Materni-Tea

Ever since Amber became a mother three months ago, the house has become littered with cups of tea. They were on every surface, trailing her movements like bread crumbs between the kitchen, the nursery with a full size bed where she slept, and the guest bathroom. 

Jake’s paths through the house, connecting the same kitchen with the living room couch and the bedroom suite Amber used to share with him, did not have any abandoned beverages. Sometimes, when Amber wandered alone through the house in the middle of the night after a feed, she wondered if Jake still lived there. There seemed to be no evidence of him between the clutter of baby clothes, diapers, and the cold cups of tea with the tea bag still inside. 

“How was the night?” Jake would ask Amber in the mornings on the occasions she was also awake when he left the house at 7am. This was not often, as she and the baby usually fell into their deepest sleep around 6am. She knew the baby shouldn’t be in bed with her. The pediatrician had made her promise to follow the safe sleep guidelines. But by dawn she usually gave up on putting him back in his crib. This last stretch of sleep was dreamless and desperate, with her body curled around the baby like a C, one hand clutching a small foot. 

“Oh, fine,” she would say while dipping a new tea bag in a cup of boiling water.

They had decided together to have Amber move into the nursery after the birth. The bulldozers and cranes Jake operated were dangerous and he needed his sleep. Besides, without breasts full of milk, he was useless at night anyway. It had seemed like the perfect plan, back when they were giddy with the prospect of being pregnant and parenting had felt like an abstract adventure. 

Amber watched Jake now as he took the last sips of his black coffee, already dressed for work in his insulated pants and orange reflective jacket. She had given up coffee, gladly, after that positive pregnancy test a year ago, and had vowed to keep it up though breastfeeding. But today, a headache drilling her temples after another sleepless night, Jake’s coffee taunted her. Amber felt her right hand shake slightly as she dipped the tea bag. 

“Actually, it hasn’t been fine.” She said. Jake looked at her over the rim of his cup with a startled expression, and it took her brain a few slow seconds to identify the look as fear. 

“I’m sorry. What can I do?” He said after some silence. 

“What do you think?” Amber felt a heat rising in her chest and behind her eyes. She wasn’t really mad at Jake, but he was the only one here. 

“Do you want me to ask Rob to cut back some shifts?”

“We can’t afford that.” 

“My mother could —“

“No. God. I just — why can’t you understand? I’m here alone, all day. Alone, all night. You know sleep is not really sleep when you’re still responsible for the baby?” She was crying now, and didn’t care if her words made sense. 

Jake put down his coffee and came over to wrap his arms around Amber, but she recoiled from his touch. The tears were falling faster, and the release felt long overdue. She could see his boots, caked with dried mud and rust. She had asked him a hundred times to leave those boots by the front door and not wear them through the house. 

“I’m really sorry. I have to go or I’ll be late.” Jake tried again to hug her. Amber knew he was a man of few words, had appreciated his thoughtful silences. But now, she could only feel fury at his inability to say right things. In fact, lately it felt like he couldn’t do anything right. 

Amber heard the front door click behind Jake and didn’t turn around to wave. She let her tears continue falling into the tea. Deep down, buried under exhaustion and loneliness, the part of her that was still tender felt guilty about her outburst. Jake showed up for them all by going to work and paying the bills. He was trying to help, even if the diapers he put on always leaked. None of it was really his fault, she knew this. Yet he was the most immediate reminder of how the world continued, unencumbered, while she was left behind.

I’m turning into a baby myself, Amber thought.  

Brady wailed, and Amber put her tea cup down on the counter without taking a sip. Another cup abandoned. She vowed to be nicer to Jake from now on as she walked towards the nursery. 

A sense of foreboding shadowed Amber for the rest of the morning. Nothing felt right. She chided herself for not saying a proper goodbye to Jake before he left. His job was dangerous, and lately she had become especially afraid of something happening to him, leaving her truly alone in the world to care for Brady. She held Brady’s little body as he slept, a warm bundle of sweet milkiness, and tried to banish the terrible images flashing through her mind of something gruesome happening to her husband or her son. 

