12. Mother’s Milk

June 2021

The house is full of noise. A cacophony crescendoes in waves as I calmly shepherd my team from one virtual meeting to the next and attempt to interview candidates, channeling all of my wry humor into my professional conversations. The smiles sometimes don’t quite reach our eyes. Comments like “Please ignore my dog barking” are interchanged by the sounds of babies and spouses. Breast pumps spread amongst the team soothe us while we discuss the latest reports – our cameras permanently turned off. The moms in the group ignore the men who insist upon ‘cameras on’ with a few meeting invites. We are quick to label them out of touch and we’re aware of those who know what they’re up to – collecting them in a box to throw away when this new hell is over.

Adam and I slip in, and out of exhaustion, trading turns with work and children. Jane watches every episode of Sesame Street and then repeats them like a favorite record. The deck, our couches, and our beds become our offices. Every closet is used for work, and we take turns hiding in the bathroom while searching for silence. The first few weeks of returning to work pass by with little notice, and we fall into a comfortable routine.

Henry has stayed in touch, checking in with a joke here and there or a moment of truth in a paragraph of texts, touching on real life and wading into shallow waters with me before receding into silence around dinnertime. I find it harder not to reply and difficult not to be distracted by memories. My nipples release milk as I touch myself in the shower one morning, the warmth of the water sliding over me, and I laugh at the absurdity of their response but continue towards an end, searching for a release, I spend time rediscovering myself and gingerly slide a finger in, to test if I’m ready for more. The first try after being cleared by my doctor. It feels a bit foreign to me, something sliding in and not being pulled out of me. I take my time with myself, allowing my fingers to caress but not take, hovering over, then gently curling into me, one slow push forward. Wet but tender a bit, I slide out and in again, testing my nerves and awakening them until I feel a slow build towards a release.

A knock on the door and a yell from Jane are followed quickly by Adam’s feet and Beth’s babbles, making me yelp a quick yip. My finger slips out, uncurling itself.

“Mom. Mom, Daddy says I can’t have any candy before dinner. But I think he doesn’t have that right.”

“Leave Mommy alone, Jane. Let her finish her shower.”

“No candy,” I mutter back with a wry grin. I stare at my finger, curling and pointing it a few times.

Four feet shuffle away – two of them under loud protest. I look at my fingers, splaying them out under the water, and sigh. The fantasy retreats. I wash off the soap, trace a crack in the shower’s tile with my clever finger, and imagine a sliver of guilt breaking through the thin line on the white porcelain wall. Determined, I shift Adam into my mind and wander again, fumbling into a daydream and moving my fingers gently until I arch back, spent and relaxed. I rest a hand on the wall and laugh.

As I dry off in our room and start to dress, Adam steps in and wraps his arms around my waist, kneading the muscles above my cheeks while he watches my face in the dresser’s mirror. His hands rest on my hips, and we both smile.

“Good shower?” Adam kisses my ear, admiring the flush on my face. “Sorry for the interruption earlier.”

“I think we should ask my parents to watch the kids on Saturday,” I answer, my voice low and gravelly in my throat.

“Oh really?”

I wiggle my eyebrows at Adam and tell him the good news from my postpartum appointment.

“Let’s go. It’s go time.”

“Not just yet,” I laugh and pull him in for a soft kiss, lingering on his lips until Jane’s feet interrupt us.

“Mom! Dad! Beth farted, and now I think she’s exploded rainbows in her diaper.”

“One, two, three, not it,” I shout, pointing at Adam, who laughs and leaves the room.

Jane flops onto our bed and kicks her legs up to the ceiling while she tells me about her day, describing her adventures with unicorns and faeries. Despite being in the same house all day, every day, save for running errands, this has become our routine since my return to work because even under one roof, we are missing things that happen.

“I must have missed seeing them when I was in my meetings today.”

“Yup,” she nods, “They were in the kitchen.”

“Of course. They were hungry.”

“Exactly. That’s why I wanted to get some candy, because unicorns need sugar, Mom.”

“Mmhmm, they love Skittles,” I reply, texting my mother to collect on an offer to babysit at her house.

“Jane, you were right. A rainbow did explode in Beth’s diaper!”

She giggles and runs into Beth’s room to witness the miraculous diaper rainbow.

“Ew, Dad, that is not a rainbow,” Jane shrieks and laughs.

“It’s not? Hmm. Are you sure?” I hear Adam’s smile in his voice.

Henry’s text catches my attention. “How’s your day going?”

“Full of rainbow diapers. And unicorns. Yours?”

“Much less interesting. I’m staring at my beard and questioning the length of it.”

“Do not go ZZ Top on me.”

“Can I be on top of you, though?”

“Should have, could have, would have.”

“Did. Again?”

My skin tingles, and I shiver. “Bastard,” I call him, and I can already see his grin when he reads it. The knowing pulls a smile out of me.

I hear Jane laughing about rainbow poop in the other room. The discordance of these moments following each other so quickly is abrupt. It unnerves me. Mom’s text brings me back to reality.

