Etched on Me Page 24

  “Shush. Let her rest.” Curran, gently scooting her out of the way.

  Jascha lay me down in the middle of his and Gloria’s bed, and she and Imogen crawled in next to me, one on either side. Their hands soft on my lank hair. Their cool arms draped round my sweaty waist.

  “Manky,” I mumbled. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I’m going to bleed through your sheets.”

  “We’ve got extras, honey.”

  “Poison milk. They thought I had—”

  “Arseholes. You have rockstar milk.”

  “I love you, Im.”

  “I love you, too. Now sleep.”

  • • •

  An hour later, I jerked awake. Phantom pain. Frantic flail. “Where is she? Where?”

  “Shh.”

  “Oh my God.” Keening moan. “Oh my God.”

  The third time, Jascha came in with a glass of water and a Valium tablet.

  “No. It’ll hurt her.” We could nurse at our next contact session. Maybe. If I stayed a good girl.

  “Dr. P. says it’s fine.”

  Well, then.

  Swig. Candyfloss-spin. Fall.

  • • •

  Morning. Slits of sun through the drapes. How dare it.

  The scent of eggs wafted from the kitchen. I’d have retched, if my guts weren’t so worn.

  Slow sit-up. Empty bed. Clean sheets.

  I pressed the puckery mush of my deflated belly with my fingers.

  Crazy little girl. Just imagining things.

  My breasts felt hard as sandbags. Russian-game-show-hostess worthy.

  I yawned and rubbed my eyes.

  And then: another heat rush, another moist cascade-plunge.

  I looked down at my shirt. Two giant circles of useless milk.

  It’s a lost cause, Smack-Talker Brain sighed.

  Fuck off.

  No, really. You know she’s slurping down a bottle of formula in the arms of her loving foster mum right this minute. Having a swaddled, cuddly walk in the garden. Being rocked to sleep next to a lace-curtained window, snug as a bug. Tell me I’m not right.

  You’re a lying sack of shit.

  I crawled off the bed. Stumbled towards the shower.

  Medicine cabinet mirror gave me a gleaming wink. The haggard face in the glass crumpled.

  Don’t cry. It’s better this way.

  How can you even—

  She won’t mourn. She’ll never remember.

  You don’t know that.

  Let it go. Like breath.

  No.

  What? You don’t want to sink into that warm water egg-bath?

  Yeah, but—

  Purple buds floating. Your tongue on Clare’s chipped tooth. Dark hair, made darker.

  I said no.

  Her mouth. It’ll drain all that sadness.

  Oh my God please.

  Lavender milk.

  Help me.

  You know what to do, Lesley-lovely.

  I opened the cabinet. Reached for the aspirin bottle. Wrenched its top open, and stared inside.

  Forty? Maybe?

  Beggars can’t be—

  Plasticky bounce. Rain-spray of tablets, all over the tile.

  Sputtering, I knelt fast (whoa! I could do that now!) to gather them in my palm.

  That’s it. No need to prolong the agony.

  I pictured myself silent and shamed, sat down meekly before some family court wanker in a white wig, held captive to his diatribes as he reduced our mother-child bond to mere “letterbox contact.” I saw myself praying for a Christmas card, a birthday wish, a single photo in a humble sleeve, anything, oh just a crumb, please. I imagined her becoming a Mulberry-pursed Mallorca girl with a pony and diamond-stud earrings.

  No. A pensive, thoughtful creature, equal parts Victorian storybook and diffident anti-cool, sporting Doc Martens and hair gathered up in a graceful topknot. Wondering, asking, What’s my birth mum up to now?

  And then fuming, hurt-wracked, breathy with shock: You mean she just killed herself? Didn’t fight for me? Didn’t even try? Stomping up the stairs of her family’s maisonette, shaking her head, willing herself not to cry, not to tremble. God. Screw her.

  I willed myself not to cry. I willed myself not to tremble. Tightened the cap on the bottle of pills. Pulled myself up by the sink edge and set them back in the medicine cabinet, dusty but intact. Put on Gloria’s garnet-colored silk robe and went downstairs into my family’s cocooning embrace. Got online to research breast pumps. Rang Bradford Kamen and told him, “Be ruthless. I’m ready.”

