The Language of Flowers (29 page)

But the baby awoke as I set her down, lifting her chin toward my sore nipple. I sighed. She couldn’t possibly still be hungry, but I picked her back up and let her attempt to extract more milk from my deflated chest.

The baby sucked only two or three times before falling back asleep, her mouth falling open, but awoke again when I tried to set her down. She made a gurgling, sucking sound and puckered her lips.

I put her back to my breast more forcefully than I had intended. “If you’re hungry, eat,” I said, growing frustrated. “Don’t fall asleep.” The baby grimaced and latched on.

I sighed, regretting my impatient touch.

“That’s good, big girl,” I said, trying out Mother Ruby’s words. They sounded forced and insincere on my tongue. I stroked the baby’s hair, a wispy black tuft growing over her ear.

When she’d fallen back to sleep, I stood up slowly and walked her to the Moses basket. Perhaps she would find comfort in the small, padded enclosure, I thought, lowering her a centimeter at a time. I had succeeded in putting her down but had not even withdrawn my arms when she started crying again.

Standing above her, I listened to her cry. I needed to eat. My grasp on reality was slipping with each additional empty-stomached hour, but I couldn’t stand the sound of her wail. Good mothers did not let their babies cry. Good mothers put the needs of their babies first, and I wanted, more than anything, to be a good mother. It would make up for all the harm I had caused, if I could do something right, just this once, for another person.

Picking her up, I walked the length of the room and back again. My nipples needed a rest. I hummed and jiggled and paced as I had seen Marlena do, but the baby wouldn’t be calmed. She twisted her face from side to side and began to suck in the cool oxygen, searching. I sat on the couch and pressed a soft, round pillow against her cheek. She was not fooled. She began to cry harder, sucking air and choking and stretching her short arms over her head. She could not possibly be hungry, I told myself again; she didn’t need to eat.

The baby’s face turned as red as the blood still leaking from my nipple. Walking over to the Moses basket, I set her inside.

In the kitchen, I banged my fists on the tile counter. I was hungry; the baby was not. I needed to take care of myself. I needed her to wait just an hour, while I filled my stomach and rested my nipples. From across the room, I could see her face, now near purple with desperation. She wanted me; she didn’t understand that my body was not her own.

I walked out of the room, away from the noise, and stood at Natalya’s window. I couldn’t bring her to my breast. Not after nursing for nearly thirty-six hours straight. She had consumed all my milk, I was sure, and had moved on to something deeper, more precious, something connected to my heart or nervous system. She wouldn’t be satisfied until she had devoured all of me, until she had sucked every fluid, thought, and emotion from me. I would be an empty shell, incoherent, and she would still be hungry.

No, I decided, she couldn’t have any more. Mother Ruby would not be back until the next day, and there was no sign of Renata. I would go to the store for formula and feed her with a bottle until my nipples healed. I would leave her in her basket and run the whole way to the market and back. Bringing her to the grocery store would be too risky. Someone would hear her hungry, brokenhearted wail and understand my incompetence. Someone would take her away from me.

Grabbing my wallet, I sprinted down the stairs before I could change my mind. I ran up a hill and down the other side, not stopping for cars or pedestrians. I passed everyone. My body, still healing from the birth, felt as if it was splitting in half. A fire burned from between my legs and spread up my spinal cord to the back of my neck, but still I ran. I would
be back before the baby even knew I was gone, I told myself. I would feed her a bottle in my arms, and she would finally, after days of nursing, be full.

The light was red at the busy intersection of 17th and Potrero. I stopped running and waited. Catching my breath, I watched the cars and pedestrians hurry in all directions. I heard a driver honk and swear, a teenager on an orange Schwinn singing something loud and cheerful, and a dog on a short leash growling at a brazen pigeon. But I did not hear my daughter. Even though I was blocks from the apartment, I was surprised. Our separation was simple and shockingly complete.

My heart regained its normal rhythm. I watched the light turn green, then red, then green again. The world continued its patterns, busy and oblivious to the crying baby six blocks away, the baby I had birthed but whose cries I could no longer hear. The neighborhood existed as it had a week ago and two weeks before that, as if nothing at all had changed. The fact that my life had turned upside down did not matter to anyone, and out on the sidewalk, removed from the source of the upheaval, my panic seemed unwarranted. The baby was fine. She was well fed and could wait.

