Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins (read any book .TXT) 📕

She caressed Amara’s shoulder as she walked past her to the corridor then pivoted on her heel. “You know, Amara, sometimes you just have to let it out. You’ve always been a reserved kind of person, but if you don’t let out whatever it is you’re keeping closed, it will eat you from the inside out and drive you crazy.” Another loud thud from upstairs. Denise lifted her head to the ceiling then back down to Amara. “You and I . . . we aren’t too far removed from madness.”

That last comment motivated Amara to schedule an intake appointment with the university’s therapist and thoroughly read and reread the lines that granted her confidentiality. Still, she told her assigned therapist that she had lost her baby through a miscarriage and was relieved that the counselor didn’t press any further than that. It became apparent toward the end of her initial fifty-minute appointment that her feeling had a more specific name that would visit her without warning and make itself cozy wherever and however it pleased: grief, or worse—postpartum depression. She left the therapist’s office at Alfred Lerner Hall with a suggestion to allow herself time and space to sit with her grief, but whenever the feeling overwhelmed her, she either distracted herself with wine, studying, or both simultaneously. During follow-up appointments, Amara asked for help to maintain the pace at which she thought she needed to be going as she considered what her future would be once she left the gates at 116th and Broadway for good as a new graduate. Then the doctor suggested that she channel her grief into something productive, advice that she knew before the session concluded would be the last she’d hear, because she had no intention of coming back. The doctor wasn’t listening to her. Her grades could not have been better, and she’d acquired leadership positions in two of her five extracurricular activities—both law- and politics-related. At the same time, she was aware that she hadn’t been entirely forthcoming with the therapist from the beginning.

Once she stepped out of Alfred Lerner Hall after her last session, Amara descended into the uptown 1 station at 116th and Broadway to refill her MetroCard and head back home. At the machine there was a lady with a sour smell that made Amara’s nose itch, shuffling about to find enough change for the machine. The other two machines were out of service, and there was no employee behind the glass to help her complete her purchase. Impatient, Amara shifted her weight from one side to the other and heard an approaching train. The lady with the sour smell looked over her shoulder then stepped aside. Amara saw that she had a newborn strapped to her chest.

“Sorry,” the woman said.

“Oh, um, it’s okay,” Amara said.

“You have a good night.” Then she pressed her child closer to her chest and walked the stairs to the street. By the time Amara looked back at the screen, the automatic doors to the train at the platform were closing, and then it pulled away once her now fully loaded MetroCard ejected from the slot. Amara couldn’t see another train approaching down the tunnel so she figured she had enough time to buy a quick meal from the convenience store across the street. When she walked through its front doors, she saw the sour lady with the baby from the train station, who seemed to be in the middle of an argument with the cashier.

“I just need some kind of formula, but this is all I have.” She dropped two bills and started to count the lint-covered pennies and nickels on the counter when the cashier annoyingly held his hand up and shook his head.

“Why don’t you just breastfeed?” he asked flippantly.

“I can’t breastfeed. Not every woman can breastfeed.” The sour lady’s voice kept rising, and the baby was beginning to fuss.

Amara started to leak again. She was hungry, and she only had enough cash to buy herself something and catch the train back uptown. It had been at least two days since she’d had a glass of wine, so the alcohol couldn’t ruin her milk, because it was already out of her system. Perfect, Amara thought. The pain from her engorged breasts motivated her to barge right into the conversation to ask for a plastic cup and lid and then directions to the nearest bathroom, but he said there wasn’t one. She moved to the nearest vacant aisle, walked all the way to the back, stuck the cup underneath her shirt, and pressed as firmly as she could on each side of her breast until her hand got warm from the milk filling up the container. She hurriedly closed the lid over the cup and saw that the sour lady wasn’t at the counter anymore.

“Where did she go?” she asked the cashier.

“She just walked out,” he replied without so much as lifting his head from an issue of Maxim.

Luckily, when Amara exited, she saw the sour lady rocking from side to side to get her baby to relax. She stretched out her hand with the cup and said, “Take it. It might not last till tomorrow, but hopefully it will for tonight.”

The woman hesitated. She lifted the lid, sniffed the milk, and looked back up at Amara with tears that glistened underneath the streetlight.

“But don’t you need it?”

Amara shook her head. “No.”

“Thank you. Thank you. Not easy being a Black mom, you know? But I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”

Not easy being a Black mom. Amara silently repeated the words. Not easy being a Black mom.

Amara returned to the 1 subway station and took the train downtown to Ninety-Sixth, where she switched to the uptown 3 train, getting off at 145th and Malcolm X Boulevard. From there she walked two avenues west to Frederick Douglass Boulevard and stopped at the corner, when her body suddenly seized at the memory. She was