Godmother Night

by Rachel Pollack

She woke up wet. Her whole body was damp. Her cotton nightgown clung to her, soaked. She hoped it wasn’t ruined; her parents had given it to her when she first left for college. Even the sheets were wet, especially, she realized, right around her hips. An awful thought struck her. Shivering slightly, she got herself out of bed and pulled down the top sheet. While the sheet as a whole felt clammy, an actual wet spot, about eight inches across, stained the sheet about halfway down the bed. She bent down, sniffed it, then pulled back with her face wrinkled in disgust.

  She’d wet the bed, she realized. She’d actually wet the bed. She turned her head to check the door, as if Laurie would come in and catch her. For the first time since she woke up, she realized that Kate was crying. Of course, she thought. The noise had become part of her world. She squinted, concentrating on the sound. It was okay, she thought. Not pain, or terror, or even overwhelming hunger. Jaqe could wait a few minutes before she had to show herself to Laurie.

  She took off the nightgown and grabbed her bathrobe from the chair across from the bed. She smiled as she put it on. Laurie had managed to wash it for her, not getting out all the stains, but at least giving it a nice feel against her damp body. The strange thing, she thought as she hurriedly stripped the bed, was that she actually felt much better. She was still weak; in fact, she wasn’t sure how long she could stand up without something to hold on to. But she felt rested, soaked with sleep as well as sweat and urine.

  Urine, she thought, shaking her head. She pulled off the mattress pad and touched the mattress. As far as she could tell, it hadn’t soaked through. Goddess, she thought, how could she do that? Were they going to have to get a rubber sheet, like the one in Kate’s crib? Maybe Laurie could diaper her while she was diapering Kate. She giggled, then pressed her lips together, even though Laurie could hardly hear her over the baby’s crying.

  When she’d taken off the pillowcases and piled everything on the floor, she sat down in the pink chair with her head forward, and her hands gripping the chair arms. Maybe she really was better, she thought, as she shook her head. Maybe she’d poured out all the sickness. In every way possible. A wonder, she thought, that she hadn’t drooled all down her chin. She got herself up, took a deep breath, and headed for the living room.

  The baby lay in her cradle on the couch, with her face compressed in the effort of crying. Jaqe thought she was right; Kate looked…normal. Laurie stood nearby, except that she wasn’t looking at Kate, she had turned herself to the door. “Honey?” Jaqe said. When Laurie didn’t turn around Jaqe called louder, “Laurie? Sweetheart?”

  Laurie spun around as if jolted. She was smiling, with a pained look that meant she didn’t feel like smiling at all. “Jaqe,” she said. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “I’m feeling a lot better,” Jaqe said, hoping Laurie couldn’t see her dizziness. “I think I’ve sweated it all out.”

  “Really?” Laurie said. “Wow, that’s great. Are you sure?”

  Jaqe stared at Laurie’s rigid smile. What was wrong with her? She sounded like she had a bad scriptwriter. “I think so,” Jaqe said. “I must have. Everything’s so wet. I had to strip the bed. I even stripped the mattress pad. Do you think maybe you could wash it all for me? I’m really sorry to ask.”

  “No,” Laurie said loudly. “No, of course I’ll wash it.” She looked from Jaqe to the baby. “I was just going to—I mean, I’m sorry about that. The crying, I mean.”

  Jaqe moved closer to Laurie. She had to fight a pull toward the baby so strong that she felt she must be walking lopsided. But for once, she was more worried about Laurie. The absurd thought occurred to her that Kate could take care of herself, but Laurie needed help.

  “Give me a hug,” Jaqe said. Laurie squeezed her, though not as long as Jaqe would have liked. “Honey,” Jaqe said, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you go out for a while? You haven’t gotten any fresh air for days.”

  Laurie shook her head. “I’d better do the sheets,” she said.

  “When you come back,” Jaqe said.

  “The baby needs—”

  “It’s okay, honey. Really.” Jaqe stroked Laurie’s face. The skin felt hard. She wished she could lay Laurie down on the bed, stretch her out and rub her down with Dr. Root. Oh God, she thought, I love her so much.

  “Are you sure?” Laurie asked. Jaqe nodded.

