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Show Motherlunge a novel 147 semi-consciousness and waved his spastic limbs. Also, the dog trotted in from the other room. "It's mostly a reflex," I told them, breathing through my mouth; they all smelled faintly of vomit. "This move"-I flung my arms up in an ugly way, clawed the air-"is the Moro reflex. He thinks he might be falling." "Nan." Jack shook his head and fit his finger inside X.'s little fist "He knows his mom and dad. And she doesn't get it, does she Xavier?" Jack asked the baby, whose eyes rolled up inside his head, then found their way down again. "That's okay," Pavia whispered. She kissed the top of X.'s head. "That's okay." Jack looked at his watch, and Pavia absently squeezed one breast, then the other. "Time to nurse," Jack crooned, and bent his head, too, toward X. I went to get the breast pump parts that were drying in the kitchen sink-no one could say that I wasn\helping!- marveling anew at the apparatus: two clear plastic funnels, two tubes, two bottles to collect the milk. It was hard to believe that technology hadn't evolved past this. Milk milk, lemonade, round the corner, chocolate's made. You attached all the parts to the grinding motor-encased in doctor's bag of black, wipeable faux leather-and fed the breasts into it. In relentless bursts of suction the nipples were pulled to twice their usual length. Milk sprayed out and was collected; the infant was fed. The breast pump was a horrible analog for maternal care-brutish, mechanical, too straightforward-and naturally I was fascinated by it. Pavia's technique was to nurse X. on one side while pumping the other breast. His weak little chin bobbed fiercely beneath the breast he was latched on to, syncopating the sound of the pump's motor. |
