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My mother snorts. “If you ask me, her only fabulous opportunity is to seduce your husband.”
The audacity of her! I look up from the magazine. Tossing my suspicions about Nurse Marley aside, I come to her defense. “That is so presumptuous. She’s been nothing but a great help and friend to me. Both Ned and I are so much more rested. So much happier.” I stare my mother in the eye. “I demand an apology!”
My judgmental mother throws back her brandy. All cognac is brandy, but not all brandy is cognac. “Puh-lease. I have eyes. And recognize when a man’s eyes wander.”
Holding the tumbler in the air, she looks away into space. There’s something unspoken behind her words. Did my father’s eyes wander? Was he unfaithful? Is that why she’s been so closemouthed about him all my life?
The questions tumble around my head as she makes her way to the sliding doors that lead out to the patio.
“I’m going to have a smoke, then call it a night.”
“Fine.” I hurl the word at her like a discus thrower as she disappears outside.
There are so many other words I’d like to throw at her, but I hold them all back.
My mother has retreated to the guest room, likely smashed and fast asleep, when I hear a stirring coming from the nursery on the baby monitor. Isa. Alarm floods me.
Butterflying my magazine on the coffee table, I rise from the couch. I’m amazed by how easily I can get up. Thanks to Nurse Marley, I’m rested and on the mend. I’m even able to make my way quickly to my baby’s room.
Switching on the night-light, I enter the nursery and amble over to her crib. She’s squirming, kicking her little legs and flailing her arms. A realization hits me—I’ve forgotten her bottle.
As I’m about to head back to the kitchen, she fully awakens. Usually when she wakes, she cries at the top of her lungs to be fed, but when her blue eyes pop open, she looks up at me. And her little arms reach out as if she wants to hold me.
My heart is melting. It’s like I’m really seeing her for the first time. The way one sets their eyes on a magnificent painting, studying every detail. The soft fuzz of her hair, the dewiness of her skin, the petal-pink color and shape of her lips, those tiny nails on her perfectly formed little fingers. She’s breathtaking! This incredible, tiny work of art I created.
My greatest accomplishment.
Gently but confidently, I lift her out of her crib and take her into my arms as if this is what my arms were always meant to do. Cradling her, I pad to the rocker and pump it back and forth with my slippered feet.
Isa continues to be transfixed by me. Like she recognizes I’m her mother.
I am her mother.
My heart fills with love.
My breasts fill with milk.
I gasp at the tingly sensation. The sudden, unexpected, magical swelling. I’d read in one of those what-to-expect books that there’s something called delayed milk production due to health issues, and that for some women their milk doesn’t come in for up to fourteen days after giving birth. Yesterday, Isa was two weeks old and today I’m giving her a belated birthday gift. The miracle of my milk.
Tears of joy fill my eyes as I slide down my top, and my baby, my beautiful Isa, parts her rose-petal lips and latches on to a full tender breast. I love the feeling of having her there. Hugging her close to me. Like the two of us are one.
It’s the miracle of miracles. Never in a million years did I think this would be happening to me. And now I wish I’d not drunk any coffee or imbibed any wine, though the amounts have been minimal and I haven’t had any today. Plus, I haven’t been on antibiotics or had any Advil for over a week. As Isa sucks away, I marvel at the shape of this perfect little being tucked against me, the miracle of her, the pure beauty of her. I inhale the sweet, milky scent of her and feel intoxicated with joy.
My milk flows, and she sucks away until she falls fast asleep, the soft skin of her face grazing my parchment-white chest. It’s as if she’s part of me, like a precious appendage. Despite how broken and misshapen it is, I’ve never felt more grateful for my body.
My heart is so full it’s about to burst. An epiphany, at once as solid as a pillar and as ethereal as a feather, hits me. Engulfs me in a blanket of serenity and holiness.
I love this tiny being more than I’ve loved anyone or anything on this entire planet. For the very first time, I truly experience the magical bond between a mother and her child. It’s an otherworldly sensation, an out-of-body experience. Something I’ve never experienced before, not even with my own mother.
As my baby’s chest rises and falls against me, I kiss the top of her silky head and make a vow.
I will not self-destruct, come undone. Or let anyone or anything destroy me. Or come between us.
I am going to be the best mother I can be to my baby.
I no longer need Nurse Marley.
Whoever she may be.
