To Sing Frogs Chapter 31c

“Mama, Aye soory Aye burn baybee.”

Amy looked up, shocked. Sarah was already in her play-clothes and waiting for her mother to finish dressing Celeste. My wife had paused while putting a pullover shirt on the younger daughter. She curiously ran her fingers over several small whitewashed spots on the little girl’s shoulder. There was no apparent scarring. They just looked like little dots of skin with pigment deficiencies.

“What?” Amy asked, thinking she had heard our daughter correctly, but not quite sure.

Sarah paused. Then she began to cry. “Aye soory Aye burn baybee. Aye soory! Aye soory!” the crying intensified.

Amy quickly pulled the shirt onto Celeste. Then she lifted her off her own kneeling legs and gave the little girl a light playful swat to let her know they were finished. As Celeste ran to play my wife pulled the older sobbing daughter onto her lap. Sarah’s back was up against Amy’s chest and her mother’s arms wrapped tightly around her. Tears tumbled down the girl’s cheeks and sobs shook her body. “Who burned you?”

“Waht?”

“Who burned you? Who burned Sarah?” Amy asked while lightly touching the shirt over the older daughter’s horrific scar.

“Aye burn Sadah. Eee Aye burn baybee. Aye soory! Aye soory!” The crying continued.

“I’m sure you didn’t try to burn Celeste. It must have been an accident. What happened?”

“Waht?”

“How-did-it-get-burned?” Amy asked, touching Sarah’s chest. “Water? Fire?”

“Soope. Soope fall Sadah ee baybee.”

“Soup fell on you?”

“Yeas. Papa bringe soope ee fall. Soope fall Sadah ee baybee.”

“Papa Anatole fell and spilled soup on you and Celeste?” Amy correctly assumed—since Sarah’s middle name was Anatolievna—the man in the home known as “Papa” was still Anatole.

“Yeas. Aye am hongree ee aye want eat. I am by Papa ee he fall. Soope fall on mee ee baybee.”

The (probably drunk) excuse-for-a-father had tripped over Sarah and burned both of the little girls. Then he blamed the child. “Oh Sarah, it was an accident. I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“Mama heet me. Aye burn baybee ee mama heet me. Aye soory aye burn baybee!” Sarah was now all but hysterical. Amy picked her up, turned her around and held her closely. The little girl continued to sob and cry out her ridiculously unnecessary apology.

A demonic mother beat the child—who was screaming from massive third degree burns—for wasting soup and because a few drops spilled on the toddler sister. If the devil lives in Hell this world is his home.