Chapter 21 Gwen
Gwen
Gwen ended up in the hospital for four days.
Back home, as she neared the end of her course of antibiotics, she was feeling more like herself.
The infection was gone, and her body was slowly recovering.
Her body, her poor body. It was still reeling from June’s birth—or rather, June’s eviction.
She still didn’t relate to the common term give birth.
She hadn’t given anything. Everything had been taken from her.
The incision in her right breast was mostly healed.
She’d started using the pump on both breasts, resulting in a measly couple of ounces of milk per day.
She’d called Mary, the lactation consultant, to come for a home visit.
Mary sighed heavily upon hearing Gwen’s harrowing story.
She said that not pumping the first day in the hospital, coupled with the trauma of the medical event itself, had caused Gwen’s supply to plummet.
Gwen begged Mary to tell her that it would return, but Mary said she couldn’t do that; she just didn’t know.
Jeff presumed to know and said, “It’ll come back soon,” as if Gwen’s milk supply was an indoor cat that decided to go on a little walkabout before returning home.
He told her, again and again, not to worry.
As if that were possible. Worry was every mother’s vocation.
One early morning, while her body was in between sleep and wakefulness, she had a dream that she was sitting at her kitchen table with Angeni Luna. Angeni was holding Gwen’s hands in her own hands. They were so warm, Angeni’s hands.
You must have faith in your beautiful body, Angeni said, her voice so soft and soothing. The female body is so wise. It knows how to care for your dear baby. Please take solace in this. The two of you will find your rhythm once again.
When Gwen awoke fully, she felt calmer. She turned Angeni’s words into a mantra she whispered to June: The two of us will find our rhythm once again.
Gwen and June had been making the short trip to Leigh’s condo every day.
At dinner each night, Jeff asked Gwen, “How are Leigh and Belle today?” So quickly, these other human beings had become integrated into their daily lives.
Gwen suddenly couldn’t imagine Leigh not being in her life.
She’d become a true friend, a confidant, someone she felt closer to than any of the other female friends she’d had throughout her life.
Gwen had always been baffled, and a little envious, of the bonds some women seemed to have with each other.
She was never a “girl’s girl.” She had female friends, but never anyone who felt like a sister.
Most of her friends were from school or sports teams, casual types of relationships in which they talked about the usual things girls talked about.
She was never “attached at the hip” with any particular girl.
As a teenager, she started to learn that other girls could be your worst enemies.
They could smile to your face and then obliterate your reputation behind your back.
Her best friend in high school, Cherie, had turned on Gwen after a rumor spread that Gwen had kissed Scott Renner, Cherie’s longtime crush.
The rumor wasn’t true, but it didn’t matter.
That was the thing with female friendships—they seemed so fragile, so fickle.
Leigh felt solid, though, like someone Gwen could know forever.
She could foresee their girls being close too.
Gwen had developed a real affection for Belle, and Leigh seemed to adore June.
Gwen had never been one to gush over babies.
She’d always assumed she’d have to fake excitement around other people’s kids, but she really did find Belle delightful.
Belle was different from June—more relaxed, less on alert, probably because Leigh was less tightly wound than Gwen.
The girls did tummy time together. They cooed and babbled profusely.
Leigh was convinced they were having full-on conversations in their own language.
When Gwen was at Leigh’s condo, she felt like they were in an idyllic haze, like they were doing motherhood the way it was supposed to be done.
This, she thought, was the village everyone talked about.
It would have made sense for them to switch off houses, but Gwen loved coming to Leigh’s part of town, loved the cozy, well-decorated condo with its amazing views. Leigh said Belle hated the car, so she was more than happy to have Gwen and June come to her.
The four of them sat on the area rug in front of the giant floor-to-ceiling windows. Gwen watched Leigh feed Belle—a quick five minutes per boob before chunky, adorable Belle appeared happy and satiated. Whenever Gwen watched the two of them together, it wasn’t so much envy she felt as longing.
“So last dose of antibiotics today. I’m going to put her back on the boob tomorrow,” Gwen said.
June had been taking formula without any issues, which still managed to hurt Gwen’s feelings. Throughout the whole ordeal, Leigh had taken on the role of cheerleader and therapist.
“I think it will go just fine,” Leigh said. “It may take some time for your supply to be fully back, but you’ll get there.”