The heaviness of impending doom grew as the minutes ticked away. Amber paced the house, holding the baby, between nursing sessions every two hours. He has refused to nap in his bassinet for the last two days, and nodded off on her chest as she checked the stove, the oven, and the fire detectors. She texted Jake to check in, then lost track of her phone before seeing his reply. She tidied up the living room, tossed in laundry, and ate leftovers standing up, all with one hand. 

How was it possible for a person to be so busy, for a day to be so short yet filled with so many endless tasks, just to keep one little baby alive? 

Around 3pm Brady fell into a deep sleep. Amber held her breath while lowering him down inch by inch into the bassinet. When he stayed asleep in there, she tip toed out of the room. 

Suddenly free, Amber felt dizzy with relief. She put on the kettle and tried to decide what to do with this precious window. She could shower then actually drink her cup of tea, maybe even indulge in the home facial-in-a-box she received as a gift from her mother in law. Instead, Amber sat down with a basket of laundry to fold, a task that required both hands. It seemed like doing something productive might keep the rising panic at bay. She picked up one of Jake’s shirts, an old favorite from their high school years, and held it up to her nose as she leaned her head back on the couch. 

Amber jerked awake two hours later, disoriented by the silence. She couldn’t remember the last time she woke to anything but the baby’s cries. The winter sun cast the last slanted rays through the small living room window. It was witching hour. Brady was usually inconsolable by now. Her heart pounded while she stumbled down the hall and gingerly pushed open the nursery door. 

The baby was not in the bassinet. 

“Brady??” She cried, flinging the door all the way open and flipping on all the lights at once. “Brady! Honey!” She continued to shriek, looking irrationally under the bed and in the closet, even though the baby was too young to even flip over. 

Amber stumbled down the hall and fell twice as she tore through the house, calling the baby’s name and trying to not scream. At some point she found her phone and called Jake. When it went to voicemail, she finally did scream. 

Her brain churned over the options, the thoughts tangled like a mess of strings. Nothing made sense. With a shudder she realized she was completely alone in the house now, and it made her run into the postage stamp sized yard, where she continued her search behind bushes. 

“Someone took my baby! My baby is missing!” She cried into the phone when 911 picked up. “Help me!”

The operator’s voice was eerily calm as she asked for the address. Amber’s brain drew a blank, as if she had never known this information. Just as she was stammering for a reply, she saw through the narrow glass sliding door that Jake walked into the house, holding the baby. 

Amber dropped the phone as she ran inside, sobbing with relief and dove for the bundle in Jake’s arms.  

“What’s wrong! Is everything okay?” Jake looked fearful for the second time that day as he handed the baby over. Brady, awake and wide eyed, saw his mother and broke into a smile, not comprehending her tear stained face. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you took him! Oh God, I thought he was gone!” Amber did not try to keep the anguish out of her voice. 

“I - I did. I sent you a text. I got off early and you were sleeping. So I thought I’d take him for a walk and let you sleep longer.” 

In her panic, Amber hadn’t looked at her messages as she grabbed it to make calls. 

Clutching Brady to her chest, Amber felt the adrenaline leave her body, replaced by a wave of nausea. This time, when Jake came to put his arms around them both, she let him. 

“Everything is fine,” she couldn’t tell if it was Jake’s voice or her own, repeating the phrase like it was a chant. 

She also let Jake lead her gently to the dining table chair. She sat, breathing through her nose, while he filled the kettle. Brady waved his small fists in the air, protesting the delay in feeding while being close enough to smell the milk. Amber unclipped her nursing strap and felt the baby’s body relax as he latched on. 

Jake chose the wrong tea — chamomile, when she needed green tea for a small kick of caffeine. But she smiled at him when he brought over the steaming cup and felt, for the first time in many days, gratitude.