I can’t keep this up. I need help.
She opened the kitchen cabinet and gazed at the cans of infant formula, free samples from the hospital. The baby screamed louder. She didn’t know what else to do. Demoralized, she reached for a can. She poured formula into a feeding bottle and set it in a pot of hot tap water, where it sat warming, a monument to her defeat. A symbol of her utter failure as a mother.
The instant she offered the bottle, pink lips clamped down on the rubber nipple and the baby began to suck with noisy gusto. No more wailing or squirming, just happy-baby noises.
Wow. Magic from a can.
Exhausted, Jane sank into a chair. I surrender, she thought, as the bottle rapidly emptied. The can wins. Her gaze drifted down to the Name Your Baby book lying on the kitchen table. It was still open to the L’s, where she’d last left off skimming the names for girls. Their daughter had come home from the hospital still nameless, and Jane now felt a sense of desperation as she reached for the book.
Who are you, baby? Tell me your name.
But her daughter wasn’t giving away any secrets; she was too busy sucking down formula.
Laura? Laurel? Laurelia? Too soft, too sweet. This kid was none of those. She was going to be a hell-raiser.
The bottle was already half empty.
Piglet. Now there was an appropriate name.
Jane flipped to the M’s. Through bleary eyes she surveyed the list, considering each possibility, then glancing down at her ferocious infant.
Mercy? Meryl? Mignon? None of the above. She turned the page, her eyes so tired now that she could barely focus. Why is this so hard? The girl needs a name, so just choose one! Her gaze slid down the page and stopped.
Mila.
She went stock-still, staring at the name. A chill snaked up her spine. She realized that she had said the name aloud.
Mila.
The room suddenly went cold, as though a ghost had just slipped through the doorway and was now hovering right behind her. She could not help a glance over her shoulder. Shivering, she rose and carried her now-sleeping daughter back to the crib. But that icy sense of dread would not leave her, and she lingered in her daughter’s room, hugging herself as she rocked in the chair, trying to understand why she was shaking. Why seeing the name Mila had so disturbed her. As her baby slept, as the minutes ticked toward dawn, she rocked and rocked.
“Jane?”
Startled, she looked up to see Gabriel standing in the doorway. “Why don’t you come to bed?” he asked.
“I can’t sleep.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“I think you’re just tired.” He came into the room and pressed a kiss to her head. “You need to go back to bed.”
“God, I’m so bad at this.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No one told me how hard it would be, this mommy thing. I can’t even breast-feed her. Every dumb cat knows how to feed her kittens, but I’m hopeless. She just fusses and fusses.”
“She seems to be sleeping fine now.”
“That’s because I gave her formula. From a bottle.” She gave a snort. “I couldn’t fight it anymore. She was hungry and screaming, and there’s that can sitting right there. Hell, who needs a mommy when you’ve got Similac?”
“Oh, Jane. Is that what you’re upset about?”
“It’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“But you’ve got that tone of voice. This is too stupid to be believed.”
“I think you’re exhausted, that’s all. How many times have you been up?”
“Twice. No, three times. Jesus, I can’t even remember.”
“You should have given me a kick. I didn’t know you were up.”
“It’s not just the baby. It’s also…” Jane paused. Said, quietly: “It’s the dreams.”
He pulled a chair close to hers and sat down. “What dreams are you talking about?”
“The same one over and over. About that night, in the hospital. In my dream, I know something terrible has happened, but I can’t move, I can’t talk. I can feel blood on my face, I can taste it. And I’m so scared that…” She took a deep breath. “I’m scared to death that it’s your blood.”
“It’s only been three days, Jane. You’re still processing what happened.”
“I just want it to go away.”
“You need time to get past the nightmares.” He added, quietly: “We both do.”
She looked up at his tired eyes, his unshaven face. “You’re having them, too?”
He nodded. “Aftershocks.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“It would be surprising if we weren’t having nightmares.”
“What are yours about?”
“You. The baby…” He stopped, and his gaze slid away. “It’s not something I really want to talk about.”
They were silent for a moment, neither one looking at the other. A few feet away, their daughter slept soundly in her crib, the only one in the family untroubled by nightmares. This is what love does to you, Jane thought. It makes you afraid, not brave. It gives the world carnivorous teeth that are poised at any moment to rip away chunks of your life.
Gabriel reached out and took both her hands in his. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Let’s go back to bed.”
They turned off the light in the nursery and slipped into the shadows of their own bedroom. Under cool sheets he held her. Darkness lightened to gray outside their window, and the sounds of dawn drifted in. To a city girl, the roar of a garbage truck, the thump of car radios, were as familiar as a lullaby. As Boston roused itself to meet the day, Jane finally slept.
She awakened to the sound of singing. For a moment she wondered if this was yet another dream, but a far happier one, knit from long-ago memories of her childhood. She opened her eyes to see sunlight winking through the blinds. It was already two in the afternoon, and Gabriel was gone.
She rolled out of bed and shuffled barefoot into the kitchen. There she stopped, blinking at the unexpected sight of her mother, Angela, seated at the breakfast table, the baby in her arms. Angela looked up at her befuddled daughter.
“Two bottles already. This one sure knows how to eat.”
“Mom. You’re here.”
“Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”
“When did you get here?”
“A few hours ago. Gabriel said you needed to sleep in.”
Jane gave a bewildered laugh. “He called you?”
“Who else is he supposed to call? You have another mother somewhere?”
“No, I’m just…” Jane sank into a chair and rubbed her eyes. “I’m not quite awake yet. Where is he?”
“He left a little while ago. Got a call from that Detective Moore and rushed off.”
“What was the call about?”
“I don’t know. Some police business. There’s fresh coffee there. And you should wash your hair. You look like a cave woman. When did you eat last?”
“Dinner, I guess. Gabriel brought home Chinese.”
“Chinese? Well, that doesn’t last long. Make yourself breakfast, have some coffee. I’ve got everything under control here.”
Yeah, Mom. You always did.
Jane didn’t rise from the chair, but just sat for a moment, watching Angela hold her wide-eyed granddaughter. Saw the baby’s tiny hands reach up to explore Angela’s smiling face.
“How did you do it, Mom?” Jane asked.
“Just feed her. Sing to her. She likes attention is all.”
“No, I meant how did you raise three of us? I never realized how hard it must’ve been, having three kids in five years.” She added, with a laugh: “Especially since one of us was Frankie.”
“Ha! Your brother wasn’t the hard one. You were.”
“Me?”
“Crying all the time. Woke up every three hours. With you, there was no such thing as sleeping like a baby. Frankie was still crawling around in diapers, and I was up all night walking you back and forth. Got no help from your father. You’re lucky, at least Gabriel, he tries to do his part. But your dad?” Angela snorted. “Said the smell of diapers made him gag, so he wouldn’t do it. Like I had a choice. He runs off to work every morning, and there I was with you two, and Mikey on the way. Frankie with his little hands in everything. And you crying your head off.”