by Heidi Pitlor
“When she woke up she made spaghetti for lunch and then you came.” He blinked fast, and all of his features pinched together on his face just as he ran to the bathroom. I followed behind and stayed with him while the contents of his bowels rushed into the toilet bowl. He writhed around and let out a sob as another round began.
“Those chocolates—were they next to the medicine bottles?”
“If that counts as dessert I won’t have any tonight.” A pained expression passed through his face. “I didn’t eat all of them.”
“Did they come in squares?”
He nodded.
“How many did you eat?”
“I don’t know.”
When the worst of it seemed to have passed, I said, “Those chocolates weren’t just chocolates.” He listened, visibly confused that something as delicious as chocolate could hide such horror. “You couldn’t have known,” I said.
I went to call a local health clinic, and the receptionist gave me the number for poison control. “How many squares did he eat?” the woman there asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You don’t, you can’t even guess?” The woman’s voice was breathy and concerned.
“I was working,” I said.
“Why was he left alone with the medicine, Ma’am?”
“I wasn’t there. He was with his sitter, and she, she had—Does it matter?”
“Yes. Why did the sitter leave a box full of laxatives within reach of your four-year-old son?”
“Can you tell me what I should do for him right now?”
“Ma’am, you need to bring him to a hospital. I see that you’re calling from a Western Massachusetts number. Do you need me to look up the nearest facility?”
“No, I know where it is,” I answered. With our limited health insurance, a visit to the ER would cost a fortune.
“If I were you, I’d have a long talk with that child’s sitter. You need to make sure to leave your son with an adult who is responsible or an accredited—”
I hung up.
In his bedroom, Cass was curled in the fetal position on his yellow giraffe comforter. “You okay?” I asked him.
“I guess.”
“You up for a quick walk?” I helped him into clean underwear and a new pair of pants, and gave him another piggyback ride through the bitter air and back down the street to Bertie’s.
I explained to Bertie what had happened in the past thirty minutes.
“I wasn’t feeling well this morning and I had to lie down,” she said. “I didn’t mean to leave him for that long.”
“But you did.” I held Cass’s hand firmly in mine.
“I’m sorry.” There she stood with her rust-colored hair in a nest atop her head that sat upon her short neck that rose from her squat torso. She looked at me with guilt, and I felt that all of this—my reliance on her inexpensive labor, our lack of decent health insurance, Cass’s gorging on Ex-Lax—was my fault.
“We should go find that box and see how many pieces he ate. I think I took one or two the other day,” she said.
We counted six squares missing, give or take whatever Bertie had already eaten. It seemed a manageable number, sort of. I silently blessed the person who had invented the childproof caps that had kept my son from the medicine bottles still arranged in a pyramid on her counter.
I turned to Cass. “Don’t ever open a box or bottle or anything by yourself—just don’t open anything ever again.”
“My stomach feels bouncy again,” he said, his face turning.
I ran him to Bertie’s bathroom just in time for his next round, although not in time for him to fully remove his pants and underwear. I tried to clean the mess using the lacy peach washcloth that Bertie gave me, all the while comforting him and reassuring her. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she kept saying, and thrust a bottle of mouthwash at me.
“What is that for?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have my glasses!” she said.
“Do you have any paper towels, or cleaner, or just regular towels?” I asked, as Cass sniffled, his body quiet now. Bertie moved from foot to foot as if her brain had frozen. “Stay there, Cass,” I said, and found some of what I needed in her kitchen and did the best I could to clean and reassemble her bathroom before giving her some half-baked, awkward forgiveness, and finally walking Cass back home.
“I want Hippo,” Cass said inside the living room. He’d had his small green stuffed hippo since he was an infant. “Where is he?”
Together, we searched. Cass stubbed his toe and there was a moment or two when it seemed that we would never find the thing, a moment when the cruelty of the world was too much, but in the next moment, I saw a sliver of soft green snout protruding from a lower kitchen cabinet.
“You mean you still have that neighbor lady watching him?” my mother said. I had called her after settling Cass on the couch. “I don’t know what to tell you.” She offered to consult her neighbor, a retired ER doctor. We hung up, and before long, she called back to tell me to keep a close eye on Cass. Give him lots of water. If the diarrhea returned, I should bring him to the ER.
“Okay,” I said. I looked over at my son, now whispering something into Hippo’s ear. He deserved to be able to go to the hospital. I was a terrible mother.
I remembered when I had first told her that I was pregnant and planned to be a single mom. Her fingers had gone white around the handle of a spatula. “No.”
“Yes,” I said. We stood facing each other in their narrow, bright kitchen. “I know. It’s a surprise! It was for me, too.”
“You have no idea, not one clue, about how difficult this will be.”
“You know, you were a single mom for a while. I mean, after my father died and before you met Ed. You handled it okay.”
“That was only for six or seven months. And those were six or seven of the hardest months of my life, and not just because you were a cranky infant and threw up all the time. Thankfully, things with Ed moved quickly.” She reached forward and fixed my collar.