  25

  Six Months Later

  Half a year old now, she is. Got so big, so fast, like a baby Buddha, rolling around on the floor, reaching for things. I bought her this toy that’s like a model of a DNA molecule, pastel rainbow of colors that tumbles about the floor when she shoves it and rattles when she gives it a shake. Her eyes crinkling, her mouth opening in surprise, her little bum in the air as she lurches after it, loud, stubborn, squealy.

  My man Bradford pushed for contact five days a week, but we had to settle for three. They’re still letting me nurse, as long as I consent to drug tests. Which of course I do. Back in retriever mode, punctuated by the occasional grovel. Pretty please, can we do a visit at a park? Bask in the rare summer sun?

  “Contact at our offices only, as per the order.”

  Right. Sure. You need to schedule us for a weekday midafternoon? Absolutely. Not an inconvenience. Whatever you think is best. Whatever it takes to make sure I can savor her while I still have time.

  Thank God my new manager lets me nip out early, or else I’d never see my girl. Thanks to one of Dr. P.’s colleagues, I work for a mental health charity as a service user consultant now, advising Accident and Emergency nurses and university counseling services and GPs on how not to be arseholes when treating people who self-harm. (Yes, the irony boggles.)

  At night, I hook the girls up to my pump for one last milking and lie down with my new talisman: a matrioshka doll Vera gave me, the itty-bittiest baby in the painted-wood bunch. My hand closed tight round it, all through my broken sleep.

  I hate to say this, but I just want to be done.

  • • •

  The morning of our final hearing, I wear a silk blouse and the first skirt I’ve bought in years. Not only do I want to look tidy for court, but I also have to give a presentation for work beforehand, to a bunch of burnt-out psychiatrists whose energy has been sapped by treating “those bloody borderlines.” (They don’t use the phrase out loud, of course, but I can see the judgment in their exhausted eyes.)

  “What’s most important,” I tell them, “is that you convey to your patients that they aren’t fundamentally flawed. That there is hope for their lives in the face of their seemingly unbearable pain.”

  After the shrinks thank me for my time, I run down the hall and lock myself in the ladies’ room and press one palm to my mouth while pounding the other against the toilet stall’s divider, because it feels as though what used to be the buoyant, healing truth has turned into a superficial platitude that, if the rest of this day goes badly, will become a complete and utter lie.

  I hurry across the road to Pret with my hand still smarting. Listlessly force down a few bites of a ham-and-Gruyère baguette while scrawling on a legal pad. Every five seconds, I get a good-luck text from somebody on my mobile. I know they’re trying to rally me, but I can’t bear the thought of my right to motherhood boiling down to nothing more than capricious luck.

  On my way to chuck my barely eaten sandwich in the bin, I bump into a woman who looks about my own mum’s age. She gives me a small, wry smile, and gestures towards the front of my shirt, which bears an inkblot of leaked milk. “Never fails to let down on your lunch break, does it?”

  My face goes hot. I start to blink. “Nope.”

  “It gets easier,” she says. “Leaving them.”

  The entire tube ride back to Islington, I bury my face in m
y upstretched arm that clutches the ceiling rail so no one will see my tears.

  • • •

  At the entrance to the social services office, I wipe my eyes with my index fingers, hard. Breathe deep, blow it out. The last thing she needs to see, on what may be our last visit, is my shaky, scattered fear.

  I go inside and plunk my messenger bag on the reception desk so the security guard can search it for blades and pill bottles. I should be offended, but honestly I’m just relieved I’m not required to drop my knickers.

  He rifles through the mishmash: a copy of The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, the legal pad, my headphones, random bits and bobs from my breast pump. “All clear.”

  Not yet, I think, and heft the bag back onto my shoulder, pulling out my mobile to check the time.

  Five past one. Shit. Five whole precious minutes lost.

  I break into a run down the hall. Nearly against the door marked PARENTING ASSESSMENT CENTRE. Step back, and give what I hope sounds like a not-too-desperate knock.

