26

26

F lora has completely lost track of time. She doesn't know how long the power has been out; she only knows that it has not yet returned. The storm outside continues to rage, condemning the world to darkness.

She has not moved from the couch since the incident in the bathroom. Jodi has fully taken the reins, feeding Iris every few hours. Flora hand expresses for comfort when her breasts are unbearably full, but she doesn't have the energy to manually pump. She knows this will kill her supply, but nothing can motivate her muscles to move. Her body has melted into the cushions.

She smells rancid. A blended brew of spit-up, body odor, dried milk, sweat. Even the wound on her arm stinks, which must mean the infection is getting worse. But again, Flora doesn't care. She has reached the ultimate lethargy, and it is surprisingly freeing. Her anxiety has kept her in fight-or-flight mode for so long that now the pendulum has fully swung the other way—absolutely nothing matters, everything is pointless, effort in any regard is a total waste. And it's lovely. It's weightless.

Zephie has been tugging at the hem of Flora's subconscious. Flora can feel her, waiting at the edge of awareness, desperate for attention. There's an urgency to her presence, but Flora is content to ignore her. She makes a concerted effort to banish the images of Zephie in the bathroom: empty sockets for eyes, tears made of beetles, water shooting from her mouth. She can't begin to imagine why Zephie would punish her like that.

Flora lies belly-up, feet planted on the soft cushion so that relief blossoms in her lower back as she presses through her heels. If she turns one degree to the right or left, her breasts throb in pain. She can't help but wonder what Connor would think if he were to walk in right now. He would see his wife, half-dressed and incapacitated on the couch, with rock-hard red boobs spilling out of her nursing bra and an arm bruised from its oozing laceration. He'd see sporadic piles of dirty laundry (burp cloths, onesies, socks, sweats), scattered kitchen bowls crusted with remnants of days-old snacks, diapers and wipes and changing pads and the snot sucker and the baby nail file and blankets and clean towels and

I'm so thirsty

Flora's mouth is dry, like she has been chewing on cotton balls. The sensation shivers her spine. She closes her eyes, and when she opens them, Jodi is standing above her. The rain must have muted her footsteps. Flora blinks hello, and Jodi crawls onto the couch, placing Flora's head in her lap. Using the lightest touch, she drags her fingertips back and forth across Flora's face.

The gesture transports Flora to childhood. She remembers the first night she tried to sleep without her baby doll, uniquely named "Baby." She marched into her parents' room shortly after bedtime and handed over her lifetime lovey. She had thought hard about it and decided she was too old to sleep with dolls. When she placed Baby on the large armchair in the corner of her parents' room, she announced, "I need independence."

In school, they were learning about being independent, and the notion felt novel and grand. She couldn't wait to prove to herself how independent she could be.

Her dad smiled a somewhat sad smile and said, "All right, bunny."

Her mother said nothing.

An hour later, Flora still couldn't fall asleep without her comfort item. She padded silently out of bed and down the hallway to her parents' room. Baby was exactly where she had left her, so she gently pulled her from the chair and hugged her close. Before Flora turned to leave, she heard her mother crying. Soft, barely perceptible whimpers. When her mother realized that Flora was in the room, she brought her finger to her lips, shhh, and pointed toward the hallway.

Flora's mother followed her back to her room and climbed into bed beside her daughter.

"What's wrong, Mommy?" Flora asked.

"I'm feeling sad," her mother said. "And since you came to get Baby, I wonder if you were feeling sad, too."

Flora nodded and cuddled in closer to her mother, who began to lightly stroke her face. Flora didn't want the moment to end. In that snapshot of time, she had the rare sensation that she was a part of her mother's world. She was on the inside.

Now, Flora has that same feeling, her face once again in her mother's hands.

"Thank you for coming," Flora says, the words half-strangled in her dry mouth.

"I'm happy to be with my babies," Jodi says, and Flora doesn't cringe at her mother referring to Iris as hers. Instead, it feels like they are part of something together. Like Flora matters.

"Why didn't you have another one?" Flora asks.

Her mother's fingers stop.

"I just mean," Flora continues, "didn't Dad want another kid?"

"He did," Jodi admits. Her fingers restart as her gaze moves to the nearby window. "Well, he said he did."

"But?"

"But…" Jodi flinches slightly at a crash of thunder. "He knew it wasn't a good idea."

"Because of your time in the hospital?" Flora asks.

"That's right," Jodi says, adjusting her legs beneath Flora's head.

They sit in silence, and a lull in the rain echoes their own quiet.

Finally, Flora asks in a tiny voice, "Was it scary? The hospital?"

Jodi thinks. "At first," she admits, "but then…" Her demeanor changes. She gets serious, moving her gaze back to Flora, her bad eye twitching constantly. "I didn't lose my mind, Flora. But they want to take your baby away. You hear me? That's what they want to do. And so you have to play their game. You have to say you were the crazy one. That you've changed."

"But you didn't? Change, I mean?"

Jodi ignores this question. Or maybe she's inwardly puzzling out the answer. Finally, she says, "You stopped talking to me after your wedding."

"Mom…" Flora says like a teenager whining come on. When Jodi doesn't respond, though, Flora asks more gently, "Did you even care?"

Jodi's expression is blank. "How can you ask me that?"

"You had a miserable time at my wedding. You didn't want to be there."

"That's ridiculous."

"And when I told you it was obvious you hated being a mother, you didn't argue with me. You didn't"—Flora's voice cracks—"you didn't tell me I was wrong."

Jodi shakes her head. But when she opens her mouth, it's not to give an apology.

"And yet, you became a mother yourself." Jodi's good eye begins to tear. Her voice is strained. "Why couldn't you understand? Why couldn't you see?" When Flora doesn't answer, Jodi repeats herself. "Why couldn't you see?" She asks it again and again, more hysterical each time.

Overcome with disbelief, or maybe shock, Flora leaves her body, watching the tableau of her and her desperate mother from the outside. She has the sensation she is falling, as if someone has knifed the strings of her parachute.

She wonders if she is dreaming.