Pro tip: Never, ever ask yourself if your day could get any worse, because it always could. Because maybe you’ll get home and realize your pregnant sister expects you to go with her to her breastfeeding class.
“I thought I only had to go with you to the first class,” I whine as we pull out of the driveway. “How am I supposed to help you with breastfeeding? I barely have breasts, and I’m certainly not using mine to feed any babies.”
“You don’t have to learn how to breastfeed,” Abbi says. “You’re just moral support. My partner. So that way, all those women and their husbands won’t look at me and say, ‘Oh, poor lady, here all by herself with no one to help her.’”
“Now they’ll say, ‘Oh, poor lady, clearly here with her teenage sister who doesn’t even know how to change a diaper.’”
“News flash: I don’t know how to change a diaper, either,” Abbi says. “But there’s no entrance exam for getting pregnant.”
“I just don’t get why one of your friends couldn’t have come with you.”
“If you were the one learning how to breastfeed, would you ask Derek to come with you?”
I think about it for a moment. “Maybe.”
“You and Derek have a weird, unhealthily close relationship, so I’m not surprised. But who else was I supposed to ask? Dad? He’d be like, ‘Well, Abbi, breastfeeding is just like designing a birdhouse.’”
It’s true. Dad does have an annoying habit of using woodworking analogies for everything.
I’m a slow driver, much to Abbi’s chagrin, so when we get to the hospital she practically rolls out of the car before I’ve parked.
“Like it’s not bad enough that I’m the only one there without a husband,” she huffs, speed walking through the entrance and down the hallway. “Now I also have to walk in late.”
“So sorry I didn’t want to drive through any red lights,” I say, my shoes squeaking on the tile floor as I jog to keep up with her. Seriously, how is she so fast?
We burst through the door and into the darkness of the conference room, where a giant nipple on the screen greets us.
“Whoa,” I say, and everyone’s heads swivel around to stare at us.
“Thanks, Jolie,” Abbi mutters as we sit down.
“I’m sorry, I was startled by a nipple bigger than my head,” I whisper, then sit back and cross my arms.
The video’s supposed to be showing us what breastfeeding looks like, but I’m too distracted by the woman’s tan lines to really pay attention. Also, I think about what it must be like to be the woman who was filmed for this—as she drifts off to sleep at night, does she ever think, I wonder how many classrooms full of people watched me breastfeed my infant today?
I don’t even bother telling Abbi these observations, because she has her notebook out again and she’s diligently taking notes.
After we watch the baby on-screen (who’s probably about thirty years old by now) successfully being breastfed for a while, Kathy shuts the video off.
“Okay, so now that you’ve seen what breastfeeding looks like, let’s practice some of the most common positions.” She pulls a box out from under the table and starts pulling dolls out of it. She hands one to each couple. Abbi takes the baby gingerly, and I can’t help but notice that its face is contorted into a scream.
“Why did they have to make the baby look so angry?” I twist my head around to check out everyone else’s baby. “Seriously, did they all get a happy baby? Do we have the only one that looks like a devil child?”
“That’s not the point,” Abbi reminds me, and I guess she’s right.
Kathy’s demonstrating the proper way to hold the baby at the breast (I’m not paying super close attention because, as much as I want to help Abbi, it’s pretty clear that I won’t be helping her with this particular part) and walking from couple to couple and adjusting their holds.
When she gets to Abbi and me, she reaches out and moves Abbi’s arm. “Just a little bit higher, and…”
But when Abbi moves her arm, the doll slides out and clatters to the floor.
The woman next to us gasps. We all stare at the baby on the floor.
“Well, good thing it’s not a real baby!” Kathy says, quickly picking it up and shoving it back into Abbi’s arms, where it looks just as upset as it did before.
Kathy moves on to the next couple, but Abbi keeps staring at the baby in her arms.
“It’s just a toy, Abbi,” I remind her. “A weird-looking toy.”
“Yeah,” Abbi says slowly, not looking at me.