  “I’ll just go for a little while,” Laurie said. She moved off toward the bathroom. “I’ve got to pee first.” Jaqe heard the door close. She took a deep breath, then went and picked up her daughter.

  In the bathroom, Laurie squeezed her fists as hard as she could, trying to keep in a panic that threatened to knock her over. What if she went out and couldn’t make herself come back? She realized suddenly that Kate had stopped crying. Maybe Jaqe was feeding her. The silence unbalanced her, like a strong wind that abruptly dies away, leaving you braced against something no longer there.

  She took a deep breath. It’s just for a little while, she told herself. Jaqe would do fine without her. Jaqe always did fine.

  Laurie went into the bedroom for her keys and wallet. About to leave, she grabbed her old leather jacket from the closet. She hardly wore it anymore. Jaqe didn’t like it for some reason. She folded it so that the lining showed and not the leather, then draped it over her arm.

  In the living room Kate was sucking on her mother’s breast, oblivious to whatever pain or enthusiasm had led her to cry just minutes before. Laurie wondered if she should stay. Kate was quiet, Jaqe was feeling better, maybe she should touch Jaqe and kiss her, rub her down with hot water and soap, and dress her in fresh clothes. She must have taken a step toward Jaqe, because Jaqe said, “No, you go out. I’m fine. Really. You need some air.”

  Laurie nodded. “I’ll just go for a few minutes.”

  “Take your time,” Jaqe insisted. “We’ll be here.” Alone, Jaqe leaned back heavily against the couch. She felt so dizzy, she wasn’t sure how long she could sit up. It had taken all her energy to persuade Laurie to go out. At least, she thought, the fever had broken. That was all that mattered.

  In the street, Laurie thought she heard the sound of motorcycles, blocks away. She felt a little foolish in her tough biker jacket without a bike.

  She went to a bar a few blocks away, an old-fashioned neighborhood place where she could sit in a wooden booth in the back and drink beer, and the men would leave her alone. She told herself that the beer was a magic potion, a gift from the Goddess to take away her fear.

  Only, it didn’t work. Like someone who’s taken the wrong potion, she found her panic rising with every glass. Finally, she just dug out her money (she tried to calculate how much beer she’d drunk by the size of the bill, but gave up) and left.

  Outside, she shivered slightly. It was still light, but a fog had rolled in from the river, making everything vague and damp. Leaning against a car, she knew she should get back. Make dinner for Jaqe. Shit, she thought, she hadn’t even washed the damn sheets or made the bed. But instead of hurrying home, Laurie walked to the bridge crossing the narrow filthy river between the two boroughs of the city.

  The bridge both looked and felt old, maybe because of its clunky yet ornate style, or the fact that the city had let it get all grimy, with rust spots showing underneath the flaking gray paint. Compared to the glamorous suspension bridges in other parts of the city, this simple post bridge, with its two lanes of traffic and its anachronistic footpaths, looked like a neglected stepsister.

  Laurie walked out to the middle, where she stood holding on to the railing and looking out at the city. The fog had covered the dense glut of buildings on either side. Silence settled onto the bridge. Silence and dimness. Laurie wished she’d worn something warmer than a tank top under her jacket. The day had been so hot before. She hugged herself. She could always zip up the jacket, but she’d never really liked that look. Leather jackets should hang open. Otherwise, what was the point?

  Somewhere in the blankness Laurie heard laughter. It sounded like a c
hild. She thought of her family, of the times they used to go places together, laughing and having a good time. I need help, she thought. I need someone I can count on. Not just for me, for Kate, for Kate. She just wasn’t enough. Jaqe’s parents weren’t enough. They tried hard, she knew that, but even if they could get over their own…their own anger, what could they do about everyone else’s?

  Laurie had never admitted to herself how much the world frightened her. Despite all the demonstrations she’d organized with the LSU, all the speeches she’d made, all the women she’d seduced with her posture of power, she believed in women’s weakness—no, women’s vulnerability—with a deep conviction that Louise, and even Jaqe, would have found alien as well as frightening. Women didn’t really exist, Laurie thought. In a world invented by men, women moved like shadows, illuminated in direct light only as paintings, or maybe just illustrations.

  Holding on to the railing, Laurie tried to shake these thoughts out of her body. It’s just alcohol, she thought. Alcohol and sleeplessness. Everything looks weird when you don’t sleep. She knew that.

