MAY 23, 1957
Lena whispers, “Adele” in her sleep, dreams of those jars of herbs. Hemlock. White pine. Bloodroot. What would be the remedy for this? The only cure she knows, for sure, is her child, nursing. Her girl-child! Feathered, pink-eared, blue-veined. Easter egg, bird. Bonnie. And Otie—where is he? She smiles thinking of him, hopes that Adele will go find him. Oh my goddamn, “Bring me my child!” she tries to yell, but her voice is weak and the house still, the cooling tin roof ticking, a sliver of moonlight sliding across the whitewashed floor.
She yells again into the night, but her voice is thin. Not what it should be. Her head spins. She’s on the dance floor, spinning; those streaks of alizarin, streaks of crimson. She is so hot. She throws off the covers, throws off the sheet, rips the gown off her chest. She reaches for the cloth beside her, dips it into the bowl of cool water on the bedside table, rubs it across her chest, across her throbbing breasts, spurting milk into the sour sheets and sour pillow.
Where is her child? Her legs won’t move. Won’t rise. She can’t get up, and yet she must, and then the door is opening, and she calls out into the darkness, “Baby B?”
But it is Lex.
He comes to her, puts his hands onto her shoulders. “Shh, Lena Bird,” he whispers, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside her.
Lena lies down. Feels the sheets underneath her. Lets his hand touch her brow, her hair, her neck, the burning skin of her chest.
“Lena,” he says, and she can smell the whiskey on him. “You have to get better. You have to sleep.”
Sleep. She reaches for Lex’s hands, holds them to her. Puts them on her swollen breasts. “Squeeze, Lex, please,” she says, and so he does. He pinches one nipple, and then the next, releasing the pressure. Milk squirts down her side, pools beneath her ribs. Lex finds the cloth and mops up the pooled milk. Squeezes more. Gently, but firm enough.
The release. The burning pain. “Suck them, please,” she pleads. He looks into her eyes, meets her there, then leans over and puts his lips onto her nipple, gently sucking the milk out, swallowing. One breast and then the other. And Lena can breathe. Oh, sweet Jesus, she can finally breathe.
“Sleep, my love,” Lex says when he pulls away, the side of his face lit by the moon’s milk-white glow, his fingers on the cloth cooling the fever from her freckled chest.
“Where is Otie?” Lena asks.
“Adele took him.”
“And Bonnie?”
“Hazel is caring for her.”
“Lex.”
“Yes?”
“There are letters. In the cabin.”
“Okay.”
“Burn them.”
“Burn them?”
“Burn them.” Lena smiles.
Lena sleeps. She sleeps for the first time in days, while Lex sits and wipes her brow with a cool cloth. In her dream Bonnie is in her arms, and they are walking. The side of a mountain, snowcapped, but they are warm in layers of wool, hats stuffed with feathers.
Her girl-child Bonnie is two, or three—apple-cheeked and strong-limbed. They walk and they sing. They sing and they walk. The trees around them—hemlock and spruce—quiver with their footsteps, join their singing with a feathery hum. “Where are we going?” Bonnie calls out, laughing, and Lena laughs also, calls back, “To the top of the mountain!”
They are hiking to the top of the mountain, this mother and this daughter. Snowcapped. A dome of white light. Treeless. A flock of gray birds circling its tip.
“What’s at the top of the mountain?” Bonnie calls out, her voice cherry red, joy-filled, a bell, and Lena responds, “Love, my love! At the top of the mountain is love!” And so they hike together. And when the girl-child tires, Lena picks her up and carries her, singing, and wraps her in her woolen shawl, and when she falls asleep in Lena’s arms she carries her still, humming, until they reach the highest crest of the highest peak. Otie is with them, wing-repaired, flying in circles. Hooting. Fierce. Angry. To the very top of the mountain. Ablaze with white light, snowflakes, frost-flecked moss and granite. At the top Lena lies down in a bed of that frosted moss and snow and holds her daughter close to her, closes her eyes, and sleeps, all the while humming, and her girl-child smiles. She smiles! Otie sitting nearby. Bird-friend. Girl-child. Apple cheeks, smiling. Bonnie, the Bonnie in the month of May, the last light fading on her apple lips, Bonnie.