that was her.”
“No way,” Ell said. “Can babies laugh at five-ish months?”
“Don’t look at us,” Stone said, raising his hands, palms out. “You’re the nurse.”
Raising the pitch of my voice and trying my best baby talk—which was, in hindsight, probably pretty terrible and terrifying—I said to Monica, “Did you just laugh, huh? Did you, you little princess?”
Her lips parted and she looked at me like I was crazy.
“Something made her laugh…” Ell said. “What did you do?”
Stone shrugged. “Nothin’, she’s probably just laughing at Grady’s face.”
“Hilarious, as always,” I said, turning toward Eleanor. “I think it was something Stone said. What’d you say?”
“‘Happy frickin’ birthday?”
“Language, Stone,” Ell hissed. “Language.”
“Frickin’? Oh, c’mon, she doesn’t understand what I’m saying, and that’s not technically a swear word.”
“You’re vastly underestimating the intelligence of babies,” Ell said. “They’re basically sponges. They soak up everything. Including unfavorable language.”
“Yeah, man,” I said, “do you really want Monica here sounding like you by the time she’s two?”
“Well, if she is her mother’s daughter, I don’t think there’s much that can be done to prevent that.” Stone laughed—which, coincidentally, caused Mia to rustle.
We all watched as she roused herself out of sleep.
“Okay,” she said, “if you guys are creepin’ on me while I’m passed out now, then I’m definitely movin’ out.”
“Uh…Mia, I think your daughter just laughed,” I said.
Her eyes widened. She leaned forward and almost fell out of bed. “What?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“We think she laughed,” Stone said.
“I missed her first giggle?” Mia whined. “Noooo… How could you guys let that happen?”
“Potential first giggle,” Stone repeated. “But as they say, when you snooze, you lose…”
Mia took Monica from my arm and jabbed me in the shoulder with her index finger. “Make her do it again!”
I had no idea how, but I tried my damnedest. The faces I made were probably so disturbing that if a psychiatrist saw me doing them in public, he or she would’ve had me committed on the spot. Monica apparently found them neither amusing or abhorrent. She just stared at me with wide-eyed indifference, the way most babies her age do.
Stone raked his fingers down his cheeks. “Oh God, please make it stop…”
“It’s not like you could do any better,” I challenged.
“It’s obviously not faces she likes,” Stone said. “It was the voice.”
“Then do the voices!” Mia urged. “C’mon! I wanna hear her laugh!”
Stone looked around at all of us. I could see the mental struggle he was going through. Do the voice, risk making himself look silly, and get the baby to laugh, or stay…stony, and not risk shattering his cool persona.
Stone sighed. “Fine.” Then, lowering his voice to a baritone so deep I thought it physically impossible, he said, “Happy freakin’ birthday! Har-har-har!”
Sure enough, Monica broke into laughter, the sound high and sweet. She even reached for Stone and gave his nose a honk.
Tears filled