I crossed at the next green light and walked slowly to the market. I bought six cans of formula, trail mix, a half-gallon of orange juice, and a turkey sandwich from the deli. Walking the long way home, I devoured fistfuls of almonds and raisins. My breasts filled and began to leak. I would let her nurse one last time, I thought, tenderness seeping into the space I had created between us.

I walked inside and up the stairs. The apartment was silent and looked empty, and for one moment it was easy to imagine I was coming home after delivering flowers for a shower and a nap, alone. My steps were silent on the carpet, but the baby awoke anyway, as if she could sense my presence. She began to cry.

I lifted her out of the basket, and we settled onto the couch, the baby attempting to nurse through the thin soaked cotton of my T-shirt. I pulled my shirt up, and she began to suck. Her wrinkled hands squeezed my outstretched finger as she latched on, the fact of my nipple in her mouth not enough to prove my return. As she nursed, I ate the turkey
sandwich. A thin sliver of turkey escaped from my mouth and landed on her temple, rising and falling with her frantic suck. I leaned over, eating the turkey right off her face and kissing her at the same time. She opened her eyes and looked into mine. Where I expected anger or fear, I saw only relief.

I would not leave her again.

It was dark when I returned to Elizabeth’s
.

From the dull glow of the upstairs windows, I imagined her sitting at my desk, heavy textbooks open before her, waiting. I had never missed dinner; she would be worried. Hiding the heavy canvas bag under the back porch steps, I walked inside. The screen door squeaked when I opened it.

“Victoria?” Elizabeth called down the stairs.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m home.”

Mother Ruby returned on Saturday, as she had promised she would
. She sat down on the floor outside the blue room. I turned my face away. The weight of what I had done tormented me, and I was sure Mother Ruby would know. A woman who traveled to a neighborhood for a birth before being called would know when a baby was in danger. I waited for the accusation.

“Give me that baby, Victoria,” she said, confirming my fears. “Come on, hand her over.”

I slipped my pinkie finger between my nipple and the baby’s gums as Mother Ruby had taught me to do. The suction released. I rubbed the baby’s mouth with my thumb in an attempt to remove the dried blood from her upper lip but was unsuccessful. I passed the bundle over my shoulder without turning around.

Mother Ruby breathed her in. “Oh, big girl,” she said. “I’ve been missing you.”

I waited for Mother Ruby to stand up and walk out the door, taking my daughter with her, but I heard only the sound of the springy scale. “Twelve ounces!” came Mother Ruby’s elated voice. “Have you been eating your mama alive?”

“Pretty much,” I murmured. My words soaked into the walls, unheard.

“You come out of there, Victoria,” Mother Ruby said. “Let me rub your feet or cook you a grilled cheese sandwich. You must be exhausted caring for this baby like you have.” I didn’t move. I didn’t deserve her praise.

Mother Ruby reached in and began to stroke my forehead. “Don’t make me come in there,” she said, “because you know I will.”

Yes, I knew she would. The formula I had purchased was at my feet, still in the bag, evidence of my crime. I kicked it farther into the corner, rolled over, and crawled out feetfirst. Sitting on the couch, I waited for Mother Ruby to see the truth. But she didn’t look at my face. She lifted my shirt and rubbed something from a lavender tube onto my cracked nipples. It was cooling and numbed the stinging pain.

“Keep this,” Mother Ruby said, closing my palm around the tube. She turned my chin and looked into my eyes, my guilty, drowning eyes. “Are you sleeping?” she asked.

I considered the previous night. After finishing the sandwich, the baby and I had gone straight to the blue room, where she reattached herself to my body and closed her eyes. She sucked and swallowed and slept in an excruciating rhythm, and I let her, accepting the pain as punishment. I did not sleep.

“Yeah,” I lied, “pretty well.”

“Good,” she said. “Your daughter is thriving. I’m so proud of you.”

I looked out the window and did not respond.

