Read Online Milk by Emily Hammond - Free Book Online Page A

the little girls in makeup made to look like they aren’t wearing any, the confusion and chaos, babies pooping at critical moments. Stage mothers. The hot white lights and the backdrops, the occasional lamb or puppy brought in as a prop, and the sounds: big voices instructing little people, big voices trying not to yell, little voices whimpering so as not to burst into tears. While I spoke, I tried very hard not to get lost in Gregg’s face and eyes. His eyebrows, though, have always gotten to me the most, arched and quizzical, as though he’s engaged in solving an endless sexual riddle. In comparison, Jackson’s face is grainy, dry, lined, what people called rugged. It wasn’t always so. Too many years at Stonewall Creek, he would say, sun, wind, erosion. I know: it’s happening to my face too.
    â€œGregg, so what about after your engagement?” I’d had to do that periodically through the night, prompt him. Was he hard of hearing from playing too many clubs, or merely preoccupied?
    â€œSince my engagement,” Gregg said. “Not much, some dates here and there. It’s been pretty lonely.” He fitted his arms around my waist. “You’re free now, Theo.”
    â€œNot quite.” I left it at that. My belly gurgled, as if to underscore the point.
    So much for the saltines. My eyes run. I fight the heaves, the gagging. No one played war better than me click-click when I was a child. On my belly in the dirt, toy rifle in my hands , click-click, click-click, a war, somebody wants me dead . I kneel before the toilet, lift the seat; I haven’t vomited in years. Over and over again goes my made-up nursery rhyme: No one played war better than me click-click, a not-unfamiliar sensation of my head being pushed down toward the toilet bowl by an unseen hand.…
    My mother. I remember what today is: the anniversary of her death, her suicide. The day I dread each year because I feel so keenly the echo of her suicide, a small death inside myself, as though every year a portion of me turns black and dies—a finger, a toe, part of an arm or leg.
    But it’s time to think differently now. The baby, if there is a baby, is counting on me, as I once counted on her . I need to see a doctor.
    Dr. Grimes is a man’s man. Solid mass in a white coat, hairy hands, with a style that’s meant to inspire men onward in battle. Dr. Grimes—what an appalling name for an obstetrician; maybe it keeps patients away. In any case he is able to fit me into his schedule today, whereas the wait at every other doctor’s office is weeks.
    I’m swathed in white sheets. A nurse stands at attention.
    On go the rubber gloves, snap!
    His fingers up me, I try to get away—as much as one can when one’s feet are in stirrups.
    â€œSettle down, now, settle down.” He softens his manner, like a dairy farmer soothing a cow, fingers twisting this way and that. “Hold on there, no reason to jump off the table.”
    He withdraws his fingers, tears off the gloves, palpates my abdomen as though searching for lumps in a pillow.
    â€œOw!”
    â€œKnow what, missy?”
    â€œWhat,” I say wearily.
    â€œAs your urine test indicates, I’d say there’s a bun in the oven.”
    â€œReally? You can feel it?” So he speaks in clichés. So what? I forgive everything. “How far along am I?”
    â€œEight weeks or so. Of course, we’d have to do an ultrasound to be exact. No need for that—you seem healthy and strapping.” Back to cow talk.
    I’m allowed to sit up.
    â€œWhen’s my due date?” Due date: that such words even refer to me, to a baby …
    â€œLate September.” Dr. Grimes checks a round sort of calendar with a dial on it. “How’s the twenty-fifth suit you?”
    â€œThat’d be fine. Great!” As if the date is for brunch, a social engagement.
    â€œSee you in a month, Mrs.