Claudia Monpere
Give Me a Push
Opening my baby shower gift, I’m thrilled to see all six inches of my very own cheerleader. Smiling, she leaps out of the box, shaking her pom-poms. I can’t believe Kate’s gone to this expense. Rolled eyes from other guests, women like me without a nanny and second home.
My cheerleader does a roundoff and back handspring, her tiny, pleated skirt twirling, her cheer briefs sparkling silver.
When I’m in the hospital in labor, she perches on the bed shouting through her megaphone: “Gimme a push! A push! A P-U-S-H.” Later, I stroke the soft fuzz on Elena’s head, smell her newborn skin. In her brown eyes, I see my husband, Max. The nurse instructs me about breastfeeding, but Elena has trouble latching. My cheerleader guides me: “No hunching. / Sit up straight! / Mouth faces nipple. / Yay, that’s greaaaat!”
My parents visit. My father watches football, changes diapers—a lovely surprise—
and requests routines from my cheerleader that show her tiny ass. My mother cooks, cleans, criticizes my mothering. My cheerleader cheers everything: how I cuddle Elena, sing to her, walk and walk during her forever cries. She cheers my nursing, a miserable mess. Elena still has trouble latching, falling asleep at my breast. The breast pump hurts and has a million parts and my breasts are sore and red and my mother insists the lactation consultant return for the third time and my cheerleader flips her batons and Elena wails in my father’s arms.
The hardest thing about sleep deprivation is its randomness. One night Elena wakes up six times, falling asleep while nursing. Next night: seven straight hours of sleep. Next night: cries for four hours except when at my breast. High-pitched wails. Scarlet, scrunched up face. She’s a needy, ungrateful blob. She’s my baby girl; I’m terrified she’ll die. I watch her sleep, checking her breathing.
One day, my cheerleader drops her baton doing a triple toss. She apologizes profusely. It's then I notice that the middle and ring fingers are fused on her right hand, which she hides when not cheering. On a night when Elena won't stop crying and she's been fed, changed, and cuddled, my cheerleader uses that hand to stroke her forehead. Elena stops crying. Smiles. I try not to feel bad that I didn’t bring on that smile.
When my right breast swells and burns horrendously and I go on antibiotics for mastitis, when my mother trips over Max’s climbing equipment and insists we donate Max’s belongings although he died only 256 days ago, I weep and weep. My cheerleader brings a troupe with tiny ukuleles singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” I want to scream, disappear.
My cheerleader nudges me to switch to bottle feeding against my mother’s objections, bouncing her pom poms, singing, “A breast-fed baby with an overwhelmed Mom/ Will never be happy, never be calm.” I switch to the bottle. I go on Zoloft, allow myself a daily shower. I sleep whenever Elena sleeps. I tell my parents to go home when my mother sneaks a box of Max’s ropes and harnesses into the trash. I let friends bring dinner.
But tummy time. Kate’s obsessed with it. Her baby, Rose, at three months holds her chest up while on her tummy, rolls over and smiles.
Elena despises tummy time, making no effort to lift her head. She shrieks endlessly. Or lies on her tummy like she’s already given up on life and is just waiting for the end. My cheerleader ups her game, juggling tiny stuffies, rattles, bottles. One day, nine tiny cheerleaders join her, forming a pyramid. Elena wails into the rug.
I explain this to Kate. She’s relaxed after the gym and lunch with friends. I say maybe I need a nanny instead of a cheerleader. Kate says nannies are tricky. What I need, she says, is a different cheerleader. “I’m embarrassed, but your cheerleader was on sale. You know, that weird hand.” She grimaces.
“She’s perfect,” I say.
The next night Elena is up a lot. After the third wake up, accompanied by diaper changes and bottles, she’s finally back to sleep. I’m tired. But. I’m grateful. Elena is healthy, loved. My breasts need nothing from me. No cold compresses, no pumping. I say the bottle cheer: “Go team bottle/ Say it loud/ Bottles rule/ We’re so proud.” Maybe my cheerleader can come up with cheers saying tummy time is bullshit.
It’s nearly morning. I put on my robe and walk in the garden, breathing in the clematis, its airy vanilla scent, admiring the yellow pompom mums. I’ll show them to my cheerleader.
Then I hear music. Coming toward me, a tiny marching band playing a John Philip Souza march. Brass, woodwinds, percussion. Band members wear dark pants, gold braided jackets. My cheerleader, in pink sequined leotard, follows on a float, sitting on a high trapeze. The band stops, drums beating. She hangs from the bar swinging, faster, faster, flipping to a second trapeze. No net below.
There was no net below Max. He was on an ice cornice when it collapsed. In my dreams, it’s always snowing. Max drifts, sticking his tongue out to taste snow, speaking to the macaws who perch on his arms, a flash of blue, green, and orange feathers.