“Are you hungry?” Mother Ruby asked. “Are you getting enough help? Do you want me to make you something before I leave?” I was starving, but I couldn’t take another compliment. I shook my head.

Mother Ruby handed the baby back to me and put away her scale. “Okay, then,” she said. Her eyes were on my face, studying me as if for clues, and I strained my neck away. I didn’t want her to see me.

She stood to go, and I jumped up to follow. Suddenly, I was not afraid she would look into my face and see my trespass; it was more terrifying to think of her leaving in oblivion, without knowing what I had done, without doing something to stop me from doing it again. But Mother Ruby only smiled and leaned in to kiss my cheek before walking away.

I wanted to tell her, to come clean and beg forgiveness, but I didn’t know what to say. “It’s hard,” was all I could manage, my whisper directed at her back as she descended the stairs. It wasn’t enough.

“I know, love,” Mother Ruby said. “But you’re doing it. It’s in you to be a mother, a good one.” She walked down the stairs.

No, it isn’t in me
, I thought bitterly. I wanted to tell her that I had never loved anyone, and ask her to explain how a woman incapable of giving love could ever be expected to be a mother, a good one. But even as I thought the words, I knew they were not the truth. I had loved, more than once. I just hadn’t recognized the emotion for what it was until I had done everything within my power to destroy it.

Mother Ruby stopped when she reached the bottom of the stairs and turned around. She looked small and ignorant, and my reliance on her felt misplaced. She was an intrusive old woman, I thought, nothing else. A switch flipped inside me, and I felt the return of the angry child I had once been. I wanted only for Mother Ruby to leave.

“Name?” she called up to where I stood. “Does that big girl have a name yet?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“It’ll come to you,” she said.

“No,” I said harshly, “it won’t.”

But Mother Ruby had already walked out the door.

After Mother Ruby left, I set the baby in her Moses basket, and through a small miracle she slept peacefully for most of the afternoon. I took a long, hot shower. My body was filled with a palpable despair—a numb, tingling sensation—and I scrubbed my limbs as if the irritation was external and could be washed down the drain. When I got out of the shower, my skin was pink and scraped red in patches. The despair had moved to a deeper, quieter place. I pretended I was clean and renewed, ignoring its low, persistent buzz. Dressing in loose pants and a sweatshirt, I rubbed the cream from the lavender tube on the patches of raw skin on my arms and legs.

I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat on the floor, looking
into the baby’s basket. When she awoke, I would nurse her, and when she was done eating, we would go for a walk. I would carry the basket down the stairs and out the door, and the fresh air would be good for us both. Maybe I would carry her up to McKinley Square and give her a lesson in the language of flowers. She wouldn’t respond, but she would understand. She had the kind of eyes, when they were open, that made me believe she understood everything I said and much of what went unspoken. They were deep, mysterious eyes, as if she was still connected to the place from which she had come.

The longer the baby slept, the more the despair subsided until I could almost make myself believe I had overcome its gravity. Perhaps my brief escape to the grocery store had not caused permanent damage, and I was, as Mother Ruby insisted, capable of the task before me. It was unrealistic to think I could make a clean break from the way I had lived for nineteen years. There would be setbacks. I had spent my life being hateful and solitary, and I could not, overnight, become loving and attached.

Lying down on the floor next to the baby, I breathed in the damp-straw smell of the basket. I would sleep. But before I had closed my eyes, her rhythmic breathing was replaced by the familiar sound of her open, searching mouth.

I peered into the basket, and she looked at me, her eyes wide open, her mouth moving. She had given me an opportunity to sleep, and I had wasted it. There would not be another for hours, if not days. I picked her up. My eyes welled, and when her jaw clamped down, the tears leaked onto my cheeks. I brushed them away with the back of my hand. The relentless suction on my breast pulled the despair up from wherever it was that it had receded, whistling forth like the quiet roar of a conch shell, a reflection of something greater.

The baby nursed for an eternity. Transferring her from one side to the other, I checked my watch. It had been a full hour, and she was only half done. My sigh became a low moan as she latched on again.

When she finally fell asleep, I tried to replace my nipple, still tight between her lips, with my pinkie finger, but she cracked her tired eyes open and began to grunt in complaint.