The Language of Flowers

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

  “Renata brought food,” I said. “And Marlena was here for a few days.”

  “Good.” Roaming the room, she packed up her books, blankets, towels, bottles, and tubes.

  “Leaving?” I asked with surprise. I was used to her spending most of the morning with me.

  “You don’t need me anymore, Victoria,” she said, sitting next to me on the couch and putting her arm around my shoulders. She pulled me to her until my face was pressed against her breast. “Look at you. You’re a mother. Believe me when I tell you there are many women out there who need me more than you do.”

  I nodded into her chest and did not protest.

  She stood up and took a final loop around the small apartment. Her eyes settled on the cans of formula I had purchased before the baby was born. “I’ll donate these,” she said, stuffing them into her already-full bag. “You won’t need them. I’ll be back next Saturday, and then two Saturdays after that, just to check the baby’s weight gain. Call me if you need anything.”

  I nodded again and watched her walk lightly down the stairs. She had not left her phone number.

  You’re a mother, I repeated to myself. I was hoping the words would reassure me, but instead I felt something familiar trembling inside of me. It started deep in my stomach and picked up momentum as it tumbled into the cavernous space that had once held the baby.

  Panic.

  I tried to breathe, willing it away.

  8.

  I regretted my ultimatum.

  Choose me or choose your sister, my words had demanded. Elizabeth, by not running after me, had made her choice clear.

  All night and well into the morning, I plotted. My desire was simple: to stay with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth alone. But I could think of no way to convince her. I could not whine or beg. Do you even know me? she would ask, her eyes amused, as I begged to eat her muffin batter. I could not hide; Elizabeth would find me, as she always did. I could not tie myself to the bedposts and refuse to move; she would cut the ropes and carry me.

  There was only one possibility, and that was to turn Elizabeth against her sister. She had to see Catherine for what she was: a selfish, hateful woman unworthy of her care.

  And then, all at once, I saw the solution. My heartbeat grew deafening as I lay still, turning the idea around in my head, looking for problems. There were none. As surely as Catherine had ambushed my adoption, she had provided me with the ammunition I needed to stay with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth alone. I would win the battle she had unconsciously waged, even before she knew she had waged it.

  Slowly, I stood up. I slipped off my nightgown and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. In the bathroom, I scrubbed my face with cold water and hand soap harder than usual, my fingernails scratching lines in the white soap residue. Looking at myself in the mirror, I searched for signs of fear, or anxiety, or apprehension of what was to come. But my eyes were flat, my chin set with determination. There was only one way to get what I wanted. It could not be ignored.

  In the kitchen, Elizabeth washed dishes. A bowl of cold oatmeal sat on the table.

  “The crews are already here,” Elizabeth said, motioning with her head in the direction of the hill on which we’d stood the night before. “Eat your breakfast and put on your shoes before I leave you behind.” She turned back to the sink.

  “I’m not coming,” I said, and in the drop of Elizabeth’s shoulder blades, I could see disappointment but not surprise.

  I opened the pantry and plucked an empty canvas bag off a hook.

  It was warm on the front porch, even though it was still early. I walked slowly down the long driveway, toward the road. Again, Elizabeth did not come after me. I wished it was cooler, wished I’d packed a bagful of food. I would be hot and hungry as I sat in the ditch in front of the flower farm. But I would wait. As long as it took for Grant to leave, even if I had to spend the night by the side of the road, I would wait. Eventually, his truck would rumble through the open gate, leaving the farmhouse exposed.

  When it did, I’d sneak inside for what I needed.

  9.

  Renata did not come on Sunday. Neither did Marlena. I stayed in the blue room for what I thought was most of the day, nursing the baby and sleeping, but when I emerged with a full bladder and an empty stomach, it was only ten o’clock in the morning.

  Leaning against the bar stool, I debated between showering and preparing a meal. The baby was asleep in the blue room, and I was hungry, but the scent of my own body, sour breast milk mixed with apricot baby oil, was causing me to lose my appetite. I decided on a shower.

  I closed and locked the bathroom door out of habit, stripping and stepping under the hot water. My eyes closed, and I guiltily enjoyed the brief moment of solitude. Picking up a bar of soap, I heard a high-pitched wail. It was muffled by the locked door but piercing all the same. Inhaling, I continued to soap my body. Just one minute, I thought. Just a quick shower and I’ll be back. Hold on.

