When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

baby. I feel like I’m in trouble. She’s talking to me now. But I don’t notice the words, just that she learned English somewhere else, somewhere in Africa maybe, the way all her t’s are crystal clear, the breadth of her a’s. She’s not from here, neither am I. I wonder if she could take me home.

“What?” I say. She’s in a rush and she’s unimpressed, I get that but I can’t help it, my eyes close and I fall back asleep for thirty seconds.

“Mrs. Harrison?”

Shit, wake up.

“Yes, yes.”

“Mrs. Harrison, I am not happy with…”

Fall asleep.

“Mrs. Harrison!” She doesn’t whisper.

“What, yes.” I haven’t slept for so long and now I’ve crashed, I’ve gone down a hole and I can’t wake up. I can’t wake up.

“Mrs. Harrison, I do not believe you are currently competent to understand…he needs…to monitor… every…until…understand? Mrs. Harrison?”

I’ve been sleeping sitting up. I open my eyes, startled. Ben says 4:10. Where’s the baby? You are not competent. Where’s the baby? Did the doctor take him? You are not competent. I roll onto my side, get my legs off the bed one at a time. The crib on wheels is gone. “Help!” I hit the call button. Where’s the baby? I don’t know if I’ve screamed out loud or in my head.

The midwife rushes over. “It’s a’ight. It’s a’ight, dear. He’s at the station. He’s with me. I’m watchin’ ’im.” She’s got a West Indies accent. Her words go up and down. Like a song.

“C’mon, c’mon, let me ’elp you.” She’s warm. Her closely cropped hair keeps your focus on her open face, no lines in her skin. Her age is in her eyes, in the strength of her hands. You can feel she’s held thousands of lives in them—and deaths.

She takes me over to the midwives’ station in the hall. There’s a desk with a tiny lamp, a low spotlight. Rocky sleeps in a swaddle in the crib on wheels next to a swivel chair, like just another piece of office furniture. “I could see you were sleepin’ but little man needed his feedin’, so I took ’im ’ere to be near me where I could keep an eye. He took ten mls but that was all. But we keep tryin’. He’s so sleepy, poor dahlin’.”

This is what it’s come to, Rocky. A stranger feeding you while catching up on her paperwork. At least she’s nice. She’ll keep you alive. She can’t love you, though. I can’t love you the way I’m supposed to either.

“ ’Ere you go, try to give ’im some now.” She hands me the mini bottle of formula.

“I don’t, I don’t know…” Before I can say no she picks him up and puts him in my arms. “ ’Ere.”

His eyes are closed. I put the tiny bottle to the tiny mouth and once he feels a few drops he starts to drink.

“Ma’am, ma’am? Is this OK?” They don’t say “ma’am” here but I’m not sure what to call her that sounds respectful.

“Yes, you’re OK.” She gets back to her files, writing her notes, shuffling her papers.

It’s quiet. Echoes of a baby crying somewhere down the hall.

It’s not natural but it’s alright. “See, that’s better, poor little one,” she says.

“Ma’am, I’m not OK.” It just comes out.

“I know. Was it a bad one?”

“Yes.”

“A’ight. It will be a’ight. What’s your name, dahlin’?” She looks at the file. “Gigi?” She puts the accent on the second “gi.”

“Yeah, and this is Rocky. My other boy is Johnny.”

“Oh, just like an American TV show.”

“About a bunch of mobsters?”

“Exactly. Didn’t want to insult you just in case.” She winks. “And you don’t have to call me “ma’am.” We save ’dat one for Her Majesty. Call me Roxane. Now, would you like a cup of tea?”

Inevitable tea. “Thank you, Roxane. Just black, please.”

“Black? Is that how the Sopranos drink it?” She winks at me again.

“Yep, just before they pop somebody.” I smile. It’s nice to say something and not have it lost in translation.

“Now look at your boy. Another twenty mls already. See? He just needed his mummy.”

“Can I stay here next to you?”

“Of course, dahlin’. But there’s nothing to be scared of.” She puts a hand on my arm. Looks me in the eye.

“I’m scared of everything.”

“Well, we just had a lady come in down ’dere, she got triplets. Let me tell you, then you would be propa’ scared.” She does it too, that British thing: make you laugh when you really want to cry.

She goes to get the tea and Rocky drinks his milk. I rub his downy hair, really gentle, like I used to with Johnny. Like I used to when Frankie was a baby. He opens his little eyes. “Hi. How you doin’?” I say. I brush my hand across his soft baby skin, but it doesn’t feel like it did with the others. It doesn’t feel like anything.

London, February 2016; Baby, 2 months old

What time is it? 2 a.m.? 3? It doesn’t matter because I’ve been awake for fucking forty-three hours. I’ve transcended time.

I do the nights because Harry has to work so he’s got to sleep, even if he’s better at the baby stuff than me. He’s eight weeks old now. I know Rocky prefers Harry. With me he screams, but when it’s Harry he stops crying right away. Harry says that’s ridiculous, it’s just that after being with me all day he needs the change of hands. But I don’t think it’s just anyone’s hands that’ll do; he needs the big, strong, capable, loving hands of his father. He takes comfort in the scent of Harry’s skin; it’s soap and confidence. He knows it’s me because of the smell of my milk but given that he throws up everything I pump I guess he’s not that eager when I come around.

The pumping makes me feel less guilty. If I can’t breastfeed then at least I can say to the GP and the community midwife and the health visitor and the whole parade of people