Read Online The Crooked Branch by Jeanine Cummins - Free Book Online Page A

prepared for this.
    “She’s only three weeks old,” I say. “You weren’t even supposed to go back to work until she was one month, that’s what we agreed. You have such a good team there now. You need to trust them more.”
    “But I have an even better team at home,” Leo says. “You guys are doing great!”
    Great? The sensitive, articulate, successful man I married . . . is he stupid? We’re doing
great
?
    “It’s only a few hours, honey. We just can’t take any risks with the restaurant now that you’re not working.”
    If he says the words “now that you’re not working” one more time, I swear I am going to walk into traffic.
    “Okay?” he says.
    I have to hang up the phone. I don’t want to become a woman who hangs up on her husband, but there are lots of things I didn’t want to become. I’ll just add this to the list. Because I can’t answer him. I literally can’t speak. I press
end call
. I will give myself a few minutes and then phone him back. I will tell him I lost the signal, or maybe even the truth, that I momentarily lost my voice. The phone rings immediately and I send the call to voice mail. I concentrate on deep breathing and walk to the end of the block. It’s a windy day, and in the graveyard across the street, the oak trees are scattering the season’s first leaves among the headstones. My neck is sweating. My armpits are sweating. Emma is making a face that means she might soon begin to cry.
    I bend into her stroller and tickle her cheek with my hair, because even a mama in crisis comforts her baby. That’s the minimum, automatic human response. Emma’s arms flail out and then she snuggles in. She is fuzzy and smells like pie, but she cries. A lot. And mostly, I still feel like that doctor just sliced me open yesterday, like I might physically split in half with one wrong twist or a significant hiccup.
    At first, Leo was enormously supportive. Our second night home from the hospital, I needed his help in the shower. I felt helpless, mortified. But he opened the shower curtain brandishing a razor, and asked, “What do you need me to shave?” And the two of us laughed so hard I thought my stitches would spring loose and I would bleed out in the tub. But now his patience is beginning to run short, and yesterday, when I told him my incision was throbbing, he asked when it would stop being an incision and start being a scar.
    “When I can throw sharp, heavy objects at your head without wincing,” I answered.
    The phone rings again, and I retrieve it from the stroller’s cup holder.
    “Sorry,” I say evenly. “Bad signal.”
    “Do you need me to come home?” Leo asks.
    “No, no, we’ll be fine. It’s just a couple of hours, right?”
    “Yeah, hey,” he says. “You know, I really love you, Jelly. You’re doing great.” Like if he repeats it often enough, he can make it be true.
I’m doing great.
I look down at Emma staring up at me, sucking on her fist. I bounce the handle of the stroller lightly—this is what I’ve learned from three weeks of motherhood. Constant motion is paramount.
    “I know,” I say. “We love you, too.”
    •   •   •
    The market feels almost familiar. My panic ebbs. I am like a regular human, walking the aisles with my human baby, browsing and purchasing foods to cook and eat. Normal. In my previous life, I was a food writer—that’s how Leo and I met. I went to his restaurant one day, and he seduced me with wild mushroom risotto. Food was the foundation of our universe. Before we had the baby, we could spend a whole day together—roasting, sautéing, chopping, boiling, reducing. There was something incredibly sexy about that, like tantric cooking. Now we eat ramen, and if Leo thinks to throw a piece of ham up in there for me, I weep with gratitude.
    Emma has drifted off in her car seat, so I’m able to take my time at the butcher counter, selecting the veal chops. I’m going to cook anyway, just for something to do.