Elisa Albert - After Birth

It was like having Oprah at my bedside. My gratitude was quasi religious. This I could do. I could do this. I could right things this way. Bring on the oxytocin flood! Where else would I have learned? Who was going to teach me? What would have become of us on a different ward, instead of darling Donna, one of those demented can’t-be-bothered formula-happy bitches? And me in my sorry stitched-up shock?

She came back before we were discharged, gave me her number.

I don’t usually do this, but give me a shout if you need a little cheerleading, will ya? Been doing this a long time, now, so lay it on me, whatever problems you got. First few months apt to be a little rough, nothing to get too worked up about, just gotta get through. After that it’s gravy. Fourth trimester, they call it; think of it like he’s just not really ready to be on the outside yet. Nothing so easy once you get the hang, though. Nothing like a little boy. Nothing in the world like the way a little boy loves his mama. You the queen now, little mama .

His latch is shallow , I explain to Mina. So you’re engorged, which discourages your supply.

My mother is sitting on the arm of the couch, listening intently.

Listen to the expert , she says.

And meanwhile it’s painful, so you can’t relax, which also stems the flow. Which means he’s not getting what he needs to get stronger with the latch. So, vicious cycle.

Lookie-look at the La Leche League captain , my mother says. You got yourselves a regular consciousness raising here. How vintage feminist of you.

Zev’s asleep, my milk still dribbling down his cheek.

He was hungry , I say, and Mina does the laugh-while-crying.

You think?

People like to pretend that small children and animals aren’t sentient, so as to more easily perpetrate horrible crimes against them. It’s easier that way, to isolate them or let them scream or eat them or ignore them or hit them or violate them, chain them to a bed. Pretend that what looks like relief or gratitude or love or calm or fear or outrage or pain is just a reflex, nothing more.

They sure do fill your arms up, these creatures. So good at being held. Then guilt washes ashore and I want Walker. I miss my baby, who’s in some other room, in some other woman’s arms.

Mina takes Zev back and I have no one. Which, you know, right, of course.

It was my friend Jess who gave me that Dylan bootleg, I recall. The newborn babe with wild wolves all around it. The highway of diamonds with nobody on it.

Mina wraps Zev up on her chest so her arms are free, then leans forward over the coffee table and eats a second helping of pasta with her free hand. Balances the bowl precariously on a knee, and scarfs it.

Paul refuses to come inside me.

It’s okay, babe , I tell him. Really, babe, it’s okay . I even go so far on occasion as I want your hot cum deep inside me , because who doesn’t want to hear that?

But he refuses. He doesn’t even get me a washcloth anymore. It would be nice for him to get me a washcloth. It’s not that big a deal to get someone a washcloth.

He says he’s not ready for another kid. Yeah, no shit, me neither. But I read that absorption of semen boosts serotonin in the female brain, so just call it a gesture of good faith: are we in this trench together or aren’t we?

It’s strange, that whole fallacy of “ready,” because Paul is like over-the-moon obsessed crazy about Walker. I mean, it’s ridiculous. I get stopped in restaurants so people can tell me how adorable Paul is with the kid. I find myself elbowing him out of the way so I can have a turn wiping the kid’s ass once in a while. This is a pretty good problem to have, admittedly.

Usually it’s the ladies you hear about getting so swirled up in being someone’s MOMMY they cease keeping informed about international affairs and lose interest in blowjobs. Not so at our house! Fun with gender-role reversal, over here. I snapped at him yesterday to please, please stop singing “The Wheels on the Bus” for five minutes. Please just shut up with the fucking wheels on the fucking bus. Can we just drink our coffee in peace? Please ignore the baby for a minute and talk to me. The baby is fine. The baby is safe. The baby is happy. And I’m kind of terrifically lonely, over here. Maybe rub my neck? Maybe rub my feet? Maybe make me dinner, maybe make me laugh? Remember that cobalt hemp/silk flapper number I had on with the boots when we met for the first time in the hall before a faculty meeting? Remember how I caught you looking at me in the middle of that meeting? I could feel your attention on my thighs. And remember we had a whole silent conversation, both of us blushing, through that whole meeting? Remember how you tended not to stand right up against me in public because you’d get hard immediately?

Now it’s all, do you think another banana will constipate him and did you pack the wipes and an extra shirt and the bib and we can talk about it but honestly a little diluted juice once in a while seems like no biggie and where are the snacks and did you remember the thermos and I think the blue sweatshirt and it’s too cold for no pants don’t you think?

Things start to get fuzzy around puberty, with hormones and trauma doing their muddy two-step on memory. Depression and memory loss the best of friends.

Lost in a private-school morass of Sarahs and Jennys and Melissas and Lindsays, hideous rich girls so brainwashed and servile they were destined to spend their lives whipped into a tooth-whitened nail-polish cardio bronzer plucked-and-waxed chemical-peel synthetic fertility-treatment hormone-replacement reproductive surgery froth.

In the wake of Bat Mitzvah season we sprouted simultaneous breasts and mustaches. Despaired our acne, the frizz of our hair. Rose at dawn to iron said hair with the commitment and resolve of conquistadores.

Those who had mothers were summarily carted to electrolysis and dermatology, put on meds for anything and everything as soon as possible: the Pill, months-long courses of antibiotics for acne, scorched-earth acne medication accompanied by detailed drawings of what your fetus would look like should you accidentally become pregnant thusly medicated, more Pill, antidepressants, more antidepressants.

My father did his damnedest not to notice my budding disfigurements: terrible skin, dark cheek fuzz, lopsided tits. As though failing to address these new and terrible disfigurements was the polite thing to do. So long as I was a kid I was of course his Pretty Little Princess; when shit started to go south he was like yeah, tough break, good luck with that, bye. The Blind Ophthalmologist Looks Away.

There were six girls named Lindsay in my grade alone. Unibrow Lindsay , we’d say to identify the particular, or Fat Lindsay. Hand Job Lindsay. Bulimic Lindsay. Pretty Lindsay. Ren-faire Lindsay . Two of the Lindsays had the same last name, even. Lindsay Harris and Lindsay Harris. Unrelated.

No— we’d roll our eyes whilst talking shit— the other Lindsay Harris .

O Manhattan private school, where I learned to decode absolutely everything about a girl based on the smallest detail of grooming and attire. Upon graduation they might’ve offered diplomas in Object-Oriented Mysticism. I was forged in the fire of hell’s lowest circle of Bitch.

That enraged cat noise we used to conjure female testiness, the claw. Girls whose mothers built them up and ripped them down. Girls with absent fathers, girls with doting fathers. Girls without mothers, sorry little lambs, primary wound glistening forevermore. Girls who hate each other with a passion because really they love each other. The ones who love each other up syrupy sweet because really they despise each other.