  But the thought wouldn’t leave. Two women raising a child. A girl child. If only Laurie could get some protection for her. A godparent. Didn’t people used to have godparents to watch over them? Not just a ceremonial title, but someone who really cared.

  That’s it, she thought, giddy. Kate needed a godparent. Mark came to mind, but Laurie shook her head. Too weak. Mark was too much like a woman, unattached to the world, happy to be a shadow, a thought rather than a substance.

  Laurie squeezed shut her eyes, rubbed her hands against her face. Just go home, she told herself. Go home and wash clothes. But when she opened her eyes she stared through the fog at the buildings on the far side of the river. The way you could see some and not others, the way the mist formed around them, the way a pair of lit-up buildings glared at her—somehow, it all formed a face. The face of an old bearded man. A grandfather looking at the generations of his children.

  Laurie thought of all her friends in support groups, the way they talked of their Higher Powers, and when you pressed them they meant God. A grandfather God who always took care of you. She remembered, as a child, when her father used to take her to Hebrew school, how she’d hold his hand as she walked, and she remembered the pictures in the books, God sitting on his throne in a white dress with his beard brighter than the sky. She shook her head and laughed. What better godparent than God?

  And then, to her amazement, she said out loud, “You bastard! You goddamn sonofabitch. Are you really there? Can you hear me? You made this world and then you gave it all to men. Fuck you.” She discovered herself crying, and angrily rubbed her face with the sleeve of her jacket.

  Don’t look at it, she ordered herself. Look away and the hallucination will vanish. She did her best to stare past the city entirely, to the hills beyond the buildings. Despite the fog she could make out their shapes, dark and round and moist.

  The hills looked like a woman, she thought. No, felt like a woman. Living forever, silent in the Earth. Laurie thought back to her graduate school classes. The Goddess, she thought, so old that nobody even knew her name anymore, only the names men had given her after she’d retreated into the rocks.

  Goddessparent. Wasn’t the Goddess supposed to love you and take care of you? Nourish you like a cow, a queen bee, with her milk and honey. “No,” Laurie whispered. “You never do anything. All these centuries of pain and rape, you’ve never done anything to stop them. You just don’t care. How can I trust you?”

  Shit, Laurie thought, there’s nobody that can help us. Nobody.

  The sound of an engine made her look toward the end of the bridge in the direction of home. Instead of a car, she just saw a woman walking toward her. The woman wore a patchwork dress with dangling sleeves and a flat black hat with a long red ribbon tied around it so that the ends floated in the breeze past the stiff brim.

  Laurie was about to turn away when the woman said, “Good evening, Laurie. How are you today?”

  “Mother Night?” Laurie said. She thought back to the dance where she’d first met Jaqe. She remembered the old woman by the punch bowl who seemed to know both of them. “Mother Night,” she repeated.

  The woman nodded. “I’m happy to see you again, Laurie,” she said. “And congratulations. On becoming a mother.”

  Laurie shook her head. “I’m not a mother,” she said. “Jaqe had the baby, not me.”

  Mother Night shook her head. “You love Kate, and you worry about her. And you know you cannot leave her or separate from her, no matter how much you might desire it. Aren’t those the qualities of a mother?”

  Laurie began to cry. “She doesn’t need a second mother. She needs a godmother.”

  “Yes, I know,” Mother Night said. “Tell me, Laurie. Would you like me to become her godmother? I promise to watch out for her. And I’m very well connected.”

  Laurie remembered her dream. The dark woman at the beach, sitting with her feet up on a scarred wooden desk. And earlier in the dream, the woman in the convenience store who’d told her, “Mother Night can help you. Go to the water and find Mother Night.” She stared now at the woman in front of her. Mother Night wasn’t laughing or anything. She looked like she meant it, like she really cared. Laurie thought how even if Mother Night promised to be Kate’s godmother and then forgot about it, what could she lose? She took a breath.

  Before Laurie could speak, a bird, a brown-and-white pigeon, settled onto Mother Night’s shoulder. The old woman turned to smile at it, then stroked it with a finger.

  The bird died. It didn’t fall over, it just…crumbled. The plumpness shriveled, the feathers withered into gray sticks, the eyes dried into dust and blew away. Mother Night took the corpse from her shoulder and set it gently on the railing.

