By Katherine Witt
@kemilywitt

The woman paused at the median, left foot sturdy on the asphalt. Her right foot flexed against the pedal, ready to launch her bicycle forward at the right spacing between vehicles. Wearing a black helmet and dark sunglasses, the lower half of her face appeared motionless, observant. She wore black bicycle shorts and a creamsicle orange tank. Two dark circles rested over her breasts, the fabric wettened to a color like the insides of a grapefruit.

I sat in my vehicle at a stop sign. I needed to turn left and was waiting for the same lapse in traffic. She reminded me of a sunny Texas day, years ago, much like the one today, with big blue skies and whistling wrens. My bedroom was all beige and white, the neutral colors of a rental. I awoke from a nap in the middle of an afternoon, feeling disoriented. I peeled the white cotton comforter away from my chest and discovered the storm-colored threads of my shirt pasted with wetness to my skin. I struggled to make sense of my circumstance, doubting I would sweat through clothes in March. I turned to swing my feet over the side of the bed, intending to walk towards the bathroom to peel off my top. Before rising, I noticed the new bassinet in the corner of our bedroom, our child sleeping soundly. The swaddle held her limbs close to her body in a soft cocoon. I peered over the side and saw her bottom lip motion up and down in a dreamy suckle.

The road cleared and I waited for her to cross, my foot firm on my brake. I watched her quadricep flex under spandex and propel her bike forward until the decline in the road carried her past my vehicle. My eyes followed her movement from my windshield, to the sideview mirror, to the rearview until she was out of sight, banking right at the next intersection, where she casually began to pedal again. I tried to look at her face as she glided past. I think I saw the corners of her mouth upturned. She made no notice of me.

In that dusty memory, I remember panic when I realized that I was covered in breast milk. My daughter and I struggled to latch in the hospital and when she did, she chewed my nipple in search of milk that resulted in blood. “Relax,” the nurse told me. “Don’t be so tense when you feed.” No encouraging words could push my shoulders away from my ears. I returned to the hospital a week after the birth to meet the lactation consultant. While examining my breasts she said, “She’s tearing you up, but it’s not the worst I’ve seen. Sometimes you just need to work through the pain.” Or did she say shame?

I thought of all I had wasted by sleeping instead of pumping. There was my proof in the bassinet, my daughter suckling in her sleep, consuming the dream-milk that her mother could never provide. I applied warm compresses to my swollen, tender breasts. I massaged. I power-pumped. I hand-expressed. My husband steeped fenugreek tea for me and baked cookies with rolled oats and brewer’s yeast. Navigating how to be delicate and supportive, he said to me, “It’s okay to stop.” Defeated and relieved, I gave up breastfeeding in the third week and fed her formula until her first birthday.

I don’t think the woman saw me smiling at her, but I wish she had. She might have been heading home to feed her child, or maybe she was returning because she forgot nipple pads and sometimes nipples leak. From an early age, we’re taught to manage our insides: the tears, the blood, the milk. Keep your juices hidden, keep it neat. Maybe she didn’t even know about her wet shirt and maybe she did and didn’t care. Maybe her milk had come in, or maybe she was weaning and reveling in an hour of independence to feel the sun on a big blue-sky day.

I smiled because she was smiling, and I’d have loved to have told her, whatever you are doing, I hope you leak with ease.

Katherine Witt is an active duty service member and PhD candidate in creative writing. She currently lives in Wisconsin with her spouse, two kids, and three dogs. 

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