I tried to convince her to be more optimistic. She would be a grandmother, after all. I had a baby inside me—a baby! Eventually she smiled sadly and said, “All right, it’s your decision.” Just before I left, she gestured to my flannel shirt and said, “Can’t you wear something more flattering? In a month or two, your figure will be gone for God knows how long. Allie, you do have a cute figure. Sometimes, I swear you don’t even want to be seen.”
Now, I imagined my mother reporting back to Ed about today’s debacle. I could all but hear her words: “I told her how hard this would be on her own.”
Cass had fallen asleep on the couch. I poured him a glass of water, set it on the floor near him, and made myself a peanut butter sandwich. The kitchen was silent. I relished the small moment of peace. Snowflakes had begun to form outside the window, specks of light blowing horizontally in the wind.
I opened my laptop and saw that Lana’s notes for the next chapter had finally come.
“Hi. Here are the subjects for chapter 2: circumcision; breastfeeding as a feminist act; the culture of shame around nursing and the sexualization of the woman’s body; hiring help—a necessity! Workplace family support in this country vs. other countries. (Talk to Val if you need to.) Happy writing, and all the best, Lana”
I groaned. Was she withholding details about being a mother because the details did not exist? She worked nonstop, especially now, but I tried to cut her some slack. Hell, when we met, she had admitted to being hands-off in raising her son.
Maybe she needed some prompts. I instant-messaged her:
I hope the following questions aren’t too personal, but I think personal is what everyone wants for this book, for better or worse! Was Norton circumcised and breastfed? How were those experiences for you? How long a maternity leave did you get and how long did you take?
I can also write about the difficulties of getting infants to sleep—unfortunately I know a lot about this�
��and the most popular methods of sleep training. Ferber vs. Sears (both men, of course!); and choosing what works best for the individual baby and parents. Did you have any magic solutions for getting Norton to sleep—or were you one of those lucky people who were blessed with a good sleeper? Hiring help might not be an option for every reader, but I’ll discuss it, as well as leaning on family and neighbors if/when possible.
Another idea for this chapter: “pink and blue propaganda,” or how to dress your baby boy in pink and avoid the confusion of nosy strangers . . . How did you dress Norton when he was a baby?
The theme song from Caillou tinkled forth from the next room. I took it as a good sign that Cass was awake and feeling decent enough to want to watch TV. He loved this show about a whiny, bald boy who lived in a nice house with his parents and sister and cat, a boy whose life could not have been more different from Cass’s own.
She must have been at her computer—for once, she wrote right back. I nursed and it was difficult at first. We stuck to yellow, green, and orange.
I responded, I had so much trouble getting Cass to latch on—and so much pain! That little jaw could have pulled a finger off my hand at first. What troubles did you have? For how long did you breastfeed?
Ha! Not long enough. I did try, but it was a no-go. Good idea to write about sleep training and clothing choice. Speaking of choice, I have to go to speak at a pro-choice conference. Look forward to seeing the next chapter. Thanks, Lana
“No! Don’t leave yet,” I said as the chat box vanished.
In desperation, I wrote to Colin: Lana is giving me nothing, NO material about herself or Norton, just general ideas for each chapter. I’ve tried and totally failed to get more from her. SOS!
He wrote, Keep trying but don’t drive her crazy. If you have to, just write something generic-ish about mothering a boy. You know a lot about this topic! Remember to make her really likable.
I reluctantly emailed Gin, trying to hide my growing panic: “Having a little trouble getting specifics from Lana! Any ideas or suggestions?” I went for a box of animal crackers, which I emptied while watching Cass watch Caillou.
Gin replied: “Lana’s probably not used to talking to strangers about her life. She’s out of her comfort zone. You could try telling her about your own experiences and see if she loosens up.”
I asked if she was able to instant message right then, and she said that she was. I typed, I already tried talking about myself.
Gin: Then try something else. You’ll figure it out. Good luck!
Exasperated, I did some research and wove some of what I had found into Chapter Two.
In a recent survey, 72 percent of passersby described the sight of a woman openly nursing her baby on a public bench as “the opposite of sexy,” “lewd,” and/or “thoroughly repulsive.” But throughout the ages, artists have celebrated the aesthetic beauty of breastfeeding—and not only women artists like Mary Cassatt. Édouard Pingret, Paul Gauguin, and Henri Lebasque painted poignant, loving scenes of mothers feeding their babies. One of my favorite works is Kitagawa Utamaro’s woodblock print, Mother Nursing Child Before Mirror, a wonderful portrait.
Utamaro was one of my mother’s favorite artists—and I remembered glimpsing an Utamaro-like print hanging in Lana’s foyer.
The most important thing was, I went on to argue, selecting a method of feeding that made you, as an individual with your own particular life and needs, concurrently the sanest, healthiest, and most fulfilled, as well as a method that spared your chest from assault and battery.
I drafted an email begging Lana to give me more and then deleted it; I worried this might antagonize her.
What was also missing was Lana’s voice, some essence that still remained elusive to me. There was the difficulty of the wide gap between her earlier image and the “more American, more feminine” woman I was meant to help create, the one with the new hair color and contact lenses. Maybe I had to stop thinking in such binary terms. A woman could be both soft and hard, feminist and feminine, couldn’t she?
