Godmother Night by Rachel Pollack

Godmother Night by Rachel Pollack

Author:Rachel Pollack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-27T16:00:00+00:00


Five

The Baby on the Bridge

Laurie discovered she could hear Kate crying even after she’d stopped. She discovered this in the shower one day, where she’d gone in hopes the sound would drown out the baby. But Kate’s shrieking sliced through the torrent of water. Laurie thought of turning the hot water high enough to scald herself so she would have an excuse to scream even louder than Kate. Only when dizziness forced her to turn off the water did she discover that the baby had stopped crying, probably had stopped minutes ago.

Laurie stood there, dripping, with her arms out slightly as if to let the water run off, and she thought, I’m going to hear this forever. Some switch in her head had been thrown, and now, at parties, in the bookstore, on the subway, she would hear that high pulse of rage, or pain, or just power, throbbing and throbbing in her head.

If only she could do something. Drying herself off, she imagined someone kidnapping Jaqe and the baby, shutting them away in a dungeon deep in the mountain, so that Laurie would have to ride out and rescue them (after a decent night’s sleep). But she couldn’t do anything about the crying. Once, she’d even tried to offer the baby her breast. Jaqe was trying to sleep, and Laurie had held Kate while she clumsily undid her shirt. But after a minute or two of trying it out, Kate knew when someone was cheating her. She removed her mouth to yell for the real fountain of peace. With disgust stoked by exhaustion, Jaqe had gotten out of bed and pushed Laurie aside to grab hold of the baby.

It was worse for Jaqe; she too had tried to escape into the shower, only to find that the sound of her child not only penetrated the wall of water but also prodded her breasts to squirt milk. Laurie had heard a thump in the shower. She’d been rocking Kate in her arms, trying to quiet her so Jaqe could get washed, and maybe eat breakfast at the table, when she heard the noise. For a second she looked from the baby to the bathroom door, confused, before she set Kate down and ran to help Jaqe. She found her leaning back against the wall, her eyes squeezed shut and her hands against her forehead as streams of white arced across the shower stall to drown in the fall of clear water.

The only thing that worked at all, Jaqe found, was never putting the baby down. If Jaqe carried her everywhere—and it had to be Jaqe, Kate could tell the difference instantly if it was Laurie, or Mrs. Lang, whether from the feel of the arm, or the weight, or the pressure, or maybe, as Jaqe believed, the smell of the milk “brewing” in Jaqe’s breasts—if Jaqe carried her everywhere, then Kate just might stay quiet for more than a few minutes. And Jaqe had to hold her. Kate wouldn’t accept riding in a sling, even the kind that nestled her against Jaqe’s breasts.



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