  But the baby couldn’t hold on. Her cry picked up both pitch and volume, and came around moments of quiet, desperate gasping. I began to shampoo my hair with frantic speed and let the water run into my ears, attempting to block out the sound. It didn’t work. I had a strange sensation that I could have walked down the stairs, out the door, and across the city, and I still would have been able to hear her, that her cry was connected to my body through more than the physical waves of sound. She needed me, craved me like hunger, and the hunger spread from her body into my own.

  Giving in to the sound, I jumped out of the shower, suds clinging to my hair and running in white rivers down my legs. I ran across the living room and reached into the blue room, picking up the rigid, screaming baby. I pressed her to my soapy breast. She opened her mouth and gasped and choked and sucked and repeated it all two or three times before she calmed down enough to nurse. In the shower, the water flowed into the empty ceramic tub and down the drain.

  I slid down the wall and sat in the puddle at my feet. If I had owned a clean towel, I might have retrieved it. But there weren’t any, and there wouldn’t be any for a long time. I was no Marlena. I couldn’t carry the baby and a bag of laundry up the hill, pressing quarters into vibrating machines with a hungry mouth on my exposed breast. I wished I had thought about the laundry before the baby was born.

  I wished I had thought of a lot of things, now that it was too late. I should have bought diapers, and groceries, and baby clothes. I should have gathered the take-out menus of every restaurant on the hill and memorized the number of a delivery service. I should have found a daycare, or a nanny, or both. I should have bought a stack of parenting books and read every one. I should have decided on a name.

  I couldn’t do any of that now.

  The baby and I would use dirty towels, sleep on dirty sheets, and wear dirty clothes. The idea of doing anything other than nursing and trying to nourish my own body was too overwhelming to consider.

  We survived Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, alone except for a brief food drop from Renata. It was spring; business was picking up, and Renata had never replaced me. Marlena called to tell me she was taking the month to visit relatives in Southern California. She would be back, she said, in time for our April engagements. The phone did not ring again.

  On Thursday the baby ate all day. She awoke for her first feeding just after six in the morning and nursed continuously, falling asleep mid-suck every half-hour. If I attempted to remove her from my breast, she startled awake with a deafening shriek. She would sleep only with her face pressed against my naked skin, and when I tried to set her down, no matter how deep in sleep she appeared, she would cry out for more milk.

  I resigned myself to my own hunger, spending the morning listening to the sounds of spring enter the apartment through the open kitchen window. Birds, brakes, an airplane, a school bell. I stroked the baby’s soft shoulder as she slept, and told myself that physical hunger was a reasonable sacrifice to make for a baby as beautiful as she. But as the day progressed, the
hunger traveled from my stomach to my brain. I began to hallucinate, not sights but smells: phantom meatballs, a sauce simmering, and something dark chocolate baking.

  By mid-afternoon I had convinced myself of the existence of a multi-course meal in my kitchen. I climbed out of the blue room with the baby still attached to my breast. When I saw the stove turned off, the burners bare, and the oven empty, I almost cried. I placed the baby on the kitchen counter and patted her distractedly while searching for something to eat. At the back of the cupboard I found a can of soup. The baby whimpered and started to cry. The sound weakened the muscles in my hands until it was impossible for me to turn the dial of the can opener. Giving up halfway around the can, I pried the lid back with a spoon and drank the soup cold, without pausing for breath. When it was empty, I threw the aluminum can into the sink. The baby startled at the loud sound and stopped crying long enough for me to press her face back to my breast. I carried her back to the blue room, my hunger unappeased.

  Friday began as Thursday had, except that I was twenty-four hours more exhausted and as hungry as the never-satisfied baby. I ate peanuts in bed while the baby nursed. Mother Ruby had warned me that the baby would go through growth spurts, and I comforted myself with this thought. The end must be growing near. I didn’t have much more to give her, I thought, slipping my finger under the flap of skin that had once been a round, full breast.

  At noon I pulled the sleeping baby away from my chest and saw that her lips were red. My nipples were dry and had cracked under the constant suction. The baby was drinking my blood as well as my milk; no wonder I was exhausted. Soon there would be nothing left of me. I eased her gently onto the bed, praying that just this once, she would stay asleep. There was one tray of Marlena’s cooking left in the freezer.

  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.

  10.

  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.”

  11.

  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.”