The door opened, and Kurt was there with Pete, both very stoned. Pete wore an old John Deere T-shirt. His work boots tracked dirt across the kitchen floor. I told Kurt about the laxative incident, and he doubled over laughing.
“I’m glad you find it hilarious,” I said.
“I’m sorry, Al. That must have been really . . . shitty,” he said, fighting back a smile. I glared at him.
Pete opened the refrigerator and pulled out some leftover mac n’ cheese.
“Gimme some of that,” Kurt said and reached for the container.
“I have work to do. Cass is in the other room. Go,” I told them. “Be somewhere else.” I ushered them toward the door to the basement. Before long, I heard them head out in Pete’s car.
My irritation with those two bloomed into a larger irritation with Lana and this book. To hell with them all. I had bills to pay.
During Norton’s infancy, my favorite moment of the day was when I came home from work. I would set down my work bag,
Across the street, Jessica Garbella stood in mountain pose.
change into my yoga pants and head for his bedroom. Feeding Norton made me feel connected to primal women. It was a raw and wild thing at first. Sometimes nursing him hurt, but other times it felt wonderful. Sometimes I could not stand to share my body with this baby, but later, I could not stand to set him down. My mood swings were astonishing, and I found that listening to calming music (Joni Mitchell or Neil Young) helped me relax. Later, when I got the hang of it, breastfeeding actually had the same effect.
I deleted Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. Who knew what music Lana liked?
I often walked Norton in his stroller around Central Park. A group of teenage boys, maybe high school students, caught sight of me feeding him once. Lester had gone off for a coffee. “Put that shit away, lady. It makes me sick,” the tallest one called over.
I was unsure that I had heard him correctly, so I asked him to repeat what he had said.
He did.
Well. I walked over to them, Norton in one arm, my other hand on my hip. I informed the young man who had spoken that he likely had suckled at his own mother’s breasts as a baby; that no state or federal laws banned women from nursing in public; that women’s breasts did not exist for his and his friends’ gratification.
I then realized that my shirt hung open and that the whole of my right breast was visible.
The tallest boy made a rude comment about the size and shape of my chest. The others laughed in response. One said, “Damn, son!”
“Clearly you have never seen or held an actual woman’s breasts,” I said, “or you would be aware that most in no way resemble those exploited in cheap porn, which is, I’m guessing, your only experience of them. Most breasts are not buoyant or perfectly uniform. A normal woman’s breasts are soft or fibrous or rashy, and always perfectly imperfect.”
I had myself a good laugh as those boys made gagging noises and hurried out of the park.
Back when Cass was a baby, I had gotten a landscaping job near the stables at the Mount, Edith Wharton’s house, and I’d had to bring him along. Unfortunately, I had been far less confrontational than in the scene I had written for Lana. After the painters’ unwanted comments, I returned Cass to his bouncy seat, buttoned up my shirt, and grumbled some righteous thoughts about the ghost of Lily Bart, words probably audible to no one but me. In his khaki shorts and paint-spattered T-shirt, one of the painters mumbled something about my soil-covered hands and his junk, and the others snorted with laughter as they walked away. My mouth silently formed the words “Fuck you.”
I pictured myself responding to them in the way that I had written for Lana. Even revisionist imaginary vengeance had its merits.
What would Lana think of my spinning a full scene about her out of thin air?
I heard the start of another episode of Caillou in the next room and, when I went to check on Cass, saw that he had fallen asleep on the cou
ch. Hopefully, the worst had passed.
Four hours later, after one stomach pumping, one nuclear tantrum, one charcoal slushie, and ten minutes of violent vomiting, Cass and I drove home in silence from the Berkshire Medical ER. I told myself not to think about the cost of all this for the moment. The only other people on the road were a few truckers droning alongside us. By now, all the leaf peepers had come and gone, but it was too early in the season for the skiers to arrive. The night sky was blurry and starless.
Back at my house, Kurt sprawled on my couch, a bag of pretzels in his hands as he took in the latest episode of the British spy series.
“I cannot believe you are watching this without me,” I said, and burst into tears.
He sat up and flicked off the TV. “Let me put Cass to bed,” he said, and he touched my shoulder.
I tried to gather myself and rescued a partial joint from a small puddle of dish soap in the kitchen, but the paper was too wet to hold a light. The house smelled like diarrhea. I felt acutely and deeply sorry for myself. The irony of writing from the viewpoint of a self-sufficient, powerful woman was getting harder to ignore.
Kurt returned. “I only watched about ten minutes. I’ll watch it again with you.”
“Forget it. I don’t have the energy to even watch TV right now. I don’t have the energy to move.”
He sat cross-legged on the floor next to me. He had eyes the color of pale blue hydrangea.
“Oh, Allie. Oh, Hon,” he said, removing my boots and socks in order to begin massaging my toes. He kneaded my feet with his long, warm fingers and relief shot up through my legs. He began to hum some song I did not recognize, and I closed my eyes and took in the sensation of being touched and nurtured. Everything would be okay. The day was over and tomorrow was a blank slate, a whole new beginning. I felt myself start to drift off.