The thing that struck me most was how tiny her head was. Her father had always joked about how big it was, how he hoped her ego wouldn’t end up matching. All the funny little things you say when you’re in love in more than one way. The books always say the head is never proportional, that it needs extra support because their necks are so weak. But her neck was hardly different from the rest of her torso, and her head… her head…

Her head looked like a broken eggshell, the top caved in, little feathery cracks spreading outward from it. I didn’t like the blood, never have. It would have been much prettier without it.

She cried too, but not for long. I cried with her, tried to rock her, comfort her through it. She was just a little baby and couldn’t know it was for her own good. But I had to do it, I had to. Sometimes, that’s being a mother. Doing the hard thing for the good of your child.

They can’t see that, can’t see anything clearly. The lawyers won’t even let me explain, not really, not properly. They say it’s for my own good, as if I am a child. No one thinks I knew what I was doing. They think I couldn’t ‘tell right from wrong.’ I could. I can.

No one wants to call me a killer. But I did, I’ll tell you right away. I killed her. No one else. I was the one who saved her from having to live. Everyone else has it backwards- they think I took something from her, but what I did was keep it from hurting her, inflicting its miseries on her tiny soul… She was too good, you see. Too pure and beautiful and precious.

So I took a hammer and smashed it right into the softest part of her head. If I could do it over again, I would’ve given her some sleeping pills, I think. Maybe. But they could pump those out, and then she’d not only have to live, but she’d be damaged too, and I couldn’t see her, I’d be away from her and she would hate me. Better have it done for good, real quick.

That’s the other reason I did it. I never wanted my baby, my Rose, to hate me. Not even for a minute. If she grew up, there’d be no helping it. But now she’s in heaven and she can see me and see how I love her, why I did it, and when I join her she’ll give me that sweet little half smile, that just screams ‘I love you mommy!’ Oh, she’ll be screaming when she sees me again, I’m sure.

I loved having her inside me, feeling her soft kicks, singing her to sleep, knowing she dozed off with me, knowing every morsel I ate would feed her. It was the greatest motivation of my life. I took every vitamin, went to every appointment, ate all the greens I’d ever detested. It was all for her. It is all for her. I am a good mother. No. I am the best mother. Because I wasn’t selfish.

He hates me, but I don’t care. A mother’s love is so far beyond what he could give me. When I was younger, I would have done anything for his dimples and kindness. Now he is a rorschach man, all lines and circles. An unreadable mess. Everytime he looks at me, it’s different. Rage, shock, hate, sorrow, pure confusion, fear. The last one is the worst. They don’t let us near each other-well, him near me, really- but I don’t care. I have her, forever.

She is preserved: the soft down on the top of her head will never grow, she will always smell of baby powder and freshness, and her fingers will always be tiny, her lips always rosebuds. And heaven will heal her, so I don’t have to see the cracks in her head.