  I never know which social worker I’m going to get as my chaperone. Lots of times they send nervous trainees not much older than I am, which strikes me as incredibly stupid. I mean, if I’m such a danger, wouldn’t they break out the big supervisory guns? At least the trainees are women, though. Couple times I’ve gotten a more senior male worker, which is beyond awkward when I need to take my bra down to nurse.

  The door opens now, and I silently curse my old complaints, and just about fall over in sickened disbelief, because the worker du jour, on the most fraught day ever, is none other than their biggest gun. Olivia.

  Bad sign, Smack-Talker Brain warns. More than bad. Ominous.

  “Hi,” I force out. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Idiot. You shouldn’t have mentioned it. They’ll call you “maternally disengaged.” Too busy slashing your arms up to show up.

  “It’s all right,” Olivia says quietly. “She just got dropped off.”

  I’ve never met my daughter’s foster mum. But I have to give her props, whomever she is, because one day Squidlet came in wearing the fuchsia Doc Martens Jascha bought her.

  I edge past Olivia and sprint across the industrial carpet to where my girlie lies playing with her DNA molecule. Soon as I drop to my knees in front of her, her eyes widen and her breath huffs with excitement.

  “Come here, you.” I hoist her into my lap, standing her up so she can bounce.

  She grabs my hair in both hands. Her drooly mouth grins.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say, grinning back. “Wednesday afternoon is the best, innit?”

  By some miracle, I manage to keep my voice bright. And to her credit, Olivia manages to refrain from awkward small talk or, even worse, Big Talk about what she and I both know is coming up at half past three.

  Instead, what she says is, “I figured you mightn’t have had time for lunch today, so I brought you these.” And then she gestures towards a vending-machine soda and packet of crisps on the sofa table, and my throat feels like it might burst from the lump swelling inside it.

  “Thanks,” I say, nonchalantly as humanly possible, and reach over for the drink.

  Squidlet plops into my lap and commences batting at the can, trying to pull its tab before I do.

  “No, no, no,” I say, laughing. “You don’t need this, trust me.”

  I take a deep swallow, then pass the soda back to Olivia. As I settle my spine against the bottom of the nearby couch, she hands me a pillow to soften the hard lean. “Thanks,” I say, more softly, less nonchalantly, this time.

  Squidlet pats my blouse, her palm mashing into the dried milk stain. Her lips purse to let out a low hoot of anticipation.

  I glance pointedly at Olivia. “My latest test came back clean.”

  She nods. “I know.”

  Of course she does. I unbutton my shirt just enough, and as if on cue, Squidlet rolls onto her side and dives in, her latched-on mouth powerful yet whispery. I’d been afraid nursing would feel creepy, but just as with her uterine gymnastics, the sensation was surprisingly tender and lovely when it came.

  I watch her tiny jaws work and listen to the adorable yep sound of her swallows. She wriggles round at first, one leg kicking rhythmically against the couch leg, one hand twiddling my blouse buttons as the milk plummets, all reverent relief. At least I’m giving her something unequivocally good and pure.

  Eventually her eyelids close, and her little feet tuck against my belly, and her gulps fade to sighs. My head nods in its own drowse. The rush of hormones always makes me feel a little spacey. Not in a bad way, not like ditching this world for the ceiling, just a yummy doze I could curl up inside forever.

  I tip my head back. Shut my eyes. Can’t look at the clock. Can’t even look at her little face, much as I want to memorize it. So I just hold her near till she unlatches and I feel the satiated slump of her chin.

  My eyes flicker back open. I sit up, suddenly self-conscious at being so exposed in front of Olivia, and scramble to hoist my slumbering girl onto my shoulder so it doesn’t look like I’m suffocating her while covering myself up.

  Olivia’s gaze on us stays steady, imbued with a softness I want to deride as pity, but have to admit looks more like compassion.

  “That can’t be comfortable down there,” she says. “Why don’t you hop up on the couch, and I’ll fetch you two a blanket?”

  Give her the brush-off. She’s only being this nice because it’s your final visit.

  Shut up. You don’t know that.

  “Yes, please.” I heave myself up from the floor, guarding the baby’s head while my teeth grit at my back’s wince, and settle into a corner of the couch, my whole body gratefully sinking. It’s not a leather marshmallow like the one in the Victims’ Services suite years ago, but it’ll do.

