Buttons

My son screamed, and my chest turned to ice. Even though I was staring right at him, and I knew he was okay, the sound of fear tearing out of his throat spiked my adrenaline. Nobody ever wants their child to experience hardship, and he sounded terrified.
“What is it?” I asked, breathless.
His wide little eyes softened, tiny brow furrowing in confusion. “I thought… I thought something was coming out of your belly button.” He reached out a fat little finger and poked it into the divot of flesh in my tummy.
I shrank away, giggling uncomfortably, skin crawling at the tickling. “Don’t poke mommy,” I said gently, leaning down to kiss his finger. “Now go wash your hands so we can have dinner.”
As he scurried away to make a mess of the bathroom, I stared down at my belly, the softness that would always be there from the wonder of motherhood. My belly button itched, but I didn’t want to scratch in there. I pulled my tank top down as far as it would go and continued slicing cucumber for the salad, shaking my head.

* * *

Later that night, as my husband and I lay in bed reading, he chuckled, and I turned away from my philosophy textbook, eyebrow raised. 
“What’s funny?” I asked.
He glanced at my tummy. “You digging for buried treasure in there?”
I realized then that my free hand had been picking at my belly button, and I tore my fingers away in disgust. “Oh my god, I didn’t even realize.”
“I thought you hated when people touch your belly button?” He laughed.
“I do.” I shuddered. “I don’t know why I was doing it. Ew.”
He reached over, poking at the soft flesh of my side, playfully dancing his fingers up over my tummy. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind if-”
“Don’t you dare!” I squealed, and batted his hand away, pulling the blanket up over myself.
He chuckled low in his throat, and patted my stomach through the duvet, leaning over to press a kiss to my temple. “I’m just playing, hon, I know better than to poke your belly button.”
“Nicky did it today,” I said with a shudder. “It was so gross.”
He settled back onto his side of his bed. “Need a shower now?”
“I’m not that bad,” I insisted, trying to scowl and failing miserably as a smile threatened the corners of my mouth.
“I bet his little finger tickled so much, too,” he teased, mischief alight in his eyes.
“John, stop,” I warned, but it wasn’t very menacing as I laughed, reaching out to cover his mouth with my hand.
He mumbled something under my fingers, but I didn’t move them, opting instead to slither out from beneath the covers and straddle him. Ignoring the pulsing in my belly button, I leaned down to kiss him and move on to a distracting activity that didn’t involve the books strewn between us.