“I hope so. Jeff is so sick of me talking about this,” Gwen said.
“Sweet Jeff. These men don’t get it,” Leigh said. “But speaking of Jeff, how did it go last night?”
The previous day, Gwen had told Leigh of her plan to have sex with Jeff. She’d bought the lube and felt it was time to put it to use.
“It was good, actually,” Gwen said.
“Lube is magic, right?”
“Game changer,” Gwen said.
It was a surprise to both of them, Gwen and Jeff, how enjoyable it was.
Gwen’s expectations had been low. She was checking something off a list. She didn’t expect to come, decided it would be a win if Jeff did.
So when she came not once, but twice, she felt a kind of glory that had been missing from her life.
She hadn’t missed sex, per se, but she had missed the basic pleasure of something going well.
There was this niggling doubt, though, this thought she’d been waiting to share with Leigh.
“I’m a little worried that it didn’t hurt because my hormones have changed from not breastfeeding,” Gwen said. “Like, my body thinks I’m done with that and is back to reproduction mode.”
Leigh appeared to consider it and then shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “It’s just the lube.”
Gwen felt like so many of their conversations were around her strife, her anxieties. She tried to balance it with more questions about Leigh’s life.
“How are you and Nathan?” Gwen asked.
Leigh shrugged. “Nothing new there. I feel like when you have a baby, a man becomes so . . . obsolete. Like, they’re just in the way.”
Gwen laughed. “I think I’m too hard on Jeff. He can’t read my mind. I’m always waiting for him to catch up to what I know, but he just hasn’t done as much research as me.”
“Which is why you should be hard on him,” Leigh said.
Gwen laughed again. “You sound like someone who doesn’t want to be married.”
She was joking but also not.
“You’re onto me,” Leigh said in a playful whisper.
“Oh, come on, you love Nathan,” Gwen said.
Though really, Gwen had no idea if Leigh loved Nathan. Gwen had no idea how Leigh defined love. It was so subjective, the ol’ trash-versus-treasure thing—one person’s good marriage was another person’s imprisonment.
“I care for him,” Leigh said. “I feel like we’re at the end of something, though. I just don’t know if it’s the end of a chapter or the end of our entire book.”
“I think most new parents must feel that way, right?”
“Hard to say. I would assume so, but then I see those couples on the street, taking turns pushing a stroller, kissing each other while waiting at stoplights.”
She pretended to gag, sticking out her tongue in mock disgust.
“That’s probably a performance,” Gwen said.
“For whom?”
“For themselves. For the general public. For their kid.”
“I don’t know if I’m up for performing all the time,” Leigh said.
“So, what? You want to leave Nathan?”
As frustrated as Gwen felt with Jeff at times, she couldn’t imagine leaving him.
It wasn’t that he was super helpful with June, but he was there.
He was an adult human being who was present—someone to tap in during dire moments.
He reminded her of who she used to be—which was both aggravating and essential to her sanity.
“I don’t know,” Leigh said with a long sigh. “He gave me this delectable baby.”
She lifted Belle from the rug and gave her wet, sloppy kisses all over her chubby face. Belle squealed with the absolute glee that only babies and puppies have.
“Maybe give it a year,” Gwen said. “There should be, like, a cooling-off period for new mothers.”
“Maybe give it a year,” Leigh repeated. “That should be the title of my memoir.”
“I would read it.”
“Nathan is always telling me to wait things out. He says I’m too impulsive. I get discontent, and I want out. He calls it my itchy feet.”
“Have you always had the . . . itchy feet?”
“As long as I can remember,” she said.
Maybe this was what drew Gwen to Leigh—this sense of mild chaos.
Gwen’s life had been the opposite of chaos up until they’d cut open her belly.
From that moment forward, nothing had felt still or stable.
Maybe Leigh had come into her life to show her that life could be lived this way, that it was possible to settle into pandemonium.
“Nathan, like all men I’ve been with, thinks he can change me. I think men like the challenge, until they get tired.”
“Why haven’t you just been with a woman, like, from the start?”
“Oh, silly Gwen—that would be way less interesting.”
Gwen felt herself flush. She felt naive in Leigh’s presence. It brought her back to middle school, when the girls in PE class teased her for not yet wearing a bra.
“Have you ever been with a woman?” Leigh asked her.
“No.”