Adult Lullaby

Cate had tried this combination at least a dozen times before. Warm bath, bottle three-quarters filled with formula, and the donkey and the cow book read twice, the first time with animal sounds and the second time only reading the words all with the hope to lull Jana, her eight-month-old daughter, into a sleepy trance.

When Jana’s eyes would close and remain closed for more than a minute to ensure the slumber spell had taken full effect, Cate would lay Jana down in her crib and creep out on tip toes only to hear Jana’s screams before she reached the door’s threshold.

“Colic,” the doctor had told her. “She will grow out of it.”

His promises provided Cate little solace night after night when Jana’s screams pierced the air. Once she was asleep, Jana slept masterfully until precisely six-thirty in the morning. Cate used the time in between for her own earned slumber. Unlike other mom’s she knew, she was not concerned her daughter would stop breathing when she slept. It was the getting her to sleep part that wore Cate’s nerves down every night.

Jack would help and did help when he was home. Jana would fall and stay asleep in his arms until his phone rang with a patient in labor or he jostled her with his failed attempt to be graceful.

“You would think an OB and a lawyer would either be able to apply science or reason to our problem,” Jack joked one night as the Jana rolled into hour four of fighting sleep demons.

Yet tonight, Jana seems to have finally made friends with sleep embracing it fully with a big yawn and the harmonious consistent breathing that Cate longs to hear. Other than the night screamies, as Cate called them, Jana was an easy baby. Took to the breast and the bottle. Fussed little during the day. Laughed on cue and gave wet slobbery kisses.

Cate stands outside Jana’s door ready to start part two of her routine - realigning Jana’s pacifier and stroking her head. Her second exit would be even more stoic than the first as to not encourage Jana to stay awake. Most nights, the intervals would lengthen until Jana’s cries notched up a few octaves and yanked at Cate’s heart, guilting her into a crib side rescue on repeat for hours until Jana, exhausted, finally fell asleep for good.

Ten minutes have passed and Jana’s deep rest rhythms have already ensued. Cate feels a bit of relief but knows that this false facade has been there before. She counts ten more minutes and silence. Still not convinced, she slides her back down the wood frame of the door, sits and waits for her summons. And still nothing.

While her body should have allowed her nightly angst to escape, she instead feels an uneasiness because she does not know what to do with this time that might evaporate at any moment. She stares at the pile of clothes next to the hall laundry closet and thinks about starting a load, but decides against it. The current sound cadence has furthered Jana’s sleep so far. No need to take a chance of ruining it by turning on the washer.

Cate inches down the hall not to step on the notoriously creaky floorboard near the stairs. She snakes down to the first floor with only one foot per stair lightly gliding her descent.

The expanse of the kitchen and living areas lay in front of her. Dishes rest dirty in the sink. Toys, ones Jana had played with and ones that Cate piled in search of the lazy frog picture book, await repositioning. The day’s life lived call for her attention, but Cate decides to boycott her gut instinct to clean.

“My time for once,” she says releasing an inward smile outward.

She heads towards the pantry. While she had eaten a handful of goldfish crackers alongside Jana’s strained peas and sweet potatoes, she has not had a proper dinner. She could make herself dinner. She surveys the shelves. Nothing strikes her as worth her time to prep and consume. Resigned to cold cereal, Cate sees the black-labeled bottle of red wine she had picked up for a date night her and Jack were to have.

“Sometime soon,” they both had said.

With Jack still at the hospital on call, she knows date night for the two of them cannot be now, but date night with herself is increasing in probability minute by minute. Cate wraps her fingers around the wine’s neck, fully embracing it as she hurries it to the counter before she guilts herself into housework.

Wine and a bath sound like a slice of heaven that she has not been able to carve out for months. She grabs an opened bag of potato chips on the counter and munches while she searches for the corkscrew. Before Jana, she would know exactly where to look for it. Far drawer on the right just below the cabinet that houses her wine glasses and other stemware that used to be seen regularly and remain erect and vigilant for moments like this.

Flipping open the drawer, she finds a pen, an old grocery list with only half of the items crossed off, cocktail mixers, and two back up pacifiers which Cate quickly moves to Jana’s in-need stash. No corkscrew. When was the last time she and Jack had a glass of wine? She cannot remember.  Closing the drawer to further her search, she reaches up to grab one of her wide bowl glasses because she definitely wants enjoy the full wine drinking experience which means a good swirl of the vino while studying its color in the light, even if all of the steps are more of a calming ritual for her than a display of a true wine connoisseur.

She opens and closes every drawer in the kitchen without finding the corkscrew. She does however find the missing button from her favorite pick sweater that Jana had almost put in her mouth and a coupon for a buy one, get one free from her and Jack’s go-to takeout Thai restaurant. She stands with a finger pressed against her chin trying to remember when she last placed a wine bottle in the weekly recycling.

The lights on the baby monitor permanently housed on the counter flicker red. Cate’s breath sticks in the back of her throat. She has not heard anything and hopes it is the monitor’s advertised ultrasensitive detection mode picking up static in the air. 

