Little Baby Fug

Magnify

I should have seen it coming. I should have known. I should have been prepared. But why would I even think the odds were going to tilt in favor of irony when Fate had been so kind to me before? I had tested her and tempted her on three separate occasions, and now fickle Fate was sending me a message: the well had run dry and that was it. So my fourth baby came out, well, ugly.

He was tiny—for us—a scrawny eight pounds compared to his robust siblings, my smallest yet. My runt. I remember calling my friend Betsy and whispering into the phone from my hospital bed, “No… he’s really not like the others.” There was more surprise than shame in my voice, but it was okay; I could tell Betsy these things—we’re that close. Truth be told, she was the only one I did tell. We often joked that if either of us ever had an ugly baby, we’d be the kind of mother who knew it. None of this isn’t-he-beautiful-just-ignore-the-lazy-eye nonsense. We had a clue. We would know. And so I knew.

“I’m sure it’s not so bad,” she soothed across the miles. But I could tell what she was really thinking: It’s about time, bitch.

She was right. My first three kids were beautiful. Not beautiful in the Kumbayah “all kids are beautiful” sense of things but seriously, really beautiful. The kind of beauty that may very well garner them an extra day for a term paper. Or perhaps a cab right away. Or maybe an undeserved second interview. That kind of beauty.

I suppose it was bound to happen eventually, but boy, did I feel bad for this little guy. Everyone—everyone—notices the obviously ugly, the decidedly different sibling. They’re the stories of legends. The Cinderella stepsisters. The Ashlee Simpsons, racing to plastic surgeons to keep up with sexy sisters. The sad little Shaun Cassidys forced to belt out lame pop ditties just to measure up to teen idol brothers (who doesn’t shudder at “Da Doo Ron Ron”?) The Titos, Jermaines and La Toyas of the world. What about all those other Baldwin brothers? No one even knows their first names.

This baby was doomed.

“He looks just like the others!” my mother shrieked with delight. But I knew the deep, dark truth.