Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [7]
What he really means is it would be easier for him and Nicola if they didn’t have to worry about my intruding into their private lives, lives they’ve stolen for themselves right from underneath my nose.
And so we try, or rather Jake tries, not to overlap at the restaurant, but sometimes we do. We are civil, and occasionally even pleasant to each other, because there are usually other people around. If nothing else, we are professionals who have a business to run. I try, however, never to look directly at him because then the ache will come and, unable to draw breath into my constricted chest, I will begin to choke. Usually, it’s fairly easy to keep from looking at him because there are always several things that need to be done in the restaurant kitchen, always something to occupy one’s hands and eyes.
Since Jake wouldn’t agree to terminate Nicola’s employment (apparently he doesn’t see quite enough of her, even though they are now living together at her apartment), she still works the dinner shift as maîtress. If I’m honest with myself, the vision of Nicola presiding over the dining room at Grappa bothers me as much as her having taken my place in Jake’s bed. Maybe more.
Chloe sleeps longer than she should, and when I get her up, she fusses and strains in my arms. Once I maneuver her into the high chair, she stubbornly refuses to eat, pounding the tray with her tiny fists and swatting my hand away whenever I offer her a spoonful of food. After I make several unsuccessful attempts, the tray of her high chair (and her hands, face, and hair) is covered in broad brushstrokes of orange, green, and beige, which she smears around the tray, like a manic little Jackson Pollock. Finally, arms straining, she reaches for me and makes little kneading motions with her fists, and I finally understand she wants to nurse. It is the only thing that seems to quiet her, and she sucks greedily, faster than she is able to swallow, the milk pooling in the inside of her cheeks.
Chloe’s eyes roll back slightly in her head, and her previously clenched fists are now limp with exhaustion and relief. What hard and frustrating work it must be to be a baby. Being forced to communicate your needs without words to the people in charge of your care, people who mean well and are generally invested in your well-being, if occasionally dense and preoccupied.
I watch the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her chest, the halting tremble of her lips as they purse and then begin to suck sleepily and lazily at the air. Her movements are at once languid and deliberate, and I’m dizzy with the promise of who she is, this tiny person I have made. And I wonder if she senses I’m her mother and I’m here watching her. Defining myself in gentler terms, as Chloe’s mother, seems necessary and, after seven months, almost completely natural. As if by doing so, I can erase all the mistakes I made in being Jake’s wife.
Primi
Kissing don’t last; cookery do!
—George Meredith
chapter 3
Mercifully, Chloe has always been an excellent sleeper, sleeping through the night when she was less than three weeks old. So it’s unusual when she wakes at midnight, crying. She’s hot to the touch and fretful. Cursing myself for not having sprung for the quick-read ear thermometer the pediatrician had recommended, I manage to take her temperature rectally. One hundred and four. I give her some Infants’ Tylenol drops and a bottle of cool water, which she gulps down impatiently, but within minutes she throws up all over the two of us, mostly water, tinged purple from the grape-flavored Tylenol.