It wasn’t often his mind was pulled back to that dark place these days, but being around Maple was bad for that. Roger held his palms to his temples, pacing back and forth across the short room but stepping carefully to not wake her up. He recalled the conversation he had with the young woman at FluffMart, the part he definitely wasn’t going to share with Maple. He had a few spices for the spaghetti, not understanding the extremely low bar of quality for fluffies and what would pass as a perfect spaghetti for them. Most of all of that was simmering in a pot as the sauce thickened, and it was almost time for him to add the meatballs. This would’ve been easier if he had an electric stove.
His attention was suddenly split as his eyes widened, not yet ready to talk to her. Her little legs stretched out and she yawned, opening her eyes briefly and not focusing on anything in particular. They slowly closed again and he let out a sigh of relief as she went back to sleep.
Maybe he just needed to think about it from a different angle. What if he was saving her from the horrors of pregnancy and the things that can go wrong? No. Roger knew in his heart that he was thinking about this for himself as he held the fluffy green parsley in his palm. He’d tell her it was an accident that it wasn’t anyone’s fault. He’d tell her that the “fluffy doctor” he had never actually met said that it was normal for a first litter to terminate early. He’d tell her something. And she’d probably believe it. He tossed the leaves into the sauce to let them soak up the flavor of it a little bit before chopping them finely.
The spaghetti noodles themselves seemed soft enough at this point after soaking in boiled water for the last hour. It was good enough. He put it all together, spiraled in the center of the biggest plate he had, pouring on the tomato sauce with the meatie bits and sprinkling the fine-chopped parsley on top, particularly condensing some of it to a specific edge. Two plates? No. One plate. It would be easier for her to believe he had nothing to do with it if he was eating from the same dish.
He walked over to her, squatting down and holding the plate a few inches from her nose, wafting the steam with his hand. It wiggled, sniffed, twitched. Her mouth reflexively smiled in her sleep, her legs beginning to wiggle as if she was quickly hurrying over toward something. All that movement started to stir her from a pleasant dream into a reality that would be just as pleasant, for now.
Her eyes slowly opened, that smile never leaving her face as her head lifted up. Her eyes focused on the spaghetti, then lead up to Roger’s face, then drew right back down to the spaghetti as she drew in a deep breath. “SKETTIES! DADDEH!!! DADDEH MAKE SKETTIES!!!”
Maple rolled out over her bed toward that scent as Roger laughed softly to himself, standing up and taking the plate over to the table.
“Maypo wub sketties daddeh! Maypo wowwied Maypo nu num sketties ebah agane!”
“Don’t you worry about that. We can have spaghetti… once a week, let’s say. It’s not too easy to make without a stove.”
She didn’t know what a stove was, and meant to ask, but that was much less important than this tall table her dinner was on. She put her hooves up against a supporting leg and decided climbing it wouldn’t work, so she turned toward her daddy for uppies instead, and he gave them to her! How lucky! Her little arms hugged his wrist in appreciation as he lifted her up and set her down on a nice folded napkin.
“This side’s for you, dear,” he told her, tapping the edge with the thicker concentration of parsley.
“WOW!.. Maypo nebah shawe nummies wike dis wit hoomin befowe!” She looked up to smile at him, then immediately plunged her hungry face into the spaghetti, unceremoniously scarfing it down. Apparently it was delicious.
In a sharp juxtaposition, Roger slowly twirled his fork at the other side, eating slowly and neatly over the course of a silent dinner that had no need for conversation with her mouth constantly full and chewing.
At one point, she lifted her head up, her face giving a puzzled expression for a moment. Her tummy rumbled like she was hungry, and she felt a little bit sick. Sometimes this happened when she ate too fast, or when she was going to have bad, watery poopies.
“Everything okay, honey?” Roger asked, pausing with his fork suspended above the plate before it could deliver the neatly-wrapped spaghetti around it.
“Maypo hab tummeh huwties. Nu wowstest tummeh huwties, buh tummeh huwties.”
“Maybe eat a little slower? You have been scarfing it down, Miss Maple.”
“…Maypo twy dat,” she said, quietly staring at the spaghetti and counting as high as she could. One… two… three… four… and then she took a bite, chewing it up and swallowing it. One… two… three… four… again. And again. And again.
It wasn’t making the tummy hurties any better, that rumbling was just getting worse and her body was starting to shake a little, then she felt some wetness coming out of her special place. Her eyes went wide. She was making bad peepees on his table! Daddy was definitely going to be mad about this.
“MAYPO NEED WITTA BAWKS!” she cried out, Roger dropping his fork and immediately scooping her up with the red napkin he had prepared for this moment, holding it firm against her bottom as he took her to the litter box. He set her down, but only held her back legs in the litter box. Why was daddy doing this? He had never done it like this before.
“Just let it all out, honey. Yer alright. Maybe the tomatoes were a little bad or somethin’,” he told her, keeping a straight face as he lied.
Her tummy hurt in such a strange way as she tried to pee more, but this just made her feel like poopies were coming from deep inside her tummy. How did they get that deep? She couldn’t help but sob, tears steaming down her face.
“Huuhuuuuu… Maypo nu undastan… Why tummeh hab stwange huwties? Maypo feew weawwy bad… huuuhuu…”
“I don’t know Maple, but it’ll be okay. Yer gonna be jus’ fine…”
She tried to turn her head to look, but he wouldn’t let her, correcting her head to look straight ahead toward him. Why wouldn’t daddy let her turn and look? There was something so strange about this!
