I press that baby to my chest, my lips to her head, and together we walk out of the room.
I settle into the rocking chair with the baby. “There now,” I utter aloud, swaying rhythmically with the baby on my lap. I count her fingers, I count her toes. I run my hand across her silken head and breathe in the silence of the room, silent save for the steady ticktock of a wooden wall clock, its distressed white finish and Roman numerals just barely visible in the light of the rising sun. Outside the sun begins its ascent over Lake Michigan, turning the east-facing sides of the buildings a golden hue. There are clouds in the sky, cottony clouds, in shades of silver and pink, a pale pink clutching the edges of the clouds. A flock of birds flies through the sky, sparrows I assume, and a mourning dove perches on the edge of the wooden balcony, staring in through the bay window, watching me. The baby and me. Its beady eyes stare, its small head tilting from side to side, side to side, asking a question only it knows. The street below is quiet, just the occasional early morning pedestrian headed to work or out for a jog. The city bus passes by, quickly, not bothering to stop at the vacant bus stops; taxis soar by without pause.
I press my bare feet to the hardwood floors and force the chair back and forth, back and forth, aware of the way the baby presses her face to my flannel pajamas, rummaging around for food, for a nipple from which to feed, like a hungry, suckling piglet pressing its way into its mother’s teat to drink.
I was a firm believer in breastfeeding Zoe when I still could. Chris and I never truly talked about it; it was something I planned to do. And Chris wasn’t about to argue; my breastfeeding Zoe meant there would be no midnight feedings for him, no hungry baby awakening him in the middle of the night. He could sleep the night clear through while Zoe and I sat together on a glider in her nursery for hours on end.
There were many benefits to breastfeeding, everything from financial benefits, to breast milk’s ability to fight disease, though Chris eyeballed me squeamishly whenever I nursed. But for me, it was also about convenience. It was far more convenient for those late-night feedings to simply place baby Zoe on my breast and let her eat to her heart’s content. There was no need to prepare bottles, to wash bottles and, more than anything, I felt an intimacy to my newborn, an indispensability that I haven’t felt from Zoe in many, many years now. She needed me. As she needed me to rock her to sleep, to change her diaper, but unlike those things, this—breastfeeding—was the one thing only I could provide for her. It was something only I could give.
I planned to nurse until she was a year old and then I planned to wean her from the breast.
But once I fell ill and caring for my own health became a priority, my plans changed. Zoe’s breastfeeding was quickly discontinued, and she was forced onto a formula-filled bottle, something that she didn’t take to well. There was a part of me half-certain that she, my baby, resented me for the sudden change, for the fact that I never asked her opinion before thrusting a silicone nipple in her mouth. She would scream when I did, refusing to latch on to the foreign object, refusing to drink the foreign milk. In time, she learned to adapt, of course, through trial and error, a half dozen types of bottles and nipples, a half dozen brands of formula until we found one she would consume, one which didn’t upset her stomach, one she didn’t refuse.
But Willow—I think, completely cognizant of the way the baby roots around in the pleats of my shirt—I’ve never seen Willow breastfeed.
Why, then, is the baby exploring the shirt of my flannel pajamas for a nipple, the agitation brimming in her tiny little body because she can’t make her way past the clear plastic buttons to find my breast.
But I don’t have the time to think it through, to come up with a list of sensible scenarios, like engorgement or an inadequate milk supply, because there she is, Willow, standing before me in the room. Her long hair sweeps across her face so that all I can see are her eyes—moody and mistrusting eyes, which fall on me like meteors from the sky. Eyes that make me suddenly wonder how virtuous this girl is, how trustworthy.
And once again my thoughts go to the blood on the undershirt.
She says, “You took the baby. You took Ruby from my room.”
And I say calmly, “Yes. I did,” and then I think fast for some excuse. “She was crying,” I lie. It’s instantaneous, spontaneous, far too easy a thing to do. “I didn’t want her to wake you,” I say. “I was up anyway. Just about to start a pot of coffee. When I heard her crying.”
“She’s hungry,” Willow says to me, her voice soft, watching as I watch the baby paw at my chest.