Authors: Emily Hammond

Milk (32 page)

The facilitator listened to the women's stories, all the while playing with her thin, limp hair, single strands of it, and I had the unnerving feeling that had we not been there she would have plucked the hair out, storing it under her seat for safekeeping.

Where were the normal ones, I kept wondering, the normal women who had experienced the word I still couldn't accept, much less say aloud? And who but me in this group had had this word enacted on them by their own mother? Normal I was not, not even by this group's standards. But I was alive, thriving for reasons I couldn't fathom: a husband by my side, milk staining my blouse, a baby daughter; life itself.

I stuck with therapy but joined another support group instead, La Leche for breastfeeding mothers. I loved their humdrum talk of cloth diapers and natural foods and homeopathy. I loved holding Gena in my arms and everybody in the room nursing.

All that milk would heal me.

The thirtieth anniversary of my mother's suicide and my daughter and I are dressing
.

“New tights?” Gena asks. “New shoes?”

New: her favorite word, her voice rising at the end, as though she can barely contain herself. New-
ooo
?

“New tights, new shoes,” I answer, helping her into them, then her dress.

“Not new dress,” she says.

“No, but new tights, new shoes.” Shoes and tights I got through my latest catalog, in fact. “Polka dot tights,” I add for emphasis.

Her eyes that look exactly like mine grow wide.
“Poke
a dot?”

I nod.

“New shoes?” Gena repeats, pointing to mine.

“Sort of.” Not wanting to disappoint her. I realize she wants us to match, the way all mothers and daughters should. When the daughter is two, that is.

She watches me intently as I gaze at my reflection in the mirror and I'm aware we're engaged in a ritual, though I know not where it comes fromâa ritual from before the time of mirrors.

“New earrings?” she says.

“Yes,” I say forcefully. “New.”

The thirtieth anniversary of my mother's suicide and we're nearly downstairs to greet our guests
, my daughter and I almost to the last step, slowly because she is small and we are holding hands, me in new earrings, Gena in her new shoes and polka dot tights, chapstick (to match my lipstick) smeared on her mouth and cheeks so that she smells like grape soda.

Tonight I feel my mother's presence, though she no longer kneels, no longer haunts my dreams. She waits at the end of a room, her face illuminated by moonlight, in her arms a child; I can't see her, but she's thereâshe's thereâ

With us now as our feet leave the step.

Acknowledgments

My gratitude to those friends who offered me a place to write, read drafts, inquired and generally listened to me fret for the ten years this novel was with me: Bitte and Kevin Colby, Leslie Johnson, Gary and Deanna Ludwin, Ann Miner, Susan Moore, Liza Nelligan, Antonya Nelson, Terrie Sandelin, Laura Swauger, Kathryn Symmes, my agent Kit Ward, as well as the writing community of Fort Collins, Colorado. Special thanks to Diana K. Maehlum.

To my brothers Joe and Jim, and to Aunt Nancy and Uncle Billâmy appreciation for your constancy and support.

As for my father, you deserve a star for being such a wealth of information.

Above all, I thank my family for their patience and love: our son Zach, our daughter Elena, and Steven, whose heart and instincts as an editor and husband are unparalleled.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2389-4

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