  With her back turned to me, Olivia goes over to a cupboard and opens it to reveal shelves stocked with nappies and formula cans and bins of small toys. As I watch her search the stacks of linens, I’m seized by a pair of shocking thoughts: Is she giving me an out? Could we make a run for it?

  No, Wise Mind warns. That won’t help anyone.

  “Here you are.” She returns with a fringed pastel throw that looks like the one Mum used to keep folded across the back of our old couch.

  I try to reach for the blanket, but it’s too hard to grab and tuck around me while holding so much snoozing dead weight, so Olivia drapes it lightly over both of us. I slide my feet up onto the couch and nestle on my side.

  The clock above the door reads 1:35.

  I press my cheek to the top of my daughter’s pale, wispy head. Whisper her name to her, over and over. Not her pregnancy nickname, not her courtroom pseudonym, but the true, full name I’ve given her, the one on her birth certificate, the one that her potential parents will be able to change soon as the adoption decree’s ink dries.

  Lulled by the mantra, I drift back into oxytocin drunkenness, its pull irresistible. I tuck the blanket tighter around us, like I did in the hospital right after I’d devoured my cheeseburger, right before Olivia marched in with the judgment that said she could take her from me.

  My gaze flits up to the clock. 1:46.

  Fourteen minutes of fame left, laughs Smack-Talker Brain.

  I think of my brave-as-fuck teenage self, pretending she was Flavor Flav just before the satellite eye clicked on at my dad’s trial. I catch Olivia’s eye, which blinks with equal parts solemnity and surveillance.

  “Tell me when it’s time,” I tell her.

  Downy fuzz, faint snores. My hand the maternal one beneath the makeshift duvet now, stroking the curve of her cheek. My mouth nuzzling her temple. The drift like an undertow.

  When I slide out of it, Olivia doesn’t have to inform me. My body knows what the clock reads. 1:59.

  I sit up slowly, one hand on Squidlet’s back, the other cupping her skull. Olivia stands midway between the couch and the door.

  “I don’t want to wake her up,” I say. “Can I just
lay her back down, or do I have to . . .” My words trail off as I picture the official handover.

  “No, no, that’s quite all right.”

  “I mean, I don’t think she’ll roll off or anything.”

  “She’ll be fine, Lesley.”

  God, I hope so.

  2:00. I ache to prolong this as long as I can, to push every mandated boundary, but I know that if I do, I’ll be late to court.

  So I set her down, and kiss her on the forehead, and smooth her blanket, and whisper, “Bye, darlin’,” like I’m just popping back to work for a few hours and we’ll be reunited by suppertime, playing it casual, not only because otherwise I’ll break but also because I have to believe that that’s exactly what will happen.

  On my way out, I pluck the soda and the bag of crisps from the table. Ersatz supper tray for a sick little girl.

  Olivia now stands sentry at the door. I wonder what she’ll do after she closes it behind me. Slump to the floor? Ugly cry like Mum in that meeting room? Pick up my fretful daughter when she wakes and whisper, “Shh, there, there, we won’t have to worry about her anymore, will we?”

  However she reacts, it won’t matter. What will matter is how I do.

  “Take care of yourself, Lesley,” she says softly. “Please.”

  Emotion Mind’s ready to shoot back with a jacked-up Quit underestimating me, bitch!, but I rein it in, and nod, and promise. “I will.”

  • • •

  In the corridor, I swig from the soda like I’m still that famished teenager, gulping the chemical syrup as though it’s a flipping Valium cocktail. I left my Dr. P.–approved emergency stash at home. Still wanting to prove myself.

  My hands shake so badly the drink slops down my shirt. I glimpse the glint of the tab’s metal, picture it torn from the can to produce a jagged edge.

  Smack-Talker Brain thinks that’s an excellent start. I tell it fuck no, and rush home to grab a clean blouse and the Valium.

  • • •

  It’s already started to kick in by the time I meet Gloria and Jascha in the corridor outside my assigned courtroom. When they beckon me over, I huddle in the space between them.

  Jascha rubs my shoulder. “Immi’s on her way.”

  Gloria takes my opposite hand. “You all right?”