“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast.”
He sat opposite gazing at me with what I can only describe as a look of adoration. When he had first looked at me like that as I breast fed little Alice I had felt embarrassed. Now I had grown accustomed to his attention and even looked forward to it, hoping he would be there as I fed the baby.
Harry, my husband was not at all keen to watch me breast feeding. I think he found it rather distasteful, or perhaps it was that he thought it would spoil my breasts and diminish his pleasure in them; not that he took much pleasure in them those days. With Dana my son, it was very different.
An explanation I think is in order.
I had given birth to Dana when I was just seventeen. He was the result of a high school romp with Harry. There was a genuine love between Harry and me then, and eventually we had married.
We decided on a second child, but year after year nothing happened. Tests showed there was no reason why I should not get pregnant again, but after years of trying we had put the idea of a second child out of our minds.
With the diminishing of our hopes for second child Harry seemed to grow very casual about sex with me. It became an occasional event, but then totally unexpectedly it happened. I was pregnant at thirty nine.
It was strange having a nineteen year old son and a baby on the way; like having a second family.
Harry was somewhat ambivalent about my pregnancy. He never actually said anything direct, but I got the impression he saw the coming child as an interference with his life style. I suppose it was understandable since as he saw it, he was soon to get his son off his financial hands, and would be able to divert money into his other interests, the main one being fishing.
At the time I am writing about we were staying at our seaside shack. Harry had received an invitation from a local professional lobster fisherman to go with him in his boat to some lobster grounds. The thought of a trip in a big boat instead of his own small fishing craft instantly appealed to Harry.
The grounds were off an island at some distance from the main coastline, and in his casual way Harry had announced, “Anna, I’ll be gone for two or three days, love, okay?”
I felt a bit hurt he could so easily leave me with a three month old baby, but as I’d often thought on other occasions when he treated me so casually, “Oh well, that’s Harry.”
The days after the lobster boat had left Dana, the baby and I spent some of the morning on the beach. It was a hot day and I stayed with Alice under the shelter of a beach umbrella while Dana occasionally dashed into the surf for a swim. I felt somewhat envious as I enjoyed swimming myself, but still did not feel ready to take the plunge again.
Late in the morning we wandered back to the shack for lunch, and then it was time for Alice’s lunch.
That was when Dana sat gazing at me in that quiet, strange way he had when I was breast feeding.
Dana is a rather reserved and sensitive young man. As Harry had often said of him, “He’s just like you, Sarah; you never know what he’s thinking. He’s a deep one.”
I suppose that is true. Dana and I never reveal a great deal of our thoughts, whereas Harry always blurts things out, often hurtful things.
Perhaps it was our reticence that was the foundation of the bond between Dana and me. When he was a small boy, if ever he was going to reveal any of his little secrets, it was to me he confided them. Perhaps even then he knew that I would never reveal them to anyone else.
As he grew older people began to speak of him as a “brilliant child.” It was not the sort of brilliance Harry really appreciated because it revealed itself in Dana’s piano playing; not Harry’s thing at all. However, he was not above basking in the plaudits that came Dana’s way.
Dana had graduated from high school at seventeen and entered the University Conservatorium of Music. Again there was talk of a “brilliant future,” “outstanding ability,” and so on.
Harry had baulked the time we were told that Dana needed a really good piano to practice on and he heard how much it would cost. Never the less, the piano was purchased. There was even one in the shack, although nothing like the quality of the one in our suburban home.
Dana’s life seemed to focus almost exclusively on his piano playing. Where other boys had been off having what they called a “good time,” Dana would be practicing. His peers engaged in much sexual activity, but I was not sure whether Dana had ever copulated with a girl. If he had, it was one of the secrets he kept even from me.
With Alice at my breast I was actually enjoying Dana’s adoring contemplation. He had watched me many times, but neither of us had made any comment about it. Now I felt prompted to say something.
“You like watching me breast feed Alice, don’t you, darling?”
