Leigh: Ok cool. Do I sound too desperate if I suggest tomorrow?
Gwen’s fingers were vibrating as she tapped back:
Let’s do it!
Leigh quickly sent along her address, which was in Capitol Hill, the neighborhood southwest from theirs in Madison Park. It was one of the hipper Seattle neighborhoods—lots of bars and nightclubs.
When Gwen finally put down her phone, satisfied with the plan for the next day, she saw that Jeff had already finished his food.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay. Really.”
June started to squeal in her swing, and Gwen reached to get her.
“I’ll get her. You eat,” Jeff said, standing from his seat.
He lifted her out of the swing, then resumed his seat with June in his lap. She clasped his ring finger with both of her tiny hands, sucked on the gold wedding band.
Gwen took fast bites. She’d grown accustomed to shoveling calories into her face, knowing she needed them for her body to continue to make milk and feed their child. Savoring had become a foreign concept.
“You can take your time,” Jeff said. “I’ve got her.”
But Gwen was already almost done. She took her last two bites and then brought her plate and Jeff’s plate to the sink.
“I can do the dishes. Just sit. Relax.”
She sat but felt uneasy with nothing to do. Was this what life had been like before? She just ...sat? She honestly could not remember.
Jeff placed June on her play mat on the kitchen floor and went about clearing the table. She watched him at the sink, scrubbing the dishes by hand. That was always his preference. He said he found the warm water soothing. She was a rinse-and-throw-it-in-the-dishwasher type of person, trusting the appliance to sanitize better than she ever could.
She thought of Angeni Luna right then, wondered if she owned appliances. It seemed like she would be opposed to them, though Gwen couldn’t think of a logical reason why. Probably something about how machines made it impossible for us to go at the slower pace we were intended to go, how they contributed to our culture’s sense of urgency, prioritizing efficiency over all else.
Gwen picked up her phone and mindlessly tapped to Instagram, to Angeni Luna’s profile. The little ring around her profile photo—a photo of her and her daughter touching noses—was lit up, indicating a new story was available.
Ask me anything
Have you struggled at all with breastfeeding? I’m 3 weeks in and want to quit :(
Whenever women tell me they struggle with breastfeeding, my first question is if they had unnecessary medical interventions during labor, as that can disrupt the natural bond between mother and child and get breastfeeding off to a difficult start. If that was the case with you, give yourself grace as you recover and know that it may be harder at the start, but totally worth it. There is nothing more beautiful than breastfeeding, in my opinion. How amazing that our bodies make exactly what our babies need to thrive.
It was a little before eight. June wasn’t whining to be fed, but Gwen suddenly felt like she had to feed her. Sometimes, she needed it morethan June did, for the rush of accomplishment, for the reassurance that she was succeeding.
“I think I’ll go feed June,” she said.
Jeff was still at the sink. He looked over his shoulders, arms wet up to his elbows.
“Okay,” he said.
She picked up June from the play mat, took her into the guest room, the room they shared at night. Usually, this would be her last feed before they attempted something like turning in for the night. There was never a clear break, though. June woke up every two hours, regardless of the time of day. She didn’t yet understand that the purpose of the night was to sleep.
Gwen changed June into a fresh diaper and stuffed the soiled one into the special trash can someone had purchased for them for just this purpose. It was especially adept at masking odors. It was presently overfull, and Gwen knew it would weigh about twenty pounds when she finally pulled it out—a long snake of yellow plastic filled with her daughter’s pee and shit. She made a mental note to ask Jeff to take it out. They had talked about that in the support group—delegating. Apparently, many new moms were “gatekeepers,” placing themselves in charge of all the tasks because they did not trust anyone else to do them correctly, which then led to others being actually unable to do them since they’d been out of the loop so long. The eventual burnout was, essentially, the mother’s fault.
Once she had June in her pajamas, she settled them into bed together and put June on her right breast. June closed her eyes and immediately went to work as Gwen felt the familiar tingle of the milk letting down. Angeni Luna was right—breastfeeding was rather incredible, at least after it stopped being so torturous.
June fed for about twenty minutes while Gwen stared at the ceiling, eventually closing her own eyes. At this point, she would usually let herself doze off. June was most likely to have her longest stretch of sleep at this time—three hours, max, but it was something.
But then Gwen heard Jeff in the kitchen. She saw the light under the guest room door go dark. He’d turned out the hallway light and was walking to their master bedroom, a room she hadn’t slept in since the night before going on that stupid run that changed everything.