“Saturday at 9am. Bring lots of diapers, bottles, and the rest of what you think we’ll need for Beth. And the stroller. We’ll take the kids on a walk. Come back here after your date and stay for dinner.”

I shake my head at Henry. “Build a time machine,” I add.

Dressed and brushed, I put my phone in my pocket, but not before seeing his reply: “For you, I would gladly build one.”

He irks me. Why now? I wonder what has happened to Henry to bring him back but decide to keep him tucked away in my pocket.

“Leave it,” I command, watching my eyes in the mirror. I ignore the sound of blood in my brain as it pulses against my temples. I walk into Beth’s room, where the kids play on the rug with Adam.

“Mom and Dad can watch the kids on Saturday. She invited us to stay for dinner when we pick them up.”

“Great, let’s do that,” Adam smiles, waving a toy above Beth’s head. He watches Beth laugh, and she raises her arms to bat at it, bopping it with her fists.

I feel the phone vibrate in my pocket and turn away to glance at it quickly.

“Remember when we kissed that night outside in the rain?”

I frown at my nipples, remembering how they felt between his thumbs and forefingers, and pocket the phone again. My head is full of every moment, but I won’t admit that to Henry.

“Where do you want to go for our lunch date?”

“Bed,” I reply decisively, turning to watch Adam’s face crack into a grin.

“Yes, ma’am.” He nods and whistles at me low and slow, watching me walk away. I catch him smiling at my laughter, misinterpreting the look of determination on my face.

“Fuck your husband, Caroline,” I order myself as I resist the urge to look at my phone. Still, I slide my fingers over it and bite my tongue just hard enough to hurt.

After dinner, I push my hips forward while I wash our dishes and feel some relief against the cool, firm, soapstone farmhouse sink.

“Of course I remember,” I text Henry, caving and breaking my silence.

After dinner, we went back to your parents’ house. It was empty. They were in California. I still lived in Chicago when we were both single in our mid-twenties. You had moved back into their house after the end of a relationship, which led you to move out of your apartment in Lakeview.

We talked in circles around each other as the sun started to set. We were both writing at that time and shared snippets, showing each other stories half-written and unfinished. I took my high heels off. You laughed and threw your sandals into the backseat. The top of my convertible was still down, and the thunder chased away the mosquitoes. The air cooled before the rain came. It was late in the summer.

We stood on the driveway and felt the heat from the asphalt on our toes. We wiggled our toes like worms, meeting and greeting each other.

“‘Ello.”

“‘Ello!”

I leaned against the outside of my car. You looked at me and understood my meaning. I watched you smile and follow with your hips, pushing them into me slowly until we were locked together like two pieces of a jigsaw, before you took my mouth. Then the rain fell on our faces and we laughed, counting the drops as they landed on our noses. Your eyes darkened as you watched the rain soak through my white cotton shirt. I felt your fingers rub against my denim jeans and dragged my own across yours, reveling in the sounds they made as I scraped my nails against your pants to hook into your belt loops and pull you closer to me. You groaned and snuck your hands under the front of my shirt, lifting it up hungrily, with my arms held above my head, so you could lower your lips to my stomach, while your hands molded to my breasts and pulled them out of my bra, not bothering to unhook it. Your lips, your forefingers and thumbs made their way to my nipples. You made me gasp before we ran into the house, to hide from the prying eyes of neighbors. People who had known us since we were children. We laughed at how wicked we were, now that we had grown up, and ran up the stairs together, to your bed. We devoured each other with our tongues and our teeth, swallowing each other urgently.

We lit ourselves on fire. I remember.

“There you are. Thought I might have lost you.”

“You did,” I text back to Henry. “You ran away, remember. Not me. You.”

“I know. I ran, and you walled yourself up.”

“And you never came and got me. Why are you reaching out now, Henry?”

“Because I miss you and can’t stop thinking about you.”

“No. That’s never why,” I tell him, turning off the faucet and placing the towel back on its hook.

I watch Henry’s ellipsis appear and then disappear into the quiet of the night before I step outside with the dog, allowing my bare feet to touch the earth.

“Do your business,” I tell Atticus, watching him sniff at the grass and wander off to find the perfect patch to piss on.

The dot-dot-dot lingers on my phone as I watch a robin search for worms.

“You’re wrong, Caroline. But I don’t want to hurt you. I’ll drop it.”

“Hah,” I laugh aloud. “He sure rolled over fast this time.”

“I’ll listen when you’re ready to tell me the whole story. But not without saying my piece, Henry.”

Rolling my shoulders back twice, I wave Atticus back inside and wish Mama Bird goodnight as she settles onto her nest on my table.

“That’s a fair deal,” Henry tells me. I doubt that this will ever happen. He’s given me snippets of truth for the past twenty-two years. I lock the back door and return to my present for the evening, locking the phone at night. We avoid each other for a while, course-correcting until we run into each other.