Just how many deaths were there? How many people were sending threatening letters, seeking vengeance?
Aurora shook her head. “No, never.”
Aurora folded the paper in half, then in half again, and stuck it in the waistband of her skirt.
“I need to talk to Angeni about this,” she said.
Sasha couldn’t make out her expression. She looked concerned, but also afraid.
“It must have really upset her,” Sasha said.
Aurora was looking out the front window, her eyes still, unblinking.
“I need to talk to her,” she said again, “when she’s well.”
She inhaled deeply through her nose and then turned abruptly and left.
In multiple Instagram posts, Angeni had talked about “the wonders of breastfeeding” and her respect for it as a natural, on-demand process—the baby expressed hunger, and the mother’s body made exactly the right amount of milk. She explained to her followers that this was why she didn’t believe in pumping. Sasha didn’t know much of anything about breastfeeding or pumping but became quickly aware, upon perusing Angeni’s Instagram page, that this was quite the controversial topic.
I’m like you. Can’t bring myself to pump. Makes me feel like a machine and also like I’m tricking my body into letting down milk. I feed on demand, that’s it.
Ummm, some of us need to pump because we aren’t, like, attached to our babies every second of the day and we have shit we have to do ...???
This “I don’t even pump” thing is a weird flex. What’s wrong with pumping? It’s still breast milk.
Angeni tried to explain in follow-up posts that “our ancestors didn’t pump” and that she wanted to respect the rhythms of her baby and her body, without disruption from a tool or machine. Some people praised this and said that they were in agreement about keeping the process as “spontaneous and instinctive” as possible. Others acted as if Angeni had declared the earth was flat.
It shocked Sasha, the emotionality of these women. It was a fascinating competition in virtuousness. Sasha couldn’t care less what Angeni, or any mother, did with her boobs or the magical milk that came from them. Weren’t there more important things to worry about?
All this to say that when Angeni left for the hospital, there was no breast milk on the premises.
“Erik says they want to keep her there overnight,” Aurora said.
Freya was getting fussy, and Sasha was walking a figure eight around the living room and kitchen, trying to get her to settle. She knew she wouldn’t settle, though. She was hungry.
“Okay, well, Freya needs to eat,” Sasha said. “And some bites of chicken liver aren’t going to cut it.”
She wasn’t sure if she should mention that she had a case of formula in her room, hidden in her closet. She knew Aurora would raise an eyebrow at this. To these people, having formula in the house was akin to having narcotic drugs. She couldn’t even imagine Angeni’s reaction if she knew that Sasha had already given Freya a bottle of formula, which was why Freya hadn’t been hungry for her mother’s milk. She’d only done it the one time, as a kind of experiment, just to see. She felt surprisingly guilty about the whole thing, had promised herself she wouldn’t do it again.
Aurora bit on her thumbnail. “Should I see if we can bring Freya to Angeni?”
Sasha rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of the situation and decided it was about time to introduce some common sense.
“Can’t we just give her formula? For this one day?”
Aurora, still gnawing on her nail, looked up from her phone. Predictably, she looked terror stricken.
“Angeni won’t like that,” she said.
Her allegiance to Angeni was both admirable and annoying.
“I know she won’t,” Sasha said. “But I think these are, like, extenuating circumstances.”
Aurora started pacing the kitchen.
“I should ask Erik,” she said, starting to type.
“Do we need to bother him with that?” Sasha said.
