The Eve Tree: A Novel by Rachel Devenish Ford

Author:Rachel Devenish Ford [Ford, Rachel Devenish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Small Seed Press
Published: 2011-05-26T04:00:00+00:00

The air outside felt metallic, the sky was almost white. The heat of the gravel traveled up through her sandals. Sam padded along beside her. She raised one hand to her eyes to shade them, to see if the truck and trailer were still at the barn. They weren’t. Jack must be taking another load of goats up. She climbed the short hill to get to the barn.

She could hear the bleating almost as soon as her nose was level with the barn.

“Sam, stay,” she said, not wanting to make the kid any more upset. The tiny kid was curled in one corner of the pen, crying out for the milk he was entitled to, while his mother stood imperviously under a tree, thirty feet away. She looked up at Molly as if to say, “What?”

“Oh, Peony,” Molly said.

The look on Peony’s face was comical. It wasn’t uncommon for Molly to have to help the first-time moms out. Taking care of their kids didn't always come naturally. Some of them got it right away, others needed more help. Kind of like people, Molly thought, letting herself into the pen. She clicked her tongue disapprovingly at Peony.

Molly was one of the ones who didn’t get it naturally. As a new mother she was awkward, all thumbs, confused. There were the first days of Todd squalling, the way he thrust his head at her breast angrily, only to choke on the milk when it came too quickly, making him scream again, his mouth a red angry circle. Half the time Molly was weeping too, both of them anxious and raw. They were sleepless at night, though Todd was like a kitten during the day, sleeping anywhere and everywhere. Molly tried to be normal, waking when it was light and pouring herself orange juice in a tall glass before saying, “What the hell,” and drinking straight from the cardboard carton. She’d send Jack out as an emissary, nothing on the grocery list except orange juice and nipple salve. It was hell, not a time she liked to remember, not in the least resembling the dreamy stories of new babies she heard from other moms, their circles of Madonnas with child, all rosy and happy.

There was nothing intuitive about it. Her breasts became evil stranger sisters, rock hard and unwilling to let milk down, making her cry in the night, so sore, every part of her hurting. She regularly woke up swimming in a pool of milk that had come when nobody needed it, when they were both finally sleeping. Nursing Todd felt like wrestling a beaver. He was never happy with the hold he had on her, pulling away to gulp at the air while milk streamed from her breast like a geyser, forming beads in his eyebrows and scant hair, getting in his eyes which made him blink and stop crying for a moment before continuing to scream himself red.

It was the worst when Jack hovered over the bed, helpless and slightly amused.

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