But instead there is exasperation in those eyes, those blue eyes that look at me untrustingly, as if I’ve pulled a fast one on her, before she begins to cry. I slide a finger between her mouth and my breast, and attempt to reposition her, certain that she hasn’t latched on correctly. I try cradling her in either arm, and offer milk from either breast; and then, when this doesn’t work, I move Juliet and myself to the couch, where I lie on my back, with her sprawled across my chest: biological nurturing, or so it’s called, the way nature prescribed. Just as my lactation consultant, Angela, suggested I do when Zoe had trouble nursing.
I think of my lactation consultant, of Angela, of how I will phone her for advice if this doesn’t work. And Angela will come as she always used to do, and she will help position Juliet so that she will eat; she will once again explain to me breast compression to increase milk flow, and before I know it Juliet will suckle as she used to do.
And then there’s a sound in the hallway, footsteps that are loud and impatient, and I curse Jennifer, sneaking into my building again when someone was coming or going, not even bothering, this time, to buzz the intercom or call my cell. Trespassing, I think, wondering where I’ve left my Swiss Army knife.
I lie on the couch, with my black crepe dress pulled down to my waist, and Juliet, floundering like a fish out of water, on my chest, about to scream.
There’s no time to escape into the recesses of my bedroom for a place to hide before Juliet lets out a bloodcurdling scream and the front door flings open, and I see him, standing on the other side of the wooden door, staring at my attire, the black dress, the streaks of makeup dried to my skin.
His mouth formed in the perfect loop, his eyebrows raised in question.
His hair stands on end, in a jumble, as my heart beats fast, the room spinning laps around me. Juliet is screaming into my ear, her fitful body becoming hard to hold.
Not Jennifer at all.
But Chris.
WILLOW
That bus dropped us off in Chicago, the baby and me. Ruby, I reminded myself as I stepped out of the station and onto a bustling city street. It was cold outside, and windy. The Windy City, I called to mind, thinking of those days in the Omaha library with Matthew, looking up Chicago in the pages of the books.
I’d never seen anything like Chicago in my whole entire life. There were people everywhere. Cars and buses, buildings that soared into the clouds. Skyscrapers, I told myself, knowing now where they got that name. I turned and over my shoulder I saw it: a building with antennas that scraped the sky. It had to be a hundred floors or more, that building, twice as high—three times as high!—as any of those buildings in Omaha had been.
It didn’t take long to figure out I had nowhere to go. People stared at me, and it wasn’t a stare that was kind or concerned, but mean, judgmental, uncaring. I hid at first, the baby and me, in whatever dark alley we could find, leaned up against mildewed brick buildings, beside doors that were locked and barred. There were smelly garbage bins and Dumpsters down those alleys, and sometimes there were rats. I spent my days sitting on concrete—wet from the rain—staring up at the steel grating of the fire escapes. And hiding. I was certain they were coming for us, that Paul and Lily Zeeger were coming, that Joseph was coming. But it occurred to me then, after a day or two, that with all those people there in Chicago, there was no way they were ever gonna find me, no way at all.
And Joseph, well, Joseph was still dead.
And then, when I wasn’t worrying about the Zeegers coming for me, or Joseph, I was worrying about other stuff: what to eat and where to sleep, for the money Matthew had given me was all but gone. It was cold out there, cold during the day, cold during the night, the wind making it hard sometimes to walk in a straight line. It took me only a night, maybe two, to figure out how I’d have to forage in the garbage for food, after restaurants tossed their leftovers in the trash at closing time. I’d hover in the alley where they couldn’t see—just waiting, begging the baby to keep quiet—and then I’d pick through the Dumpster for something to eat. I saved whatever money I had left for the baby, for Ruby, for her bottles of formula.
I was scared, for about a million and one reasons, but the thing that scared me the most was that something might happen to that baby, something bad. I didn’t want to hurt her. I was only doing what needed to be done, I reminded myself time and again when the baby spent the night in a fuss, screaming till she cried herself to sleep.
I liked Chicago, I did. I liked the buildings and the anonymity of it, the fact that no one in the world was going to find me there, in the Windy City. But it was the train that delighted me the most, that train that soared over the city streets, and then down, down, down underground. I spent nearly all my money on one of those train passes, so that Ruby and I could ride the train as much as we pleased. The “L” I heard someone or other call it, and I had to remind myself “L” when my brain started mixing it up with every other letter of the alphabet: R, P, Q. When the day was cold or rainy, or we were otherwise bored, we’d climb on the train, the baby and me, and ride.