I Don't Know How She Does It

At the word suck, Momo gives a fastidious little shudder inside her Donna Karan gray wool and says she finds the whole idea of breastfeeding deeply weird.

I tell her it’s the opposite of weird. “In fact, it may be the only time in your life when your body makes perfect sense to you. I sat there in the delivery room and Emily rooted around and the milk started flowing and I thought, I am a mammal!”

“Sounds gross.” Momo does that wrinkly thing with her nose again.

“It wasn’t gross, it was comforting. We spend our whole life overruling what remains of our instincts and this one — how does that Carole King song go? ‘You make me feel like a nat-u-ral woman.’”

Shouldn’t have started singing. Pink Sweater overheard and clearly thinks I am being sarcastic about her doing the Earth Mother bit in public. I try to make amends by giving her a conspiratorial Don’t-worry-I’ve-been- there! smile. But I have forgotten that I’m in uniform. Seeing the suit and the laptop, she obviously mistakes me for the childless enemy and shoots me a twelve-bore glare.

I must try and get some sleep, but the thoughts are sparking in my brain like an electrical storm. When I think about Jack, I feel — what do I feel? I feel idiotic. Who is he, anyway, and what does he want with me or I with him? But mainly I feel excited, I feel ambushed. There are forces gathering around my heart and shouting at me to come out with my hands up. Sometimes I want to surrender. And then I think about my children, waiting like those owl babies in Ben’s book for their mummy to come home from hunting. I know the damn thing by heart.

And the baby owls closed their eyes and wished their Owl Mother would come. And she came. Soft and silent, she swooped through the trees to Sarah and Percy and Bill. “Mummy!” they cried, and they flapped and they danced, and they bounced up and down on their branch.“What’s all the fuss?” their Owl Mother asked. “You knew I’d come back.”

“Momo, d’you think we can get some more gin over here? I appear still to be in radio contact with my conscience.”

With the Atlantic below, I try to compose a message to Jack that will make things right again between us.

1:05 P.M.

To: Jack Abelhammer

From: Kate Reddy

Unaccustomed as I am to being undressed by a strange man while drunk —

No. Too flippant. Delete. Try business-as-usual approach.

1:11 P.M. Further to our recent meeting, I have been thinking of increasing the turnover of the fund temporarily. Should you have any further desire—

Should you need me—

I am most eager—

You know I would bend over backwards—

I have been considering some options which need to be put to bed—

Oh, hell.

1:22 P.M.

Jack, I just want to say how entirely out of character my behavior was the other night and I hope that temporary aberration will in no way alter our professional relationship which I value so highly. My memory of events is a little vague, but I trust that I was not too great an embarrassment when you kindly returned me to my hotel room.

Obviously, I hope this will in no way affect your future dealings with EMF, for whom you remain a most esteemed client.

Yours faithfully, Katharine

And that’s the one I send, as soon as I get home.

To: Kate Reddy

From: Jack Abelhammer

In the United States, when a woman kisses you on the mouth and invites you to join her on a desert island of your choice this does tend to “alter the professional relationship” somewhat, although maybe this is now part of standard client management techniques on your British MBA program?

The Sinatra Inn was a great evening. Please don’t be embarrassed about the hotel room: I kept my eyes closed at all times, ma’am, except when you asked me to take out your contacts. The left eye is greener.

When I got back to the apartment, Butch Cassidy was on TV. Kate, do you remember the end when Sundance and Butch are holed up with the Mexican army waiting outside? They know it’s no good, but they run out all barrels blazing anyway.

For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.

Jack

MUST REMEMBER

Children, bouncy castle, rabbit molds for blancmange, husband.

MUST FORGET

You. You. You.

18 The Court of Motherhood

WHENEVER SHE APPEARED before the Court of Motherhood, the woman never seemed to do herself justice. It was hard to figure out exactly what went wrong. There she was, all the arguments on the tip of her tongue, the perfectly good reasons why she went out to work, the way it benefited both her and the children, the killer quote from Gloria Steinem about how no man has ever had to ask for advice on how to combine fatherhood and a career. And then, the minute she was standing in that dock, the justifications turned to ashes in her mouth.

She thought it was something to do with the way they always summoned her at night, when she was asleep, so obviously she wasn’t at her brightest. The courtroom didn’t help either. Airless, oak-paneled and lined with mournful wigged figures in black, it was like testifying in a giant coffin while the undertakers looked on, waiting for you to dig your own grave. And she loathed the judge. Must be at least seventy and very hard of hearing.

“Mrs. Shattock,” he booms, “you appear before the Court of Motherhood tonight charged with leaving a sick child in London while you flew on business to the United States of America. How do you plead?”

Oh, God, not that. “I left Emily in London with a temperature, that’s true, your honor. But if I’d pulled out of the final at such short notice, Edwin Morgan Forster would never ever have let me do another big pitch.”

“What kind of mother leaves her daughter when she’s ill?” demands the judge, peering stonily down at her.

“Me, but—”

“Speak up!”

“Me, your honor. I did leave Emily, but I knew she was getting the proper treatment, she was on antibiotics, and I did speak to her every day I was away and I am planning on organizing a swimming party for her birthday and I do genuinely believe women should be role models for their daughters and. . I do love her so much.”

“Mrs. Shattock.” The prosecuting counsel is on his feet now and pointing at her. “This court has heard how