The Moon’s Child

Lyric Knuckles

Even with her newborn, bundled in her arms now, Luna still could not fathom much about the future. She had wrapped the baby girl once with a fleece blanket, then again in a light cover to combat the office’s cold temperature. Staring into her baby’s velvet soft face, Luna hardly noticed how fast her own knee was bouncing, how she continued to rock back and forth as if the child were still crying. Her bones had become bent like that somehow, curved, like she was trying to embody her womb’s warmth. Constantly hunched over, rocking the forever crying baby. The chair’s leather cushion stuck to Luna’s sweaty back thighs, her jean shorts chafing and rolling themselves toward her crotch. Dr. Kembil banged down on the shock yellow, large print keyboard.

Sketches of the month since Luna’s last visit, the one in which Dr. Kembil delivered her baby, etched themselves again in front of her. The enormity of her new predicament didn’t register until Gemma was fastened in her car seat, the outside heat evaporating the hospital’s cool ease. Luna looked up at the maternity ward before she pulled off, aching for all the nurses’ assurance that she would be a great mom. Their gentle attentiveness, their expert swaddling skills. The car seat enveloped the little infant, hardly pushing six pounds, and the July sun, bearing down in Savannah, Georgia, s​a​​u​nk into​ both their bones.

The first night alone with the baby twisted into chaos when Luna laid her in the bedside bassinet. Just as instructed, she gently turned Gemma onto her back, removed any hint of all the gifted stuffed rabbits. The baby wailed and wailed ​​until the two were curled into each other, Gemma resting on Luna’s swollen breasts. This is where she would stay between every two hours when she needed to gulp a bottle, and still further as sleepless nights merged into the day. Since Gemma’s birth, Luna was in constant motion, a steady limbo between tasks, a foggy brain obscuring any motivation to shower.

Dr. Kembil listened, typing away, never diverting her attention from the screen until she heard light sniffles.

“It’s just…really hard,” Luna said, failing to reach for a more adequate word.

The doctor’s hands stopped moving midair before she folded them in front of her. She cleared her throat, pushed a stray grey hair behind her ear.

“After listening to you, honey, I do want to tell you postpartum depression is very common. That’s what I’m hearing from you, those symptoms. What about trying an antidepressant? Then, you can come back and let me know how things are going,” Dr. Kembil gently said. Her concerned look, brows meeting each other like two long lost friends, made Luna want to fall apart.

Dr. Kembil continued in a much lower tone, “Have you had thoughts of harming yourself or your baby?”

Luna fluttered her eyelashes to drive the tears away, and stared down at Gemma. Hardly parting her lips, she whispered a definite “no.”

It being August now, Luna decided to wait the hour for her prescription to be filled despite the miserable heat. The AC inside her two-door blasted while the two of them killed time: Luna staring aimlessly around the pharmacy’s parking lot, Gemma sleeping on her chest. The baby was an extension both to and of her, clawing to cling to her with an almost identical face. Well, Luna thought, the baby’s long and wide forehead, her deep brown eyes definitely came from her mother. The rest of her features were a maze Luna had given up fighting her way through. Oftentimes, Gemma looked like a few of the men from the one night stands. Most of the hurried nights found her from dating apps, others happened in her job’s bathroom stalls. Luna packed random online orders into various sized, cardboard boxes in a warehouse. Within a ten hour shift, she could be packing van tires or dildos.

Rapid knocks hit the driver side window, causing Luna to tighten her grip around Gemma. An older woman was bent over peering inside of the car, looking from the mother to the child, and back again.

Luna rolled the window down, the air conditioner immediately pelting the woman’s dampened forehead from her close proximity.

“Y’all alright in there? Good to feel that cold air pushing out on that baby, I saw ya and got worried sick. Look like you fallin’ asleep, child.”

The woman inched closer, her entire head almost fully inside, or maybe that was Luna’s panicked brain imagining that, flinching at the thought of appearing negligent.

“Yes, yes ma’am. We alright. Waiting on some medicine,” Luna tried to quickly assure her to send the old woman back to her errands.

She could swear, until this day, that the woman’s deep wrinkles were drawn in the same pattern as Dr. Kembil’s.

“That itty bitty baby, aww. If I was you, I would keep her at home. Right on outta all this heat. She just born. Just now gettin’ her full skin color,” the woman said, her words beginning lightly, but ending with a stern push. Her back country hospitality wouldn’t let her walk away without a wave.

