For almost three years, my seven-year-old son had asked us for the same thing.
A baby.
Every birthday.
Every Christmas.
Every random Tuesday when he thought persistence might finally wear us down.
“When am I getting a baby?”
He never seemed to get tired of asking.
So when my husband, Daniel, and I finally told him I was pregnant, Ben screamed so loudly that our neighbor actually knocked on the door to make sure nobody had been hurt.
He was overjoyed.
He talked about becoming a big brother constantly. He wanted to know whether the baby would be a boy or a girl. He wanted to help choose clothes. He even started making lists of things he thought the baby would need.
Then Brenda was born.
And suddenly, everything became more complicated than any of us had expected.
The doctors explained that Brenda had Down syndrome. They began walking us through tests, specialists, therapies, appointments, and all the things we might need to prepare for.
Daniel and I were overwhelmed.
That first week, every appointment seemed to bring another question.
I barely knew which question I should ask first.
Ben wasn’t overwhelmed.
The first time he held his baby sister, he stared at her tiny face for nearly ten seconds without saying a word.
Then he looked at me.
“She’s perfect.”
That was it.
From that moment on, Brenda became “his baby.”
He picked out her clothes.
He sang badly whenever she cried.
He showed her pictures to cashiers, teachers, neighbors, and even one very confused delivery driver.
At night, he would stand beside her bassinet and whisper goodnight as if Brenda could already understand every word he said.
For the first couple of weeks, I thought Ben was handling becoming a big brother better than any seven-year-old possibly could.
Then he stopped sleeping in his bedroom.
The first morning I found him under Brenda’s crib, I almost laughed.
He had his pillow.
His blanket.
His stuffed dinosaur.
And he was lying on the floor beneath the crib as comfortably as if it were his new bedroom.
“Ben?”
He blinked up at me.
“What are you doing?”
“Sleeping.”
“You have a bed.”
“I know.”
“An actual bed.”
He shrugged.
“I like it here.”
I smiled.
At the time, I honestly thought it was sweet.
Our little boy had waited years for a sister, and now he apparently wanted to protect her.
I didn’t realize there was another reason.
My mother-in-law, Diane, didn’t find it sweet at all.
Diane had been staying with us since Brenda came home. At first, I was grateful for the help.
She cooked.
She cleaned.
She folded laundry.
She constantly reminded me to rest.
But when she saw Ben sleeping underneath Brenda’s crib, her expression changed.
“You shouldn’t encourage this.”
“I’m not encouraging anything.”
“Then send him back to his room.”
“I do.”
“Clearly not firmly enough.”
I rolled my eyes.
“He’s excited.”
Diane glanced toward the crib.
“Or jealous.”
That annoyed me.
“Ben loves her.”
“Children can love someone and still resent the attention they receive.”
“He’s seven, Diane. He waited years for a sister.”
She lowered her voice.
“He needs to understand that the baby isn’t the center of the universe.”
“She’s two weeks old.”
“I’m talking about Ben.”
I dismissed the conversation.
But Ben slept under the crib again that night.
And the night after that.
And the night after that.
Every morning, I carried his pillow and blanket back to his bedroom.
Every night, somehow, he returned.
By the fourth morning, the joke had completely disappeared.
Daniel and I started comparing notes.
“What are we missing?” I asked him.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel tried bribery first.
“If you sleep in your own bed all week, we’ll get pizza on Friday.”
Ben shook his head.
“I don’t want pizza.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You always want pizza.”
“Not that much.”
That was when I started realizing something wasn’t right.
If I went upstairs to shower, I’d come back and find Ben sitting beside Brenda’s crib.
If Daniel and I stepped outside for ten minutes, Ben refused to come with us.
