Chapter 4: If Breast is Best

Shea reacts to Riley breastfeeding in public and then comforts her when Riley gets news that may threaten her ability to breastfeed forever.

When Zoe nurses, she grabs onto my shirt and wraps her little fingers around it like she’s holding on for dear life. I wrap my arms around her and hold onto that moment for dear life.

Shea

6 Weeks Old…

It’s usually around 3 a.m. that the begging starts. I’ll be with Zoe in her nursery and after hours of failed attempts to get her to go to sleep or to nurse or to do something productive, I’ll give into the tears and literally beg her, knowing full well she doesn’t understand a word I’m saying, to go to sleep. Just for a few hours. Mommy is exhausted.

I remember at the hospital when the nurse told me that mom should sleep when the baby sleeps. That woman was hilarious. If she had any children of her own, I’ll shave my head. Any mother knows, when the baby sleeps, mom runs around the house like she’s had way too much coffee (which she most likely has) trying to do everything else that doesn’t revolve around baby. It’s like having a timer except you never know when it will go off. You could luck out and finish cleaning the house or doing the dishes or responding to emails or paying bills, or it could go off halfway through shaving your armpit. You just never know.

What I do know is that at 3 a.m. I’d risk that timer for even an hour of sleep because the frustration of a killer headache, a screaming baby and the inability to get her to latch on to save my life is too much. There is nothing in pre-motherhood life to prepare a woman for this. Except maybe taking a sleeping pill and just as it’s kicking in, turning on a jackhammer for the next hour or two. But even then it doesn’t quite compare, because it doesn’t break your heart to hear the jackhammer pounding away.

I needed a break. So when Riley called me and invited me out for coffee, I told her I’d even put makeup on for the occasion.

That was a joke, of course.

We met at our usual place, just Riley and me and Alexis and Zoe.

“I think this is the first time I’ve gone out A.D. After Death-of-my-Social-Life,” I said.

“You’re not allowed to complain to me,” Riley said. “I worked a ten hour shift last night. I would give anything to be locked in the house all day with only Alexis to worry about and not how much bread table 15 has.”

“Is it awful?”

“It’s not ideal. But thank all-that-is-good for my mom. Don’t tell her I said that. Last night she offered to move in with me, and I’m just sleep-deprived and half-crazed enough to consider it.”

“Maybe you should. It doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me.”

"Shea, I barely made it out of her house alive. I sure as hell don’t want to go back. You're so lucky. You have Everett to take care of you so you can spend every minute with Zoe."

I couldn’t argue. I was lucky. I often stayed up too late wondering why. And when the other shoe would drop.

"I wish I had someone," Riley muttered and then, louder, "Ew. Did I just say that out loud?"

"Yes. And please stop right there before I have to put this baby down and smack you."

Riley snorted a laugh. "I know."

"The last thing you or Alexis needs right now is your ex-freeloader hanging around, bringing his strung out friends with him."

She sighed. "I know. Believe me, it's not Derek I want--it's anyone with a bank account and biceps. Although, frankly, I'd settle for someone who would wash the dishes and do laundry."

"Honey, you're doing great," I said. "You're like a superhero."

Riley rolled her eyes. And then, without warning, she pulled down her shirt, unsnapped her bra and exposed her left breast for anyone in Starbucks to see. Instinctively, I gasped and covered my face.

"What?" Riley asked.

I peeked through my fingers to see an oblivious Riley latching Alexis on, like stripping down in public was the most natural thing in the world.

"Your...b**b," I said from behind my hand and motioned in that direction as if she didn't know where her own breast was.

"Yeah, it's really cool how that works. Watch. She's going to put her mouth around it and when she sucks..." Riley made a dramatic face, "milk comes out."

"But..." I stuttered, "we're practically in the middle of Times Square."

"Shea, I'm just feeding her. It's like you drinking your coffee."

"My coffee isn't coming out of your b**b."

"Do you want me to cover up?" she asked.

I looked around to assess the damage but no one was really looking at us. I tried to imagine what my mother’s generation would think of Riley’s display, back when cleavage alone was shocking and offensive. It would have been social suicide. No doubt women of today had come along way--in which direction, it was hard to say.

I blinked hard. In truth, now that Alexis was latched on, I couldn't see much more than what her low-cut shirt usually revealed.

"No," I said. I cleared my throat and reluctantly rotated my body to face Riley again.

