* Author : Kathleen Schaefer * Narrator : Ant Bacon * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Eric Valdes * Discuss on Forums PodCastle 813: Stitch by Kathleen Schaefer is a PodCastle original. Rated PG-13 Stitch By Kathleen Schaefer Dalia doesn’t like how the stale hospital air pricks at her cheeks, and Aden doesn’t understand why no one else notices. He snatches his newborn daughter back from his husband. “There you are,” he says, adjusting Dalia’s blanket to shield her face. “You need to keep her comfortable.” He holds Dalia to his chest and finds she likes the beat of his heart. “She wasn’t even fussing,” says Garret, and only then does Aden realize that maybe new fathers don’t always know that their daughter’s left foot itches (he massages it beneath the swaddling blanket) or that a buildup of gas from her last feeding pushes against her stomach. There’s something in Aden’s head. His daughter’s mind is in his head. Or rather, there’s a knot through which he slips in and out of his daughter’s thoughts. “A mind stitch,” the nurse diagnoses by shining a flashlight in Aden’s eyes. His daughter’s pupils contract in response — a two-way bond, Dalia watching the world through his eyes. The nurse pulls her away from him. “Mind melds with children. That’s wrong. Illegal and wrong.” She holds her hand over the infant’s head like a shield. An ineffective one, as Aden still feels the blanket slip from around Dalia’s face, exposing her once more to the stinging air. “Wrong?” The nurse blocks him from comforting his child, and Aden’s throat constricts in anger — an anger he knows how to contain, but his daughter does not. Dalia screams, bellowing fury on his behalf. He is supposed to protect his child from his pain and fears, not reflect them back to her. Aden leans on the wall, closing his eyes against his tiny daughter’s all-encompassing rage. Garret squeezes his hand. Dr. Vega introduces herself as the resident expert on stitches and mind melds. She’s soon digressing about melded dual-perspective memories and stitch-induced facial expression mimicry, neither of which mean anything to Aden. But she dismisses the nurse and places Dalia back into his arms. Anger spent, Dalia softens, warm and sleepy against Aden’s chest. “Is it illegal or not?” Garret asks. “’Illegal’ is not the word I’d choose,” says Dr. Vega. She wears an unassuming white jacket but pairs it with a neon-pink hair tie. Aden resists an urge to reach for the bright splash of color, an instinct he thinks comes from Dalia, who openly stares at the newcomer. “Stitches are a natural type of bonding requiring an intense emotional connection. We see them often in new parents.” “What word would you choose?” Garrett asks. “Undesirable, I think,” Dr. Vega says. Aden probes the contours of the stitch, trying to find the barriers between his feelings and his daughter’s. “The legal argument against them concerns the child’s privacy and their inability to agree to what could be construed as an invasion of their innermost thoughts. But from the medical standpoint, it’s not good developmentally to latch an infant’s brain so closely to an adult’s.” Garret offers a finger to Dalia, who wraps her hand around it. “She’s not going to develop right?” “No, no,” said Dr. Vega. “Sure, there’ve been some cases where the child struggles to communicate except through the stitch. But that won’t happen.