Roger did his best to keep a straight face as he leaned forward, looking down at two tiny, pink, lifeless little fluffies. He had stopped the problem early. Just like he should have 30 years ago. Now both of them were crying as tears welled up at the corners of his eyes as well, dripping down onto her soft back fluff. The bleeding was slowing down, so he picked her up, taking her right over to the washbasin.
“Daddeh, Maypo wan see witta bawks agane!” she protested as she was sat down next to it for a moment on her convenient red napkin.
“No no, Maple. You don’t want to see that. It’s just really gross, wet poopies. I’m going to clean you up. You don’t wanna see these, honey,” he told her again, picking up the litter box quickly and taking it outside, hurling the contents off into the forest.
He came back in, wearing a fake smile as best as he could and drying his tears as he took the last thing out of the shopping bag from earlier, a little bottle of shampoo.
“This is some special wash to help ya feel pretty again, okay? Yer a very pretty lady, Maple, and the FluffMart lady told me it was awfully important to good fluffies that they look and smell pretty.”
He brought it over, popping the cap and letting her have a smell. It did smell pretty, and this was a small consolation for the strange hurting she felt in her tummy and special place.
He picked her up carefully and lowered her into the water again. It was a little too cold this time, but she didn’t have it in her to complain, just letting her body go limp in his hand. He was trying harder than the last time he gave her a bath, and even as his fingers scrubbed the foamy strawberry-scented shampoo into her she just cried quietly in his hand. She even held still as he tried to rub her special place clean, even though she didn’t want him to touch that. It was then, however, as she realized that he was holding most of her weight by her tummy, that it was smaller than usual.
“DADDEH! MAYPO… NU HAB TUMMEH BABIES?!” she asked, her head snapping up to look at him in shock, her legs wiggling in the water as she panicked.
“Now, honey, slow down-”
“HUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- MAYPO WOWSTEST SOON MUMMAH!” she cried out, shifting in his hand and poking at her own tummy and realizing she didn’t feel those tiny growing lumps anymore. “Maypo wose babbehs, Maypo am mummah-no-mowe!”
“MAPLE! Slow down!” he told her, patting her head and rubbing along her back, but it was to no avail. She sobbed loudly in his hand, crying out as her tears flowed into her mouth and obscured her speech, babbling wildly about babies and how she failed them as a mother.
He slid his thumb up, holding her mouth shut for a moment as he lifted her chin up to make her face him. “Maple. Slow down. Breath in yer nose. Everything is going to be okay. Yer gonna be okay.” He waited a moment before sliding his thumb back down, her shaking body just sitting there sadly as he lifted her up out of the water and gave her a special wrapped-up hug a soft towel.
Maple smelled pretty and looked pretty, and her fluff was as soft and breatheable as she could ever remember it being, but on the inside she felt like she was an ugly fluffy. A bad fluffy. She failed her babies and lost them somehow, not yet connecting the dots and realizing that her poopies were the babies.
She was silent for a long while, eventually stifling her tears as she stared straight ahead from her little burrito-like towel wrapping. Roger slowly unwrapped her, getting a little brush and slowly combing her. She was getting even prettier, but it just didn’t matter anymore.
Roger offered her food and she shook her head. He offered her milk and she shook her head. He even took some time and put a kettle over by the wood stove, and it made the whole cabin smell like yummy chocolate. He poured himself a little cup of chocolate juice, and then an even smaller cup for her, pushing it in front of her.
“Try it, honey. This is one of the things I drink when I’m sad. It always warms my heart and tastes good,” he told her, but she took one look at it and just rolled onto her side, closing her eyes.
“Are ya too tired, honey? Are you ready for bed?”
Maple didn’t respond. She had too many thoughts inside of her head to talk to him right now, and almost all of them were about how horrible she was and how her babies had forever sleepies inside of her before they ever even got to open their see-places. Before they ever got to feel the first bright time and the warm light on their fluff. Before they ever had their first talkies or their first dancies. Their first huggies. Their first sketties. And it was her fault. Somehow. If she had just been a better mummah, she would’ve had three happy babies falling asleep while sucking on the teats between her hindlegs.
“Maple!” Daddy called out to her, snapping his fingers in front of her eyes as they shot open, his other hand shaking her. She finally opened her eyes, her mouth opening in shock for a moment.
“Maple… I thought you had died or something, oh my goodness…” he told her. Roger’s face had tears streaming down it. Was he sad because the babies were gone, too? That must have been it. Babies are perfect and make everything better, and he realized now just how much the two of them had lost!
“Maypo su sowwy daddeh… Maypo am bad mummah-no-mowe,” she told him, beginning to cry again as he scooped her up, petting her fluffy body as it was an all-time high in softness. He carried her over to her bed, laying her down on her side again and pulling the little blanket over her. Her litter box was back in the corner, filled with clean litter like nothing ever happened.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Maple. It’s not yer fault. Sometimes pregnancy just… has… real bad things happen… to good people…” His speech broke up before he could finish, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. Maple couldn’t watch her daddy cry anymore, she covered her eyes with her hooves as she laid there. Her special place and her tummy felt as sad as the rest of her as she cried herself to sleep.