I call to my cheerleader to stop but she’s in a world of muscles and spirit. She leaps to the platform, dashes to the lawn and does a kick double full twist. She trips. I go to her.
“I’ve worked so hard,” she says, crying.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I’ve been returned. Twice. I’ve worked so hard,” she repeats.
I put out my hand. “Hop aboard.” I hold her against my shoulder, then bring her close to my face. “Elena and I don’t need your fancy routines.” She looks stricken. “We just need your company.”
“What do you mean? Like a pet? I’m not a pet.”
No, I say, “like a sister. A daughter. Like another woman.”
What the Stars Want
After eating her Salisbury steak dinner, the old woman, Edith, fell asleep over an Eleanor Roosevelt biography. Awakening at 10:22 pm, she pulled herself up to her walker, struggling to the bedroom. Floating over her bed: something large and white and puffy. Damn if it wasn’t a cloud. Magic? Maybe she’d call her granddaughter. They used to do magic tricks together. But Amber was busy with swim team and piano and friends, and Edith remembered how last Christmas her daughter sighed. “Mom, don’t you remember? She thinks that magic stuff is babyish.” Edith opened her window. “What’s going on out there?” she called to the stars. The cloud over her bed was larger now, drifting slowly toward her. She phoned her daughter who said she was seeing things and should go back to sleep. She’d be over first thing in the morning. It was time to sign the contract at Oak Hills. “Please don’t cry,” said her daughter.
~
Jennifer forgave her husband after he wept saying he’d slit his own throat before he ever hurt her again and yes he knew this was the third time he was a piece of shit hell should swallow him up he didn’t deserve her and yes maybe they should return to marriage counseling and he brought ice packs and Advil and she tried to sleep but his sleep breathing made her furious and she was glad she was wearing the nightgown he hated faded blue checks in soft flannel and she went to make tea but when she opened the cabinet there was a white cloud inside and it floated out, growing to the size of a raft hovering just above the floor, and she opened the window, sat in the cloud, and floated into the sky.
~
Katie had an accident again during the night; Ma Wilson would be furious. 7 years old, she’d say. Disgusting! The girl crept out of bed, not waking the other foster kids. She peeled off the wet sheet and the bottom of her pjs, getting a spare pair from the bag under her bed. She went to the bathroom to rinse everything. But when she swept aside the bath curtain, there was a wedding gown laid out in the tub. Katie put it on. It hung from her tiny frame in shiny, glittering folds of white satin. She twirled, then tripped, a bloody gash on her knee. She removed the gown, bandaged her knee, put on clean pjs, rinsed the pee part of the sheet and the bottom of her pjs and sat on the bathroom floor drying them with a hair dryer. When she felt herself falling asleep, she thought of Ma Wilson, spit flying from her mouth. Katie thought of Sammy and Oliver who called her diaper girl and peed in her bed sometimes to get her in trouble. Finally, she returned to bed, putting the still damp sheet back on. She took the pillow out of its case and carefully folded the wedding dress inside. Then fell asleep, her dark hair feathered on her wedding gown pillow.
~
Katie awoke to a woman in a blue checkered nightgown stroking her check, whispering, “Come on, sweetie, come with me.” The woman was a stranger, but her voice was gentle. “Let’s get your slippers on. Do you have a robe?” The girl shook her head, but removed the wedding gown from the pillowcase, holding it out. The woman wrapped the girl in it, taking her hand and heading to the open window. A cloud hovered just outside, an old woman seated inside, waving. “Am I dreaming?” asked Katie. “No,” said the old woman “This is much better than a dream. Come on in.” Katie and the woman stepped into the cloud which felt both fluffy and sturdy. “But we do need a sail if we’re going anywhere,” the old woman said. “Hmmm.” Katie shook off the wedding gown and held it out. “Perfect. This is a three-person job. Let’s all stand and shake it. Ahh, my damn hip.” But it took just a few shakes and the gown bloomed and split into two sails. A mast and rigging appeared.
The sky shimmered silver as they floated. Katie whispered, “Where are we going?” “I’m not really sure,” the woman answered. “Somewhere better.” “I’m kind of scared,” Katie said. “I know, Sweetie, me too,” said the woman. “Are you scared?” Katie asked the old woman who shrugged and smiled. “Maybe a bit.” “Well,” Katie said, “We could sing.” “Ah,” said the old woman, “the stars would love that.”
Claudia Monpere lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her debut collection of flash, The Periodic Family, is forthcoming with Cowboy Jamboree Press. She received the New Flash Fiction Prize from New Flash Fiction Review and the Genre Flash Fiction Prize from Uncharted Magazine. She has stories in Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction. More at https://claudiamonpere.com/
