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

We don’t have those in America. The taste interests him, he sucks on the pouch, the wail becomes more of a hiccup and a moan of protest between sucks. I realize that he’s soaking wet. Urine or formula that ricocheted off Francisco’s One Direction haircut. Could be either. But I have no spare clothes for him. They’re sitting in a neat pile on top of the radiator by the door at home, along with the three clean diapers I was supposed to bring but didn’t.

I get out of the stall and strip Rocky in the sink. I use a burp cloth and the scarf I’m wearing to improvise a toga diaper for him.

“Gigi.” Aneela appears behind me in the mirror. I didn’t notice her come in.

I can’t help it. I say, “Oh, just fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it.”

“Is he wearing your scarf as a nappy?” she asks my reflection.

“Yes.”

She takes the baby from me, holding him the way a mother with big kids does, surprised at how foreign it feels now even though she used to do this a thousand times a day. He grabs at her necklace.

She looks at me. “You’re not alright, are you?”

I turn to face her. “No.”

She jostles Rocky. “What happened? Was it a rough birth?”

“Yeah,” I say. Rocky puts a hand on her face.

She says, “You’re not ready then—to come back?”

“No, I’m not.”

“It’s OK. You take the time you need. Why don’t you take him to the lifts and I’ll get your buggy and bring it to the front?”

I look at her, thinking of the wreckage in the conference room. “But can you tell everyone I’m so sorry.”

“Of course I will. And we’ll talk about everything else some other time when you’re not so…stressed,” she says, in that way where what she’s really saying is she’s surprised at how stressed I am. Surprised at how it’s hit me. Concerned that she’s invested a lot of time in me and she thought I’d do better than this. So did I.

“And Lara? I just don’t…” I don’t even know what to say.

“It’s alright, Gigi, really. I’ll explain.”

“Thank you.” I give her a half-hug and take the baby. She’s being kind. Kind so I don’t feel worse. But that sort of kindness always does the exact opposite.

I sneak past reception when no one’s around and go wait by the elevator bank. I turn around to look for Aneela but it’s Lara coming through the glass vestibule doors instead, pushing my stroller. “Oh, I didn’t mean for you to do that, Lara, Aneela said—”

She cuts me off. “I’m sorry this hasn’t worked out today. But you’re not the first person to have a baby at the firm.”

“No, of course, I know that…”

“But perhaps you need more time than the others.”

I say, “I’m sorry. I had a babysitter. She canceled. I wasn’t going to bring—”

She shakes her head. “No need to explain. This is how it is with children, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but when I come back, I’ll be OK, I’ll work it out.” I sound desperate.

“I hope so. Bye now.”

She turns on her heel, one manicured hand waving to me as she re-enters the office. Not a wave really, a hand in the air, like when you hail a cab, or get a waiter’s attention. The hand she puts up for people to provide her with service.

When we’re finally outside I buy some formula, diapers and a onesie and some baby sweatpants at Boots and give Rocky a bottle in the stroller. He’s calm and warm now, I watch his eyes fill up with sky and buildings and people until he falls asleep.

A text from Charlie:

Hey babes, sorry that was tough. Are you OK? I wanted to walk you out but Aneela said you’d already left. Let’s get a drink soon and you can tell me all about it? Everything will be OK. Don’t worry. xx

I’m too humiliated to respond, even to Charlie. I pass a shirt shop. So English with its stacks of shirts in neat wooden cubes. I buy a classic white one for Francisco and leave it with security downstairs when I pass by the office on the way home. I ask them to call him to pick it up. Kind of like when your mom brings something you left at home and leaves it for you in the office at school. Your gym shorts or your lunch.

If you have that kind of mom.

11 butter, frozen dinners A Wednesday in August 2016, 7:30 p.m. London, Grand Euro Star Lodge Hotel, Room 506

Twelve hours since I left the house. Soon my phone will be dead. Soon I’ll have finished the second bottle of red. Oh. No, the first bottle still has some in there. Either way, either bottle, I’ve had too much to drink. And also not enough. I sink into the bed. I’ve barely moved today but everything aches. I feel my bones grinding against each other, trying to find the grooves they fit in before the baby grew in the space between. Feel the new length of my feet, the new thickness of my wrists, the new width of my rib cage. The curve of my lower back, the arc of an “S” where it used to be straight. I put my hands on my belly—misshapen and puckered, like an old balloon, dimpled latex, forgotten and slowly deflating behind the sofa now that the party’s over.

Even my hands. You expect your stomach to stretch and your breasts to drop but your hands, how they change—the cracked skin, the ragged nails, burns from the oven, burns from the iron, red from the constant washing. The skin on the backs of my hands is dry and loose, no longer elastic. There was a time when he kissed the back of my hand. When his burdens fit perfectly in the hollow of my palm and mine in his. We carried our burdens for each other, in each other’s hands. I loved him