4

4

F lora is so in love—and also so, so tired.

She doesn't know the last time she slept for longer than a stretch of two hours. Iris disrupted her slumber long before she arrived three weeks ago. Insomnia was one of Flora's earliest symptoms.

no one should glamorize pregnancy

It's a goddamn miracle how the female body works, but it certainly doesn't glow while performing its magic. At least, not in Flora's experience.

The breast pump suck suck sucks while she sits stiffly, four pillows stacked behind her so that she cannot lean back and lose suction or, worse, leak milk. She is trying exclusive pumping, something she read about online that will allow Iris to get Flora's milk without shredding her nipples in the process. But Flora's lower back already aches from sitting stick straight on the too-soft cushion beneath her. She doesn't know where else in the house she could set up with the milk-extracting machine and all its accoutrements. Bottles, tops, tubing, back-flow protectors, connectors, flanges. Flanges. What a funny word. One that Flora didn't even know until a few days ago. But now that sterile plastic tool has become an essential part of her universe.

She looks around the living room, whose empty spaces echo the whining of the pump. It would be impossible to know the time of day without a clock. Outside, the sky is all clouds, dark blues and sad grays. Little light comes in through the windows, giving the furniture around her a dusty, muted quality. It's unnerving. Like a calm before the storm—which, rife with anxiety about the coming unknown, really isn't a calm at all.

Flora is no stranger to loneliness. In some ways, the feeling is so familiar that it could almost be mistaken for comfort. She was trained from her earliest days. But age has, ironically, deprived her of her strongest coping mechanisms. The last time she felt this alone, she was young enough to still have her imaginary friend, Zephie. It has been a long time since Flora even thought about her, but Zephie had kept Flora company from her toddler years into childhood. They would read books on the couch or cuddle in bed after a bad dream. Zephie had always been a kind of anchor for Flora.

Like one time, when Flora was four years old, she'd gotten separated from her mother in the mall. She'd stepped into the flow of foot traffic and become overwhelmed by shoes clacking on the shiny floor, voices echoing up to the high ceiling above, competing radio stations blasting from nearby stores. The world roared. Loud, so loud, just like it did on the nights she couldn't sleep, those late hours when the Night Hag came.

Standing in that mall, overstimulated and scared, she'd started to go under. And that's when she'd felt small fingers slip into her own. It was Zephie, her thin smile beaming right when Flora needed it most. As soon as her friend appeared, the world slowly came back into focus. And that's when Flora saw a blob of bright coral far ahead, just inside the doors of a department store. Her mother.

"Mamma!" Flora cried out, zigzagging with Zephie through the bustling crowd and finally lunging for her mom, who was spinning a glass case of silver earrings. "I was lost! You lost me!" Flora shouted.

Her mother looked around self-consciously before kneeling to Flora's level. "You don't look lost to me," she said, smiling and brushing a strand of Flora's hair behind her ear. "What could it have been, five minutes?"

Flora knew exactly how long it had been. She had just learned to tell time in school. She was without her mother for nearly half an hour.

Later, when Flora told her father what had happened, she saw something like anger or annoyance flicker in his eyes before he kneeled down next to her. "You know," he said, "I had an imaginary friend when I was your age, too. His name was Stinky. He always left dirty footprints behind him."

Flora laughed.

"What's your friend's name?" he asked.

"Zephie," she told him.

Her father's face scrunched up. "Well, that's an unusual name. How did you come up with it?"

Flora shrugged. "I don't know. That's just always been her name."

"I like it," he said at last, but his smile looked forced, so Flora could tell he probably thought it was weird. "Have you told your mom? About your friend?"

"No," Flora said quickly. Then she wondered if telling Dad about Zephie had been a mistake. "Don't tell Mom, please!"

"Oh, don't worry, bunny," he said, wrapping her in a giant bear hug. "I won't tell if you don't want me to."

Then he squeezed her and rocked back and forth for a long, long time. Flora liked it very much.

The timer on Flora's phone dings: pumping session over. She turns off the machine, unhooks her breasts, and dresses herself. If only Zephie could see her now. Flora chuckles, imagining what her friend would think about the nipple-sucking machine. The playfully horrified faces she would make in response to its mechanical wheezing.

The room is even darker now, long shadows stretching around her. As Flora walks toward the adjoining kitchen, she passes the armchair that has become a toy receptacle. Iris might not be old enough to enjoy toys, but that didn't stop Esther from sending them in numerous "predelivery deliveries." There are socks with tiny bells attached, wooden blocks, a squeaky giraffe. Most are still in the packaging. On top of the pile is the brightly colored plastic activity cube that she unwrapped earlier, each side boasting large buttons that light up and play music when pressed. The buttons feature animals' faces, every one of them plastered into a cheerful smile. Unmoving markers of forced joy.

In the kitchen, Flora gingerly places the extracted milk on the top shelf of the refrigerator. She read in some mom forum to never put it in the door.

Flora would be lost without the internet. She uses it for everything. She read up on wake windows and studied charts that compare the size of a newborn's stomach to various fruits (at one day, it's a cherry; at one week, it's an apricot). She double-checked that loud grunting at night is normal, and she even reverse-image-searched a rash on Iris's eyelids. How did mothers survive before the internet?

And then it hits her: before the internet, mothers had mothers. They had the older generation to show them how to burp the baby, how to get poop stains out of cotton, how to relieve newborn gas pains. They had helping hands to prep bottles and change diapers, cook meals and brew fresh coffee.

Flora's heart burns. She will never have that. Because she will never see her mother again. She remembers the day they stopped talking—a day impossible to forget, as it was also Flora's wedding day. She remembers her mother's heavy expression, her sulking form a shadow over the ceremony. And of course Flora remembers her own outburst that sealed the fate of their relationship, severing it forever. She can hardly believe it has been four years since she last heard her mother's voice.

Time has a habit of folding in on itself if not watched closely.

Flora positions a giant green plastic bowl in the sink and places the disassembled pump pieces inside: four squirts of the special nontoxic, all-organic-whatever soap and some hot water. Washing the parts every two hours takes its toll; her hands are already raw, her right middle knuckle cracked and bleeding.

Another beetle emerges from seemingly nowhere and glides across the white tile countertop. With little reaction, Flora cups her hand and sweeps the bug toward the sink. Then she turns on the faucet and chases the little guy around the porcelain with the detachable spout. When the blast of water upends him, he scurries helplessly, his legs scrambling furiously but getting him nowhere. She turns up the pressure and disappears him down the drain. Then—for good measure—she runs the garbage disposal, imagining his small body crunching swiftly in the sharpened blades.

Let that send a message to the rest of them, wherever they may be hiding.