Carellin Brooks - Fresh Hell: Motherhood in Pieces

Fresh Hell

Fresh Hell

Motherhood in Pieces

Carellin Brooks

DEMETER PRESS, BRADFORD, ONTARIO

Copyright 2013 Demeter Press

Individual copyright to their work is retained by the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for its publishing program.

Demeter Press logo based on the sculpture Demeter

by Maria-Luise Bodirsky < www.keramik-atelier.bodirsky.de >

Printed and Bound in Canada

Front cover: Finn Canadensis, Honk Honk Graphic Arts

eBook development: WildElement.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Brooks, Carellin, author

Fresh hell : motherhood in pieces / Carellin Brooks.

ISBN 978-1-927335-32-1 (pbk.)

1. Motherhood. I. Title.

HQ759.B77 2013 306.8743 C2013-906424-9

Demeter Press

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P. O. Box 13022

Bradford, ON L3Z 2Y5

Tel: (905) 775-9089

Email: info@demeterpress.org

Website: www.demeterpress.org

for my girls

Contents

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank my daughters, for putting up with me. They are each far better than I deserve. My heartfelt thanks also to Peter Nosco for all those plates of food, and especially for the extra hours of sleep. I would also like to thank those who provided invaluable advice, kind and sensitive comments, subtitle suggestions, and lucid queries, not necessarily in that order, namely Angie Chan, Kyla Epstein, Daniel Gawthrop, Brett Josef Grubisic, John Harris, Vivien Lougheed, Melva McLean, Julia Saunders and the members of Letterheads: Mindy Abramowitz, Kate Bird, and Shannon Underwood. Finally, my thanks to everyone at Demeter Press, especially Andrea OReilly, and to Finn Canadensis, cover designer extraordinaire!

1. Surprise

WHEN A BABY HAS THE BIG ONE, the special, the surprise, you cant help but feel tricked. Youre stripping off what appears to be a perfectly ordinary diaper. There are no ominous musical chords, nothing to warn you. The baby too is perfectly ordinary, screeching or waving its arms agreeably depending upon the time of day, alignment of the stars, alien messages being piped into its baby brain and other factors you will never in a million years comprehend.

Then you catch it. Your first glimpse. No, you say. Like a child you comfort yourself: you imagined it, everythings fine. But as you continue to peel back the diaper you morph into a horror-film heroine, sheer white nightgown and all, starting down the shadowy cellar stairs with inadequate candlestick in hand.

Now its the audience that hears those ominous chords, wills you to go back, slam the door and bar it for good measure. Here your own body and brain attain a rare unity; your own senses yell at you to refasten the Velcro, turn around, go out the door and dont come back. Because down there, It awaits. The Blob. Viscous, pitiless, spackling babys crevices and oozing out the sides. And now comes the first sly waft of a miasma that will soon enough fill up the room, creamy and soured: your sweet milk turned dark.

Wrappings unpeeled, you face it at last: the horror. Every inch of formerly pristine cotton (and you decided to use cloth, you self-righteous fool you; now look what youve done) is coated in Harvest Gold. Then the creases, each one to be swabbed. The outrage. The insult. And even as you gape and gasp the baby continues to goo, untroubled by the sensation of cold poo packed into its backside like a perverse beauty treatment and utterly unconscious of the great wrong it just committed. Why should baby care? Its your problem now. Youre looking around for the candid camera, waiting for the punchline, wondering how long before the curtain rises and someone arrives to say its all a joke and nobody in their right mind would expect you to clean up that horror. That hell.

So when theres no reprieve, no laughing audience, nothing to do but face the thick and evilly scented facts and mop up as best you can, you go in search of your fellow sinner. Would a responsible parent take it out on the baby? After all, you are, or should be, happy she delivered what appears to be the entire contents of her intestines to your unwilling attentions. Think of the alternative. Best not wonder if they even make tubing that small. So now its down to him. Your loved one, your dearest, your darling, that prick. Not the babys father, true, but near enough: anyway, hes around now and you have nobody else to blame. See, you definitely have something to say, not about the shitof course thats not his fault, any rational person knows thatbut about the diaper bucket. How hes thoughtlessly placed it too far from the bed, or too close to it. The lack of a change table itself a reliably picked bone. If only hed agreed to drive to Abbotsford that night, get the one off Craigslist, who cares if it was midnight, didnt he understand about the babys need for modular furniture, your needs? And speaking of needs, you add, as you round the doorway and catch him mid-act, what the hell is he doing thoughtlessly answering his email at seven oclock at night, instead of divining this emergency and rushing to assist: boiling tub, swabbing cloths, hazmat suit?

And as your voice rises, there in the doorway, you hear the voices of all the women before you, querulous, harsh, rich with complaint. And you understand this isnt about the baby, about the missing washcloths or about how he spends his time. Its about the great cosmic injustice of everything. Other people are lining up at restaurants where the hostesses are really nice and wearing makeup even, imagine, the kids are using some app youve never even heard of, much less figured out, gals like your neighbour youve never met are getting into cabs at nine oclock in the morning wearing mirrored sunglasses and beige pantsyou saw her, this very morning, doing that very thing, and for a long time afterwards you would have killed to be her, going to Cancun on a cheap package deal, heading for the airport, eating breakfast out. That would be the answer, wouldnt it, just escape, just get away from it all.

And as you slam the door on his pissed-off back and, gazing satisfied into the bathroom mirror, discover the source of the lingering smell in a swipe of violently mustard-coloured poo above one eyebrow, you remember: This is what youve always wanted.

2. Conceived Of

I WANT ANOTHER BABY, youd said.

Youd been saying so for years. Wait , said all the couples counsellors and marital therapists you consulted before, throughout, and in the midst of the spectacular flameout of your failed marriage. Theres plenty of time. Im not sure its such a good idea , said your loved one, when the two of you had dated a while and come close enough to talk about your futures. For your career. I dont want another baby , said your older daughter, looking around the small place where you lived. Where would it sleep?

You didnt have plenty of time. You knew you couldnt wait. Your age, for one: you noticed anew the articles in the paper, written as it were especially for you. The decline of fertility as one aged, on a graph, like a cliff face. The increased chromosonal risks peaking in the opposite direction: Down syndrome, birth defects, idiocy.