Mother's Milk

Mother's Milk Read Free Page A

Book: Mother's Milk Read Free
Author: Charles Atkins
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getting me and Justine away from that place and our father was the bravest thing anyone could have done. I don’t remember a lot about him, but I know that he beat you, and that I’d hide under my bed, and I still get nightmares about that night he came and tried to take us back.’ Her eyes misted. ‘Those weren’t mistakes, if I can be even half as brave.’
    â€˜Hush,’ Ruth said, wrapping biscuits in tinfoil and throwing them into the paper bag along with a bottle of iced tea, a sandwich, and something else covered in foil. ‘I was out of my mind. I don’t think I was brave, more scared than anything, and too young and stupid to realize the risks I took. I knew if I stayed with your daddy it was only going to get worse.’
    Barrett felt torn, desperate to get back to the office, but hungry for these scraps about her early childhood and the family her mother had left when she was only twenty, and which she rarely spoke of. ‘Don’t you ever miss them?’ she asked, having seen her mom weep over Christmas cards that arrived each year from her mother – a grandmother Barrett couldn’t even picture.
    â€˜Only my mother,’ Ruth said, ‘but just like I don’t want you to repeat my mistakes – and yes, I made my choices and some were just plain stupid – I won’t repeat hers. I remember something she used to say about my father after he’d yelled at her, or called her stupid, or embarrassed her in front of company, she’d tell me, “I pick my battles.” Problem is, I don’t think she ever won any. And wouldn’t you know, the first time I fall in love, it’s with a man just like my daddy only better-looking and meaner. That night we left Georgia, I truly believed he was going to kill me. I can’t even remember what set him off. All I could think with him pounding away at me,’ she continued, now pouring batter into just-purchased loaf pans, ‘was,
I’ll be dead and who’s going to take care of my girls?
When he finally passed out, I just grabbed you and Justine, got in the car, and drove. I remember thinking,
Please God, just let me win this one battle.
’
    â€˜I remember some of it,’ Barrett said. ‘Your face was horrible, by the end of the ride you had huge black eyes.’
    â€˜I was a mess, twenty years old, two babies, and a Chevy station wagon that blew its transmission on the Bowery.’
    Barrett glanced again at the clock; 12:15, her paperwork was not going to get done, but she loved the next part of the story. ‘And that’s when you met Sophie and Max,’ she said, reluctantly standing, as loving memories of the elderly Polish couple – Holocaust survivors who had taken them in – flooded her. She rubbed her nose against her baby’s and put him back down in the pen. He looked at her wide-eyed, his arms reached toward her, and he tumbled forward.
    â€˜I love that you named the baby after him,’ Ruth said, heading toward the door as Barrett buttoned up.
    â€˜If he’d been a girl I would have called her Sophia … I miss them both so much.’
    â€˜Me too,’ Ruth said, while trying to stuff the too-full paper bag into the gaping side pocket of Barrett’s briefcase.
    Barrett was about to protest – she had no time for lunch – when her eye caught the blinking light on her phone. ‘Who called?’
    â€˜Someone from the hospital, some kind of review board or something.’
    Barrett’s island of calm evaporated, replaced by a dull dread. She pressed play and heard a secretary’s practiced lines. ‘Dr. Conyors, this is to inform you that the six-month review for James Cyrus Martin IV is scheduled for July 15th. If you wish to give testimony at the hearing please respond to the office of the Release Board no later than June 30th.’ She left the number and the machine clicked off. She looked at her

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