Milk (9 page)

While Mary unsnapped the carrier, laid the sleepy baby on the examination table and took off his terry-cloth jumper, Dr. Lankwell came in and washed her hands at the sink. Mary was a few years younger than the doctor, a short chubby woman with curly hair and a gentle, reassuring manner.

“How’s the little fellow?” she asked, pressing her fingers into his stomach below the line of his diaper. His tiny rib cage was delineated and the baby sluggishly opened his eyes. His arms looked pitiful; the pink flesh hung slack on his small bones.

“Still sleepy,” Mary said as he turned his tiny anxious face toward her. She stroked his hair and rubbed the palm of his hand.

“How about eating?”

“He nurses some, but his heart is not in it.”

The doctor smiled. “That will change, believe me.” She
pressed the stethoscope to the baby’s chest. His face got red and he began to whine.

“Sounds good,” she said, lifting him to a sitting position and supporting his head with her hand loosely around his neck. She placed the stethoscope on his back, her features intent as she moved the disc of metal around on his skin.

“All clear,” she finally said. The doctor rotated the baby’s arms to make sure his reflexes were good. Her sure hands on the baby’s body comforted Mary. The doctor pushed the baby’s legs against his stomach gently but firmly with an expertise that made Mary feel her son was a substantial being, not ethereal and ephemeral but resiliently alive.

It wasn’t snowing as Mary walked down Henry Street toward the rectory, but it was supposed to snow again tonight. Dusk colored the snow bluish-purple and a bevy of raspberry clouds hung in the sky. The buildings were black, the bare trees were black, the cars moving in the distance were shiny black, all as black and well delineated as a construction paper silhouette against the pink sky. The baby shifted and turned his face up toward hers.
We’re not far now, just a couple more blocks
. Mary recited a few
lines of
Hop on Pop
and then as much as she could remember of “The Grand Old Duke of York.” The baby’s eyes widened; he was mesmerized by the shiny button on the collar of her coat.

She walked carefully over the salted sidewalk and mounted the rectory steps. At the top, she dug down into her diaper bag for the house keys. Through the window, she saw Walter seated at the dining room table reading. He had set out blue place mats, white plates and a glass pitcher of water. He’d taken his clerical collar off and rolled the sleeves of his black shirt up to the elbows.

Late in the night Mary heard the garbage truck tip up the recycling Dumpster and the sound of glass bottles shifting against one another. The baby began to cry. She sat up and took him onto her lap. Ever since he got home from the hospital all she wanted to do was look at him. She felt that pinchy tingle signaling her milk coming down, waited for him to open his lips wide and then placed her whole areola into his mouth.

Snowflakes fell into the triangle of street light as the garbage truck retreated and the street grew quiet. Mary knew when she saw the snowflakes, when she heard the
sound, as she did now, of snow brushing against glass, that it was a letter from the world of emptiness. She watched the baby’s cheek suck in and out. He fell into the rhythm completely and she admired him really, how he knew he deserved to be loved.

Many people have helped me. I am grateful to all of them. Among them are Rick Moody and Susan Wheeler; René Steinke, Natalie Standiford and Elizabeth Mitchell; Madison Bell and Jane Gelfman; Judy Hottensen and Morgan Entrekin; Sister Leslie and Tim Houlihan; my brothers, David and Jonathan Steinke; Miriam Cohen and Rebecca Brown; Douglas Martin and Michael Parker; Rob Sheffield and Marc Bojanowski; Deborah Marks at Dog and Pony Show. I am particularly indebted to Sarah Chalfant and Gillian Blake, and to the work and ideas of Thomas Merton. Many thanks for support to Michael Hudson and my daughter, Abbie Jones Hornburg.

Darcey Steinke is the author of three previous novels, two of which were
New York Times
Notable Books of the Year. Her novel
Suicide Blonde
has been translated into eight languages. Her short fiction has appeared in the
Literary Review, Story Magazine
and
Bomb
, and her nonfiction has been featured in the
Washington Post
, the
Chicago Tribune
, the
Village Voice, Spin
, and the
New York Times Magazine
. She currently teaches at New School University in New York City and lives with her daughter in Brooklyn.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Up Through the Water

Suicide Blonde

Jesus Saves

Copyright © 2005 by Darcey Steinke

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury Publishing, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Steinke, Darcey.
Milk / Darcey Steinke.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-58234-529-1 (hardcover)
1. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 2. Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. 3. Married women—Fiction. 4. Motherhood—Fiction. 5. Gay clergy—Fiction. 6. Loneliness—Fiction. 7. Ex-monks—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.T37924M55 2005
2004012761

First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2005
This e-book edition published in 2011

E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-645-8

www.bloomsburyusa.com