Avalon, Rise

The American Academy of Pediatrics could not explain why Martin, at seven years old, rolled around on the living room floor flapping his arms and cawing, while Teddy, who was not yet five, waited placidly on the front walk. Teddy rolled the empty wagon back and forth and sucked his thumb. Teddy was Emma’s defenseless plum baby who still nursed, who worshipped her weary body the way no man ever had.

Martin, her firstborn, rose each morning with novel ways of turning Emma into some­one she hated. Martin refused to get in the wagon until he found his troll doll with the hot pink hair and the hot pink shirt that read TOTALLY RAD, and after ten minutes of him flapping and cawing and not even looking for the troll, Emma wanted badly to hit him. Instead, she leaned down until her nose was almost touching his and she yelled into his face, If you don’t stop that I swear to God I will throw all your toys in the trash and I mean every single one do you hear me.

For some reason that didn’t make Martin stop. He only cawed louder right back at her, eye to eye, like she was the enemy and he the proud and defiant baby freedom fighter. He was a big kid, which she screamed at him.

She collected every toy she could find and dropped them into the can under her mother’s kitchen sink, where of all places she found the totally rad troll doll, so Martin was all right again, which meant she could be all right again, and both boys climbed into the wagon. Martin had his troll and Teddy had his plastic dragon and Emma had made it all morning without hitting anyone. She had a clogged milk duct in her right breast, which had lately grown into an enormous veiny ball of cement.

Nevertheless, she persisted in pulling her kids in the wagon all the way to the park. The pain in Emma’s breast made her dizzy. She hadn’t wanted to go to the park in the frst place.

She was here because of guilt. She was here because she was probably get­ting divorced. She was here because she was living temporarily in her mother’s house.