Kathy claps to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s take a quick break to get snacks and use the restroom, okay? See you all back here in five.”
“I’ll be right back,” Abbi says, and shoves the baby into my arms.
I watch her leave, then put the baby on the table. I sit there enjoying the free granola bars and bottled water (I deserve some sort of perk for going through this) until our five-minute break is over. All the other women have come back into the room, and Kathy is pretending like she’s shuffling through her papers while she’s really watching the door for Abbi.
I’ve had just about enough of everyone repeatedly glancing at me, then at the clock, then at the door, so finally I say, “I’m gonna go check on her.”
Kathy nods enthusiastically. “Hurry back!”
Right, because I definitely don’t want to miss any of this extremely-relevant-to-my-current-life info.
I practically stomp down the hallway toward the restroom.
“Abs?” I call as I walk into the bathroom. Silence.
I bend down and look for feet in the stalls. And there, in the last one, are Abbi’s gray boots.
“Abs?” I call again. “I know you’re in there. Or it’s someone else with your boots, in which case … sorry for making this weird.”
I hear the click of the stall door unlocking, so I gently push it open. Abbi looks up at me, her face blotchy with tears, and sniffles.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, starting to panic. “Are you in pain? Do you feel sick? Is—”
“I dropped the baby.”
I pause for a second. “What?”
Abbi looks at her hands. “The fake baby. I dropped it on the floor. If that was a real baby, someone would’ve called child services.”
“But it wasn’t a real baby,” I say. “It was made of plastic and it looked like the devil’s spawn. I would’ve dropped it, too.”
Abbi lowers her head into her hands. “I can’t even handle a fake baby, Jolie! How the hell am I supposed to handle a real one?”
Oh. So that’s what this is about.
“Hey,” I say, kneeling in front of her (and fighting the urge to remind her that she’s sitting on a toilet like it’s a normal chair and that’s disgusting). “It wasn’t real, okay?”
“How am I supposed to do this for real if I can’t even do it for pretend?” she says, giving me a defeated look. “All the moms in there have someone to help them if they screw up. I’m alone, Jolie. It’s just me taking care of this baby.”
I purse my lips, unsure what to say. I guess I never thought Abbi was all that worried about having the baby, mostly because she never expressed any uncertainty. She just came home one day, said she was pregnant, and started preparing for it. It’s not that I thought being so beautiful meant Abbi didn’t have any self-doubt, but … Well, okay, yeah, I did sort of think that. I thought I was the only Peterson who worried about how screwed up her own life was.
I don’t think I have the ability to take away her uncertainty completely—after all, I don’t know anything about kids—but there’s one thing I can offer.
“You’re not alone,” I say. “Maybe you don’t have some guy with you, but who cares? Look at those dudes in there. One of them laughs whenever the instructor says the word ‘nipple.’ How much help do you think he’ll actually be?”
Abbi lets out a snot-filled laugh.
“But you have us—me, and Mom, and Dad. I don’t know how to change a diaper or hold a baby, but I’ll try to help you. And Mom and Dad did this two times, so they’re basically pros. We’ll all be there to make sure you don’t drop the baby.”
Abbi nods. “I know. It’s just hard to compare the way things should be to the way they are.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.” And I do, because I want things to be perfect, too.
“I don’t want to go back in there,” Abbi says. “And not because I’m embarrassed or upset. I mean, I am, but honestly … I just keep thinking that if I prepare enough, if I learn enough, if I do everything right, then everything will turn out okay. But maybe all I have to do is do it, you know? This baby’s coming out whether or not I keep taking these classes.”
“And also I don’t really want to see those devil babies anymore,” I say.
“Seriously. Couldn’t they give them happier faces?”
I hold out a hand and help Abbi up. “I can’t believe you’ve been sitting on a toilet this entire time.”
She shrugs as we walk out of the bathroom and toward the exit. “It was the only place to sit down and my feet hurt. You up for a Frosty?”
“Literally always,” I say.