Riley rolled her eyes. "I tried covering up the first few times but it's such a pain in the a*s. Plus, we’re in the middle of the freakin’ desert in summer. Alexis was melting under all those layers. Finally, I just said 'to hell with it'. I'm not shy."

"But what about everyone else?" I asked.

She shrugged. "If they don't like it, they don't have to look."

A man with a young child walked by, and I resisted the urge to throw Zoe's blanket over Riley.

"I have the right to breastfeed wherever I want,” she said. “It's illegal for them to kick me out. Did you know that some states even mandate employers provide a time and place for moms to pump or nurse during the workday?"

Someone had been on the mommy forums again.

"Isn't it disrespectful?" I asked.

"Moms have been doing it since the beginning of time. And if that's not convincing enough, how about this: screw 'em."

I laughed. I had to admire Riley’s tenacity. "I thought you were going to stop breastfeeding, anyway, with work and all."

Riley looked down at Alexis and smiled lovingly.

"I can't," she said softly. "I love this time with her too much."

I smiled and looked down at Zoe, finally asleep in my arms. Now was the time to confess that my own breastfeeding time hadn’t been going as well. I couldn't.

"Look at her face," Riley said with a laugh, and I got a glimpse of the soft side she usually kept hidden beneath the tough front she put up to face the world as a single mother. I almost didn't recognize her.

An old woman walked by the table and, looking down at Riley, wrinkled her nose. Riley caught her expression and shook her head. I leaned toward her and whispered, "Screw 'em."

***

Two days later, I had just gotten Zoe down for a nap when Riley called me.

“I need you,” she said. The sound of her voice made my heart drop.

“Where are you?”

“At the doctor’s office.” I remembered then that she’d had her postpartum checkup today.

“Is something wrong?” My heart pounded.

“Can you just come get me?”

“I’ll be right there.”

I settled Zoe in the car without waking her and drove as fast as I could, my knuckles white on the steering wheel the entire way. When I pulled up, she was standing in front of the office. Her chocolate hair hung limply around her arms, and she looked at me from beneath her eyelashes. I put my hand on the door handle but Riley pushed herself off the wall and came around the car. She slid into the seat as silently as a ghost and clicked the door closed. Even my skin was on edge.

I turned to her. “Is everything okay?”

Riley stared straight at the glove box as she shook her head.

“What? What, Riley? Please tell me. I can’t take it.”

Riley swallowed hard. “She found...a lump.”

The breath left my lungs. “But...it’s not...”

Riley shrugged. “She doesn’t know. She said sometimes, the hormones from pregnancy can cause...”

“But it could just be a plugged milk duct, right?” I’d read about them in What to Expect and many of the women on the mommy forums had already suffered from them.

“It’s pretty big, Shea,” she said. She looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“It’s not,” I told her. “I’m sure it’s not. Plugged milk ducts happen all the time.”

Riley burst into tears, and I leaned across the console to take her into my arms. My own tears fell from my cheeks and disappeared into her hair.

I took her home with me and made her coffee. Everett paused for the briefest moment when he came in, but when he saw my face he brushed a kiss on my cheek, said hello to Riley and took the baby into the other room. The tension in the room, the silence, the fear...it was too much.

“What am I going to do?” Riley asked. “What if it is...cancer?” She said the word bravely, almost rebelliously, like she dared it to try.

“It’s not,” I assured her. It couldn’t be. She was only twenty-five.

“Shea...it could be.”

I sighed. “If it is, then it is. And we’ll deal with it, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Riley’s eyes went glassy again, which shook me even more than The C Word. Standing in front of me was the woman who had told me, at eight months pregnant, that she wanted to hunt down her ex-boyfriend and kick his a*s--that she didn’t need anyone. And she didn’t. Not to take care of her while she was pregnant, not to deliver Alexis, not to be the breadwinner, but something had changed in her since she became a mother. Something had shifted. Motherhood had shifted something in all of us.

“I keep thinking...” Riley stifled a sob. “What if Alexis has to live without me? What if I never get to see her grow up?”

I set my mug on the counter and crossed the kitchen to stand next to her. “I promise you that won’t happen.”

Riley laughed. “You can’t promise me that.”

“You’re damn right I can.”

I went with Riley to her ultrasound two days later. It was a plugged milk duct.

Author's Note

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Reviews

[Ms_Sassypants]

I laughed so hard at the last sentence! Again, beautifully-crafted atmosphere! Your conversations are so natural and flows so well. I love how Shea is the bane of support for her needy friends. You have created diverse characters that complement each other. Terrific chapter!