I wasn’t expecting anyone, so when I opened the door and saw the big-ass walrus dripping shimp-spit from his whiskers, I was taken off-guard. I shifted my baby to my other hip, away from the tusks, and told him to leave us the fuck alone. I said it with authority, the way you talk to walruses if you want them to listen, if you want to keep your offspring safe. 

I’m a good mother. I know that saying I’m a good mother is a red flag, like I’m overly defensive or something, like it’s not assumed by others so I have to declare it, like a nationality or a skill set that is strange enough to not be obvious, like when I was in high school and had to tell everyone I could box like a 200-pound boy, and they were all like, no fucking way can you box like a 200-pound boy with those skinny-ass arms and flamingo legs, you stupid girl, and I had to show them by knocking Cory to the ground and beating him until he cried. 

You’d think a walrus couldn’t catch me, that on land they’d be slow, with all that blubber and those low-riding flippers and a head the size of a lawnmower. I’d made that mistake before, thinking I could outrun a walrus, but I didn’t have another idea, so I clutched my baby to my body and ran right down the hall and up the stairs and into my bedroom where I slammed the door, but not before he got a flipper wedged in. It turns out those flippers are big slabs of muscle, and it took him nothing to push through the door, huffing like a fat man, taking the time to catch his breath while I set my baby on the bed, as gently as I could considering the circumstances, like a good mother, like a mother who loves her baby more than she loves herself, which people say like it’s a feat, like you should get a fucking award for it.

Then I fought with everything I had, with my fingernails and my jaws and my knees and the lamp I bought at a yard sale and my heels, but sometimes all you’ve got just isn’t enough, especially against a walrus, who has the evolutionary advantage in a case like this, in a case where it all comes down to size and weight, where what’s right doesn’t matter, where strength is just physical, where the word mother has no teeth.

My baby was still here when I woke up. I reached onto the bed and rubbed his back and told him we did it, we beat the walrus. Then I lay back down on the floor and took a bunch of slow, deep breaths, as if I were about to dive underwater for a long time. And I hoped he’d be okay while I was gone.