She needs this break more than her heart will admit to anyone unless asked to testify under penalty or perjury of the law. Even though she only works part time, her caseload keeps her busy and engaged while Jana does the same. Carving out a few minutes for her own psyche to remind her why she was trying to live in the proverbial state of balance has become a greater imperative.

Continued silence reignites Cate’s quest to find the corkscrew. She searches the kitchen cabinets stopping only to make herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after discovering an unopened jar of orange marmalade. She tries again to remember where the damn wine opener might be hiding. If they had a dining room, she would have searched there next. The wide open first floor combined the home’s formal rooms with a causal style so other than her office and a half bath, she can see everything.

Cate surmises it must be in her office. She recalls having a glass of wine over a virtual social hour with colleagues last month even though she only remembers carrying Jana and gripping a plastic wine tumbler.

Her office is tidy compared to the rest of the living space. It has to be. She has client files and research documents breathing while she preps for cases. She sits on her chair and surveys her desk. Piles of folders and filled legal note pads own prime real estate space. A toy giraffe that served as a conference call distraction leans up against Cate’s water bottle. The morning’s coffee cup sits nearly empty, resting its bottom on a black leather coaster. Cate studies the mug like it will guide her to where to continue her search. Peering at it, she notices a pile of papers she has haphazardly thrown behind it.

“The Birch case,” she mutters. Her noon call today. The client’s attorney had made a smart comment about Cate being only half of an attorney because of her abbreviated hours.

“You’ll never be considered for partner if you are not a money maker dear.” She does not remember what prompted the grey-haired counsel to make such a comment. He did not even know her beyond the case. She had thrown the contract there with the intentions of organizing it after Jana’s afternoon bottle. However, Jana had other plans for that time.

The third page of the contract sits on top of the pile. Cate wishes she had stapled the thirty-one pages, but when she receives a written contract, she likes to go through them line by line with the pages next to each other. 

Page by page she re-orders until only four pages remain. Reaching for the conclusion of her project, she notices the black and silver corkscrew resting on the far corner of her desk like it belongs there. Cate strains her memory as to why it would look like a desk accessory.

Jack had brought it in. They were having a conversation about car insurance and Cate had brought the bill into her office to pay. Their discussion about whether or not to raise their deductible turned into a highly contested debate about the state of political influence in the insurance industry. Jack had contemplated having a glass of wine and pulled the corkscrew out of the kitchen drawer out before he searched for the bottle. 

“Not a smart move,” she says realizing their wine-seeking skills are obviously as different as their views on lobbying groups.

She snatches the corkscrew and bolts for the bottle as if someone shot off a starter’s pistol. Tugging the spiral from its spot nestled between two plastic sleeves, Cate stands ready to unleash the wine’s potential. Carefully, she peels away its foil cover to reveal the cork. Only the cork is not there. Instead, a twist-top metal cover stands between her and her sippings.

She laughs out loud.

“You have got to fucking be kidding,” allowing herself a moment of language not suitable for her daughter. 

She could have already been nestled on her couch with a throw blanket pulled just below her chin and the television on anything that did not have rhymed songs as the plot. She assumed that since they spent more than twenty dollars on the bottle of wine, it would surely have a cork. 

Gripping the wine’s gateway, she twists her wrist waiting for the cap’s release. But it will not budge. She tries again. Nothing. She begins to wonder how the vineyard managed to seal the wine so tightly.

The jar gripper. The answer to her problem. The thin round piece of rubber that will give her the grip-strength she needs to release the top. The furnace repair company had left one with the receipt when they replaced the blower motor last month. At the time, she thought it was a strange moniker. Instead of a business card they left a disc in a plastic bag with how-to-use-it instructions. And Cate clearly remembers where she put it – in the junk drawer where she had searched for the corkscrew.

Cate’s hands whip through the drawer cluttered with items from A to Z. Systematically, she makes piles to keep or junk depleting the drawer of its contents in less than ten minutes. No gripper. Desperate for not only wine but her sanity, she quickly texts Jack to see if he knows where it might be.

“Don’t know what you are referring to.”

She could text him to remind him he signed the service receipt, but she doesn’t. She walks to the family room space and brings the bottle with her. She will use the coffee table as her base, trying a new angle for the opening.

Grab, push, twist. She tries her mechanics three more times. Resolute that she will not be drinking wine, Cate collapses onto the couch and closes her eyes. Tired and tense had begun to move in as Cate’s enemies before Jana’s bedtime. She has tried to escape them with a little liquid relaxation and well-earned time to be someone other than mom. However, she cannot fight them anymore. 

In the morning, she might laugh at the path of destruction she has created with the hope of having a glass of wine. Now, she is simply pissed off.

“I am one desperate woman,” she thinks as her mind began to float away to a place where wine is available on tap; her tab prepaid.

After moments or hours, Cate does not know which, screams fill the quiet house air. Cate imagines the red lines on the baby monitor flashing full throttle megahertz. She is back on mom duty.