Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

Sleep.

Dark.

Warm.

The dance of dreams. The storytelling of memory and desire.

Luke’s hard gums slid down onto the nipple and pressed together, pressed together with slow cunning.

“No!” She was awake again, her poor boneless body in retreat from her baby’s evil intent. She pushed a finger into the corner of Luke’s mouth. The hard, mean little gums were closing. “No!” She forced him off with her finger. He wailed immediately. “Don’t bite!” she said to the senseless creature, its face nothing but a gaping mouth. “Goddammit!” She got to her feet. Luke’s head flopped back, screaming. The thing had no understanding: it yelled with the conviction that it was entitled to all her energy, to all her milk, to all her love. It had no inkling that her servitude was voluntary.

She paced, letting Luke screech in her arms. She paced, cursing the walls. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” She passed her reflection in a little mirror, seeing a flash of her own face. Her eyes stared with rage and hopelessness; her jaw was slack, her mouth open, her hair dull and disarranged. She looked wild.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said to the screams of her son. Calm down, she told herself. She walked rapidly to the couch, sat, and offered her breast again, holding his head fast against her so he wouldn’t clamp on her red and tender nipple.

Sighing, hiccuping, farting, jawing, Luke settled in. His rage ebbed, his eyes closed, he relaxed. She did not. Her head pounded from the suppression of the pulsing blood of her anger. She tried to fix herself in time, to remember where she was by a logical procession of events. But the disjointed sleeping schedule made her stupid.

Luke never slept. Her mind fought to understand how that could be. How could an infant sleep only four hours out of every twenty-four? How could this baby stand to be awake, fussing, crying the second his body wasn’t being rocked or moved? She had read explanations: he had colic, he was in pain, an almost continual pain that kept him awake; the motion soothed him, reminded him of the womb, calmed him. He did need sleep, but his digestion wasn’t permitting him the rest. The book said he couldn’t wake himself up any more than he could prevent himself from falling asleep; those perverse abilities came around eight months. This was out of his control. It was not Luke’s fault; he was an innocent in pain and all her patience was required.

“Let him cry if you can’t take it,” her pediatrician had advised over the phone. She had called the doctor a few hours ago, in a desperate state, exhausted by five hours of walking Luke in the Snugli. The Snugli was a womb made of fabric, a carrying pouch which put Luke’s face into her chest, and curled him up against her stomach. Inside it, Luke was quiet and even got snatches of sleep. But the Snugli gave her no rest; on the contrary, its cross straps bit across her back and strained muscles which had escaped the ravages of pregnancy. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she had said to the doctor. This was the first week Eric had gone to work and left her alone with the baby. Today she had broken down and called Eric to ask if he could come home early. Eric said no, the market was very active, and suggested she phone his parents, but she declined. This was the first goddamned week. She couldn’t ask for their help so soon. “I feel like I’m going crazy,” she repeated to the pediatrician. “Isn’t there some medicine you can give him?”

“Colic lasts three months. And then it goes away. It doesn’t do him any harm. His digestive tract needs time to mature. Comfort him as much as you can, but let him cry if you can’t handle it.”

Let him cry! Who raised these people, these doctors? she wondered. Did they all go to military school?

So she went back to pushing the carriage, harnessing herself into the Snugli, rocking Luke in her arms. The moment, the instant, the split second, sometimes even a fraction before she stopped the various movements, he cried, he raged, his legs pulled up, his face distorted in pain, his rear end expelled gas, his stomach compressed into a tight ball. Why does it only hurt him when I stop moving? She began to suspect Luke. He knows. He knows. If he pretends to hurt, I’ll pamper him. He knows.

Can’t he tell he’s killing me? He’s breaking me; he’s making me a failure.

Tears came from her as she sagged into despair. I can’t even be a mother. The simplest goddamned thing in the world. A peasant, an idiot can do it. While Luke sucked, tears collected at Nina’s jaw and formed a large drop, which then fell on his stretchy. Luke chewed away, unconcerned.

Nina studied him. He was content now. His curly black hair was damp from the humidity; the oppressive weather, the hot gray stifling days, drained her energy.

Luke peered blankly at her while he sucked her dry. There was no apology in his eyes. No sheepishness in his chewing. No fear of reprisal. Only suspicion, a wary surveillance of her. Don’t you make a move, his expressionless blue eyes seemed to say. You stay right here for me.

She hated him; from her soul a loathing for Luke’s selfish little body arose. Her disgust shot through her like a current. She could feel the rage in the metal taste of her mouth; she could spit her fury at him. She wanted to bash sense into him. “You have to go to sleep,” she said, leaning into his face.

Luke blinked and pushed into her breast for protection from her looming head.

Luke’s neck, creased by rings of baby fat, attracted her attention. Maybe he was damaged. Maybe the traumatic birth had done something. The doctors might even know that was the explanation of Luke’s behavior but not want to tell her yet.

Maybe there’s something wrong with him.

Luke pulled off her breast, yelping. His legs retracted to his stomach, his face went red, and he shrieked.

“Okay, baby,” she said, and put him to her shoulder, patting his back (so small, and his bony spine was spineless), patting hard to force out a burp. Luke squawked, squealed, complained. No burp. He never burped. Almost never. Sometimes she thought that was his problem: three weeks of gas trapped inside. He’s got a Jewish stomach (Eric burped as often as he breathed) with a Wasp throat (Nina’s mother had made her feel burping was as bad as murder).

Luke’s stomach convulsed and she felt gooey liquid on her shoulder. “Oh, God!” she moaned, and glanced to see what she already knew was there — white and sticky spitup.

Vomited on, she thought — this is my life. Her mind spun through the days and nights. Up at 4:00 A.M., unable to send Eric in with a bottle since formula might make the colic worse, her head nodding into sleep while Luke chewed, then punching Eric (sometimes quite hard) to rouse him so he could walk Luke around, lying in the dark desperate for sleep but constantly wakened by the noise of the carriage in the hall or Luke’s squeals whenever Eric would try to stop or had to change Luke’s diaper. And finally out of bed at 8:00, again to be gnawed on, then showering unhappily with an ear listening to the moans and squeals that soon would be her problem, showering with hot water even in this heat, to soothe the sore breasts, burning eyes, dented back, and puffy, swollen feet. To have the luxury of a quiet bath, not a bath with distant sounds of screeching and complaint, but a restful stay in a warm pool and a silent apartment, seemed like a distant memory of youth. So she showered hopelessly, with eight hours ahead, eight hours of fighting the urge to kill herself or Luke or both, eight hours of facing her inadequacy, her son’s misery, the apartment’s mess, and a world filled with smiling faces that assumed she was an ecstatic mother blessed with a glorious child, and not being able to tell, to say: this is hell, this is prison, and I may die from it. Or kill to escape.