The Perfect Nursery

It was a perfect nursery—the kind every mother wants for her baby. The room was painted pastel egg yolk; fifty years ago mothers had no idea whether a boy or a girl would push out of their wombs. We played it neutral with pastels.

The crib was a spring-like green to soothe my baby asleep, and over the crib hung a wood-carved mobile in soft greens and yellows with just a tad of orange to catch the baby’s eye.

In the corner by the window sat my grandmother’s wooden rocking chair. I had painted it white and re-upholstered the cushions with a pattern of playful giraffes. The table where I changed my baby’s diapers sat against the adjoining wall, a table built by my father for his long-awaited grandchild.

The room had two windows that slid open from the side. They were covered in curtains that gave the nursery a cheery circus atmosphere—bright stripes of orange, lime, and saffron. When the curtains were open, I could see the walkway to the front porch, a walkway filled with azaleas blooming in the spring’s soft air.

The child was all I ever wanted. He was beautiful and fat from my milk. He was a happy boy, except at night when he would wake with a cry that was different. It was a sharp sound, not from hunger, but from something deep within him.

In those beginning days of motherhood, I would rush to the crib, pick him up, and try to soothe him. He seemed startled and not even the warm breast would calm him. I would rock him, not understanding his cry, and that is when I first heard it.

 I thought it was the creaking of the old wooden chair. But when I stopped rocking, the sound continued. I can only describe it as that of a cricket or some other creature hiding in the wall under the window. No amount of obsessive searching in darkness or daylight brought resolution to the sound which occurred only at night, only heard by me and my son. My husband tried to understand my weeping and so he sprayed for insects and dug resolutely into the azaleas next to the bedroom wall where that damnable noise came from. But nothing stopped it. And so, my husband slept, feeling there was nothing more to be done, and I did the rocking.

In that room, the night and I came to know one another. It hid what I wanted to find. It was a shroud on the terror that lurked in my baby’s room. Eventually, the noise changed from the clicking of an unnamed insect to a low drone that became louder the longer I listened, until it filled my soul each night with an unnamed horror.

During my interminable rocking, I remembered a strange incident several months previous. I was then nine months pregnant and waiting impatiently for my baby. We had just moved into the house a few weeks before and one Sunday afternoon the doorbell rang. When I answered, I saw an inordinately tall man with a gothic face. He wore an outfit of overalls not normally seen in suburban Southern California. He was a locksmith and certain I would want more secure locks on the sliding windows.

 My husband was working in the back yard and I replied that with a new baby coming, we couldn’t afford such an expense. He nodded, seemingly understanding, and then he began to talk crazy—random stuff that flowed from his mouth like poisoned spittle. He could see spirits dancing on his palm warning him that the end of the world was near. Those who survived would follow him, not Christ. I laughed, not knowing what else to do, trying to be polite when I simply wanted this madman to go away.

Then, strangely, he asked where the baby’s room would be and I stupidly motioned to the window in the walkway with its circus-colored curtains. He leaned over and touched the nursery windowsill, and then suddenly sprang back toward me where he reached out with his gangly arm and touched my protruding stomach. I gasped, horrified. Just then, my husband appeared at the door. Angered by what he had seen, he demanded to know why the man had touched me. A strange look came over the locksmith’s ugly face. He turned and fled.

Months later, the flowers on the azaleas having long since faded and crumbled to dust, my nine-month-old son and I stayed tied together for hours one particular night. He seemed inordinately upset and so I rocked and sang and talked to cover the sound and our mutual fears. And that is when the stroke of a deathly-cold hand swept across my back.

I don’t remember much after that shock except that I ran with the baby into the master bedroom, and violently shook my husband awake. I demanded that he do something, anything. It was the first time in our decade-long marriage that I challenged his unconcern. Now it was not just the noise, but an apparition that had actually touched me.

Standing by the bed, shaking and crying all at once, I screamed, “You keep telling me this is all my imagination; you make me feel like I’ve lost my mind. But I haven’t goddammit! What I felt was real!”

I suddenly stopped crying and said in a voice as cold as the hand that had violated me, “I’m not the stupid twenty-year old you married. Do something! Otherwise, the baby and I are moving to my mother’s.”

When the priest arrived and I told my tale, he nodded with an understanding that made my fear fall away like a heavy cloak. I brought him to the nursery where his knowing gaze slowly took in the entire room. He then pulled out his prayer book and began praying. My husband stood in the doorway watching silently.

I sat in the rocker, the place of such terror in the dark, but now there was a softness in the room as the sun came up and shone its brightness through the window that had been touched by a man possessed. 

When the exorcism of the room was completed, the priest did an odd thing. He asked for a pair of white socks. When I gave them to him, he performed a ritual while praying, tying the socks together. He then laid them like a cross inside the top drawer of the baby’s dresser.

I understood none of what the priest did, but that night and afterward, my son slept blissfully. And once again, it was my perfect nursery.

Note from Geraldine: While this may sound like a fictional story, it is not.

4 Comments

  1. Nancy Shefelbine on January 30, 2025 at 2:34 am

    Gerry’s writing always holds your attention until the last word, and in The Perfect Nursery she certainly delivers in “Note from Geraldine.”



  2. Harriet furuya on January 30, 2025 at 7:34 am

    Nancy expressed my reaction to your short story perfectly. Excellent piece, Gerry!



  3. Richard Nemec on January 30, 2025 at 11:42 am

    A chilling tale by a seasoned author. Beautifully written, as usual, by one of my favorite writers.



  4. Linda Pintarell on January 31, 2025 at 6:49 pm

    I “DITTO” Nancy’s comments. Love her way with words. Interesting fact: All three comments above and me being number four, were classmates of Gerry at Franklin High School – Class of Summer ’61. Now all being 81, amazing we are still in contact!