The Hours Between Birdsong

My phone alarm jangles, ‘bird song’ - if the birds were robots blasting synthetic beats, jolting me out of that liminal place between waking and dreaming. I roll over and glance at you, bundled up the way I left you, the way the midwife showed your father and me the day you were born. Moonlight seeps through the blinds like radiation, illuminating your tiny face. This is what they mean when someone ‘sleeps like a baby’ - this peaceful bliss. Not what you’ll be doing in two hours: screaming, face contorted in mammalian rage, so hungry that you’ll reject the aching boob I’m trying to shove in your mouth. This has been going on for weeks, or months, maybe even years. Nights collect, catching each other like raindrops on a window, until they’re one big, deep puddle in which I’m wallowing, waiting for the light.

It can’t be years, though; you’re three months old. Time has lost shape, like when you put a woollen jumper through the wrong wash cycle and it doesn’t sit right anymore. It’s vast, with never-ending pockets, but somehow still constricting - like a philosophical conundrum: when is time both a borderless desert and a broom cupboard? Correct answer for a set of steak knives: motherhood! I slide my hands under your body, lifting you gently onto my lap. I watch your eyelashes flutter and imagine your mind populated with dreams. What do you dream of? Does your mind replay the events of the previous day - the towering gum trees and Australian foghorns we call birds, cawing and wheeling through the blue sky, while you gaze up out of your pram? Or do you replay the unrestrained sharpness of our voices? The slammed doors?

I wish my dreams were simple, not the panting, anxious chasing of some shapeless figure, never sure if I’m fully asleep or fully awake. I pull my oversized t-shirt up and feel the rush of cold air tingling my bare skin. I lift you up and move my breast near your mouth, running my nipple across the tiny fold of skin between your nose and lips. Please feed. You snuffle as your breath changes pattern - maybe sensing a shift in position. It reminds me of when your father’s snores get stuck in his throat and he rolls over as though restarting an engine. I thought I could hear him tonight lying next to me. Midnight plays tricks on the mind, just ask Tay Tay. To her, midnight is sexy and rhymes with ‘we fight’. But what the fuck does a pop star know about lying in a musty, milk-stained t-shirt, with no idea if it’s tomorrow or yesterday or the day after, replaying the arguments that made your father grab the keys and drive off? Your mouth gapes open and closed like a fish out of water. C’mon. I shove my nipple into your mouth, but you screw your face up, squeezing your mouth shut. I sigh and reach for my phone, swiping it open with a flick of my free finger. The room glows electric blue.

I tap Facebook, and the screen fills with photos of a friend’s European adventure. Melanie Tee. You don’t need to know about her; we lost contact years ago. She’s in Paris: a glowing late-night sunset, as she sits on the grass under the Eiffel Tower, holding a glass of bubbly, her head thrown back in curated laughter. Whatever, Melanie. You’ve never had a baby. You’ll never experience the joy and fulfilment that comes from pushing a human out of your body and into the world like mother fucking earth. Why am I crying? I’m crying with joy, Melanie. Please feed. I can’t wake up in two hours and shush and soothe you for an hour while my sanity unravels. I’m ravenous for sleep. I’m ravenous for everything, so I don’t understand why you won’t eat. When I was pregnant with you, I ate with impressive urgency. Hot chips, Big Macs, Twisties, doughnuts. ‘This is one thing I can do for you,’ I thought. I can’t stop your father and me from arguing, but by God, I can eat. Now I don’t even recognise my body. My tummy undulates like the ocean, creating a platform for my sagging breasts that are now only ‘functional’. There’s freedom in it, though. You’ll come to see that people are obsessed with bodies; tight, hard, smooth like a baby dolphin. Like Melanie.

I will get a snack. One of us should be eating. I slide you back into the cot and pad out of bed and through the dark house, which looks like the empty set of a film - no actors, no scripts being quietly rehearsed. Just silence. Even the feral possums who stage the marsupial version of Burning Man in the shed, the trees and the power-lines, are quiet. I find the kitchen by running my hand along the hallway wall. I open the fridge, and light bursts forth like a celestial vision. Greek yoghurt will do; the one with the layers of fruit and sugar, and should be classified as a dessert. Your father dug a spoon into this tub only yesterday, before I asked him to stop eating straight out of the tub.

Our arguments weren’t bad; understand this. They were like a Jenga tower; one block on top of the other. And while it might sway precariously, it was ours. We knew it like a home; we could find our way around in the dark; find some equilibrium. Yesterday, we touched a block right near the bottom, the one holding everything up. I did. I spoke words like a toxic incantation that can never be undone. You’ll leave us one day, just like your father left you. I couldn’t help it, the words tumbled out from some dark place - the swamp of all my fears. I said the words, and they came true, like the story of creation: God spoke and it was. I can’t take them back, and I can’t even feed you, so I’ll get a few more hours of sleep.

When you came along, your father’s world was rocked, but mine was completely upended. Feeding you through the long nights makes me feel untethered from reality, untethered from myself. I’m an astronaut, detached from the ship, floating in the great blackness of space. But it’s beautiful up here; my love for you burns like an ancient star. I wish your father could see the view. I wish I could pull out my innards and show him the mess of hormones, cortisol and dark thoughts. To stand back and say, “See? It’s not me! It’s my body!”

I lick the creamy sweetness off the spoon and sigh. Eating from the tub isn’t a big deal - even though I’ll tell you not to. I’ll tell you that your father and I loved each other. That it wasn’t your fault. I’ll tell you that having a child feels like free-falling, with nothing to grasp onto but love. That your father and I were supposed to catch each other, but missed, like amateur acrobats. I tread into the bedroom and sit back in bed. I scoop you up and lift my t-shirt once more, quietly praying to God, Jesus, Mother Mary, Buddha, whoever’s on duty. Please. With eyes closed, you grab my nipple in your mouth and suck noiselessly. I am elated, delirious with joy. I lean back and close my eyes as the immense pressure in my breast trickles out.

Where’s your father? What if he doesn’t come back? What then? It happens all the time in books: sad stories of kids whose dads walked out the door when things got hard. Maybe it’s for the best; they’re usually chart-topping memoirs. Better you’re not raised between the tight-strung wires of our relationship with all its trigger points. I’ll tell you how we met and fell in love. The moment I picked him up from the airport, his hair all ruffled and beard unkempt, hoisting a bag over his strong shoulders, I thought, ‘Yes. This is my person.’ I’ll tell you how he would clasp his hand over mine when I’d be delirious with tears and say, ‘Everything’s going to be alright’. I’ll tell you that love is beautiful, ugly, messy and exhilarating. That it’s not about finding the perfect person, but finding someone who will keep coming back.

I must have drifted off, because the room has a soft early-morning glow, like someone put a night-light on outside. The birds are twittering, gossiping about the events of the previous night. They sound like the wind section of an orchestra warming up with their tiny, experimental trills. I look down and you’re still there, curled up in my arms in perfect peace. There’s a sound - a rattle of keys; the scratchy mechanics of a turning lock. Your father’s home. His footsteps approach the bedroom door, and he clears his throat.