  Laurie found herself gasping for breath, for speech. She said, “You’re…you’re…De…” She couldn’t make herself say the word.

  “Of course,” Mother Night said. “Didn’t you know? Who better is there to protect your child? Who could better shield her from pain and loss? Do it, Laurie. Make me her godmother, and I will show her how to live.”

  Laurie’s head hardly moved. Someone passing by would never have known she was nodding. But she was. Though no sound came out, the lips and tongue formed the word “Yes.”

  Mother Night smiled joyously. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s been a long time since I had someone I could care for. You have made a wise choice.” She turned now and walked back off the bridge, her step graceful and confident. Laurie only stood there and watched her. She felt strange and relieved all at the same time. Her body had become so light that a flexing of her toes would have floated her up to the top of the bridge.

  At the end of the bridge, Mother Night turned to look back once more at Laurie. Only, now her face had changed, had become grayer and frailer. She looked like someone Laurie knew. Like—

  Oh God, Laurie thought. She looked like the old woman. The woman from the bar. The one who’d written Laurie’s graduate papers. Three papers in one night. All of them perfect. The one who wouldn’t name her price. Another time, she’d said, they’d talk about it another time. Something special, she’d said. And now? “It’s been a long time since I had someone I could care for.”

  “No!” Laurie screamed. “Come back here. You can’t have her! I didn’t mean it!” But Mother Night was gone, vanished into the fog.

  “Kate!” Laurie screamed. “Oh my God, Kate!” She began to run.

  Jaqe’s head jerked as she woke up. She was sitting on the couch, with Kate asleep at her breast. Excess milk had dribbled down her and the baby, streaking them with white. Jaqe grunted at the pain in her neck, but when she lifted her head the pain moved like an electric shock down the rest of her body. She groaned. She’d thought she was better, but now she felt so weak again. Everything was shivering, and she had the terrible thought that if she gave in to it, the shaking would turn easily into convulsions. She could feel
a wetness around her thighs. Frightened she’d lost all control of her bladder, she looked down.

  It took her a moment to recognize the redness as blood. Why was she bleeding? She was still nursing, she wasn’t supposed to get her period until after Kate was weaned. Gently as she could, Jaqe laid the baby in her cradle. Mercifully, Kate didn’t wake up. Holding on to chairs and tables, Jaqe made her way to the bathroom. She stopped at the door. A candle was burning on the top of the toilet tank. A plain stubby candle on a plate covered with wax. Only the smallest amount was left of it. Already the wick had started to sputter.

  Jaqe backed away, shaking her head and moaning. The kitchen, she thought. Didn’t they keep candles in the kitchen? Under the sink or something? She could replace it before it went out.

  Jaqe banged her shoulder against the door as she lurched from the bathroom. She paid no attention to the pain, only rushed to the kitchen. But as she rounded the corner into the ill-equipped kitchen, with its ancient refrigerator and cracked linoleum floor, she stopped short. Mother Night sat in a chair alongside the red Formica table. She was drinking a glass of milk. “Hello, Jaqe,” she said. “I’m happy to see you again.”

  Jaqe began to cry. “It’s not fair,” she said. “You promised.”

  Mother Night shook her head. “No,” she said. “I promised you I would never take Laurie away from you. I never said anything about taking you.”

  “I won’t go,” Jaqe said; then realizing how absurd that was, she said, “I—I’ve got protection.”

  Mother Night set down the glass and leaned forward. “Really?” she said. “How exciting. Bring it out. Let me see.”

  Jaqe left the kitchen and went into the living room, where she stood, swaying. She could just run, she thought. Dash down the stairs and try to find Laurie. Oh God, she missed Laurie so much. But she couldn’t leave, she knew that. She couldn’t just run off and leave her daughter. Protection. Protection. What could she use…

  She ran for the laminated jewelry box where she kept the stone with the labyrinth and the baby. Mother Night would have to respect that, wouldn’t she? But Jaqe couldn’t find the stone, not anywhere. Nor could she find the bottle of Dr. Root’s massage oil. When she went through her night table, however, she came across one of the drawings Laurie had sent her from graduate school, a xeroxed photo of a prehistoric temple, with Jaqe drawn in, asleep at the altar.