Lessons in Chemistry

Chapter 17

Harriet Sloane

“What’s wrong?” Elizabeth begged for the millionth time. “Just TELL me!”

But the baby, who’d been crying nonstop for weeks, refused to be specific.

Even Six-Thirty was flummoxed. But I told you about your father, he communicated. We talked about this. But still the creature wailed.

Elizabeth paced the small bungalow at two a.m., bouncing the bundle up and down, her arms stiff like a rusted robot until she ran into a stack of books and almost tripped. “Dammit,” she cried, mashing the baby against her chest in a protective move. In her new-mother stupor, the floor had become a convenient dumping ground for everything: tiny socks, unsecured diaper pins, old banana peels, unread newspapers. “How can someone this small cause all this?” she cried. In response, the baby placed its tiny mouth against Elizabeth’s ear, took a deep breath, and roared back the answer.

“Please,” Elizabeth whispered, sinking into a chair. “Please, please, please stop.” She nestled her daughter in the crook of her arm, nudged the bottle’s nipple against her doll lips, and although she’d refused it five times before, the little thing latched on voraciously as if she knew her ignorant mother would get there in the end. Elizabeth held her breath as if the smallest intake of air might cause the thing to go off again. The baby was a ticking time bomb. One false move and it was over.

Dr. Mason had warned her that infants were hard work, but this wasn’t work: it was indenture. The tiny tyrant was no less demanding than Nero; no less insane than King Ludwig. And the crying. It made her feel inadequate. Worse, it raised the possibility that her daughter might not like her. Already.

Elizabeth closed her eyes and saw her own mother, a cigarette stuck to her bottom lip, her ashes landing in the casserole Elizabeth had just taken out of the oven. Yes. Not liking one’s mother from the very start was entirely possible.

Beyond that, there was the repetitiveness — the feeding, the bathing, the changing, the calming, the wiping, the burping, the soothing, the pacing; in short, the volume. Many things were repetitive — erging, metronomes, fireworks — but all of those things usually ended within an hour. This could go on for years.

And when the baby slept, which was never, there was still more work to be done: laundry, bottle prep, sanitizing, meals — plus the constant rereading of Dr. Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. There was so much to do she couldn’t even make a to-do list because making a list was just one more thing to do. Plus, she still had all of her other work to do.

Hastings. She glanced in worry across the room at an untouched foot-high pile of notebooks and research papers, the larger stacks work from her colleagues. When she’d been in labor, she told Dr. Mason she didn’t want anesthesia. “It’s because I’m a scientist,” she’d lied. “I want to be fully conscious during the procedure.” But the real reason: she couldn’t afford it.

From below came a small sigh of contentment and Elizabeth looked down surprised to find her daughter asleep. She froze, not wanting to disturb the baby’s slumber. She studied the flushed face, the pouty lips, the slim blond eyebrows.

An hour went by, and with it, all circulation in her arm. She stared in wonder as the child moved her lips, as if trying to explain.

Two more hours went by.

Get up, she told herself. Move. She leaned forward, gently propelling both of them out of the chair, then walked without a single misstep to the bedroom. She lay down, carefully placing the still-sleeping infant beside her. She closed her eyes. She exhaled. Then she slept heavily, dreamlessly, until the baby awoke.

Which, according to her clock, was approximately five minutes later.