* * *

As I wandered to the end of the driveway the next morning to grab the newspaper, I tightened the belt of my housecoat around my belly button. It was so itchy, but I didn’t want to scratch it. I didn’t want to touch it. Thinking about it made my skin crawl.
I picked up the newspaper. So itchy. Fuck.
I scurried inside, busying my hands with peeling the plastic off of the outside of the newspaper and tossing it into the recycling bin. Then I kept my fingers moving by pouring hot water into the french press. Then I focused on making pancakes.
Or at least I tried to focus. It felt like something was wriggling around in there. 
I finally tore my housecoat open, pulling up my nightgown, but before I could scratch maniacally at my stomach I froze as a centipede hit the floor. It was huge, shiny and bulbous, with so many legs… oh god, that’s what had been making me itch, all of those legs! 
I shrieked and leapt back. The thing was massive, how the hell was it in my belly button?! It scuttled under the stove and I clutched at my tummy, cursing myself for not having squashed it while it was visible. Had it been in my bed? When did it crawl in there?
“You okay, hon?” John poked his head into the kitchen. “Was there a spider?”
“No, a centipede,” I breathed, whipping around to face him. I must have looked so frightened, because his brow furrowed in concern.
“Did you get it? I can grab a slipper or something,” he suggested, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
I shook my head. “No, no, it got away.” I struggled to control my breathing.
His eyes flicked down to my exposed midriff, and I realized that I had my finger in my belly button again. I immediately pulled down my shirt and closed my housecoat. And then smoke tickled my nostrils, and I gasped, turning back to the pancakes, burning in the pan.
“Dammit, shit!” I snapped, jerking the pan from the element. 
John stepped up behind me, wrapping his big bear arms around my body. “Hey, hon, are you okay? You seem out of sorts today.”
“I am,” I admitted. “Okay, that is, but also out of sorts.”
“Do you want to go back to bed?” he asked, and kissed my temple. “I’ll finish these and save you some for later.”
I sighed, giving his arms a squeeze. “I think I need a shower.”
“Okay, go have your thousand-degree shower,” he joked, and swatted my ass in the direction of the bathroom. 
As I peeled off my nightclothes in our ensuite, I stared at my body in the full-length mirror. The itchiness was gone, but my belly button was still tingling. It was likely an aftereffect of being utterly disgusted at there having been a bug in there, but I couldn’t help but inspect it nonetheless. 
I stretched out my tummy, inspecting the little divot of flesh for any signs of… I didn’t know what I was looking for. But everything looked normal. I sighed. I was really freaking myself out for no reason.
I turned on the hot water, and then opened the cold water knob the slightest bit. A thousand degrees was only a slight exaggeration—I like to come out of the shower nearly blistering from the heat. 
I moaned audibly as I got under the stream of water, the boiling liquid melting away my worries of the morning.
As I lathered up my hair with my favourite lavender shampoo, my tummy began to itch again. Worse than this morning… it wasn’t a tingle, it was almost painful. I gripped my stomach, staring down at the floor of the tub in horror as a long brown centipede smacked into the porcelain.
“What the fffff…” The words tumbled out of my mouth in a horrified moan and I stared in wide-eyed terror at another wriggling bug sticking halfway out of my belly button.
I froze, clammed up, and shampoo began to creep down my forehead. The centipede flailed and writhed, trying to get out—out of me god is the rest of it INSIDE me?!
My chest tightened and an internal battle waged war within—I didn’t want to touch it but I didn’t want it stuck in me.
My eyes suddenly burst into flames as the shampoo slopped onto my face, and I howled, arms flailing.
Towel, towel, oh god there’s a fucking centipede coming out of meee!
“Babe!” John cried sad he rushed into the bathroom, and I slipped, hands grasping at something, anything. I got a hold of the shower curtain on the way down and my head exploded with pain.
John yelled something but I was in a daze, eyes still burning, the world like a dull hum around me. After what felt like an eternity, my vision came into focus and my husband was there, face a mask of concern. We sat on the bathroom floor, and at some point he’d wrapped me in a towel. I curled into him, a fuzzy cocoon.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and ran his fingers over my forehead. “You might have a bit of a goose egg from the tension rod bonking you on the head.” He probed around the back, under my hair. “Did you hit anything on the way down? What happened?”
“I…” A centipede came out of my belly button. But I couldn’t say that. There was nothing there, now. I couldn’t feel anything. And I didn’t want to touch it or look at it.
“Is mommy okay?” Nicky stood in the doorway, face painted with fear.
It was as if a switch went off in my frazzled brain. “Yeah, I’m okay, buddy,” I sat up, offering him a reassuring smile. “I just got shampoo in my eyes and then slipped.”
He shook his head, that furrowed little brow mirroring his father’s. “Then why did daddy say you have a goose on your head?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Goose egg,” I corrected. “It’s just a figure of speech, when somebody gets a bump on their head, they call it a goose egg. Did you have your pancakes?”
“I’m still eating,” he declared.
I ushered him off. “All right, go finish eating. Mommy’s okay, I’m just going to go get dressed.”
As Nicky scampered off, John looked down at me, all trace of humour gone from his face. “Are you sure you’re good?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I assured him, forcing a smile. “I’ll be even better if you can get the shower curtain put back up. You know how useless I am with tension rods.”
He finally chuckled, shaking his head. “So many dirty comments.”
I poked him playfully in the ribs. “Don’t even,” I warned, and got up. I kept the smile on my face until I got into my walk-in closet, and then pressed my hand against the wall, the other curling around my stomach. I hadn’t had the guts to look in the tub and see if the bugs were there.
Somehow, I didn’t think they were. Was I going crazy? 

* * *

Later, I finished up tidying the living room and headed upstairs to find Nicky. I’d hoped to get some yard work done, and he always liked hanging out outside with me. When I entered his room, my stomach dropped like a stone.
There he sat, reading a book, with a gigantic centipede on his hand.
“Nicky!” I gasped. Drop that thing! I wanted to say, but the words caught in my throat. He didn’t even seem to care, it was almost like he was holding it on purpose.
“Hi, mommy,” he said, looking up at me with a gigantic smile. “Check out my friend. This is Sid.” He held up his hand, the shiny dark brown insect swirling through his fingers like a snake.
“Nicky, no, that thing needs to go outside,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. I didn’t want him to panic, so I had to keep from panicking. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do, as parents? Try not to pass on our phobias and overreactions?
My son cocked his head. “But mommy, Sid loves you. That’s why he put his babies in your belly.” 
The room spun. What?
“That’s where babies go, right mommy?”
I clutched my stomach.
“I told him that’s where I was when I was a baby.”
It suddenly felt like a million insects were scuttling around inside of me.
“And he said that your tummy would be perfect.”
Is that thing looking at me? Oh god it’s looking at me.
“Mommy?”
The centipede grinned, and my stomach exploded.

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