***

Naming the baby had been easy. It was the same spelling, made up from the same bubble letters Luna drew on her binder in high school. Gemma. A compact name, distinct for a little black girl, Luna decided. She held onto the name until ten years after graduating.​​ Holding onto the past for too long does something to the brain. Especially when Luna was constantly reaching backwards, oblivious to what was coming for and to her. ​Mid twenties​​Mid-twenties​ with her first child, she considered it an accomplishment. When she filled out the birth certificate forms, all she could hear ringing in her ears were their names tinkling beside each other: Luna and Gemma. As she grew older, Luna envisioned, kids would not butcher her daughter’s name, rather, they would cut the cord once more, and simply call her Gem.

And, that was a pretty nickname too. That’s as far as family planning went for Luna all these years: a pretty name for a pretty girl, one who would love her for eternity.

Luna eyed the white dot in the palm of her hand after they returned home. She discovered Gemma would sleep alone–however short the interval–if Luna placed one of her t-shirts near her. She turned and turned the medication over in her hand, a cup of water in the other. Like a puppy in new territory, her ears were perked, trained by now to listen for the slightest whimper from Gemma. They lived in a shotgun house; there wasn’t much room for Luna to escape the gripping panic latched to her when she laid the baby down alone. ​​From the master bedroom straight back to the bathroom, she had spent days, gripping the side of the claw foot tub, dry heaving the empty air inside her stomach.

A debate on whether or not to call her own mother sprang from her mind once or twice.

“You don’t need no medicine. Lay it in the Lord’s hands and pray,” Mama would reflexively advise, Luna knew.

Within the last month, Mama’s visits to Luna and her new grandchild became fewer and fewer. In those first days, her mother gave her doting care as an offering. She made ​​her infamous spaghetti, a long hated dish that lasted a week at a time when Luna was a child, but one she devoured as a mother herself. The visits slackened into calls which dwindled into daily text messages: Good morning, Kiss Gemma for me!

Suspended in the same position, Luna toyed with the pill between her fingers. Dishes crusted over with ranch dressing were stacked in the sink, left over from the times she kept a dizzy spell at bay by snacking on freezer burnt mozzarella sticks. Heaps of bibs, onesies, and towels mocked her from the couch, muttering about being folded and put away. She thought about how her maternity leave would end soon. ​​How everyone would expect her to be herself after returning to her place in the packing department, the only difference being their expectations to be shown baby pictures during lunch.

Luna pinched the medicine as if it were her skin, trying to squeeze out the new life it promised. It will fix me, she encouraged herself. It will make me a better mom, one who can remember the last time Gemma ate without the child blaring her demands. A grown woman who can clean her house without the thought exhausting me. I can make it to the grocery store, maybe with a written list, without my heart making feverish attempts to jump out of my chest.

Dr. Kembil said the medicine would take effect in about one week.

***

The days that followed were the same until one of them happened to be different. The shift was subtle; it went undetected amid the surging heat waves, the air conditioner pumping overtime inside the house. Everything smelled like Gemma’s waste. Similac that she kept throwing up. Soiled diapers littering the abandoned bassinet.

One morning, irritated at her lack of clean panties, all of her sweat soaked bras, Luna hauled the two of them out to the Dollar ‘N Save down the street in nothing but a nightgown. In her tribal patterned bonnet, breast swinging, she browsed the aisles, slippered feet dragging behind her. Her eyes were widened, like a child’s, at items she usually passed by. Strawberry body scrubs, the slightly higher priced make-up. ​​Love Spell, a perfume that warped time back to her late teens when she would douse herself with it right after getting high. Luna idled there, opening containers, inhaling slowly.

The same happened with the cleaning products, Luna sniffing the Gain detergent and being reminded of helping her mother to hang dry their underwear outside in the projects, embarrassed.

Soon, the cart was filled with bits and pieces of Luna’s old selves, that’s how it seemed to her. An idea of mending herself back together made cable sparks run along her veins. ​​She would beautify herself, become who she was with regretful appreciation.

She didn’t know how good she had it back then.

The overall total reached deep into the hundreds by the time Luna finished. She swiped her credit card, the one her bills were automatically paid with, without shedding a doubt for the upcoming rent week.

All of the memories that had bombarded her pushed her over the edge that day, making her head split open into a frenzy. To any onlooker, Luna glowed. In spite of the get up she had chosen, her head was high on the way out, shopping bags almost hiding Gemma. An electric hum was moving through her now.

***

Time kept ticking towards midnight before Luna realized she had used the last diaper, failing to grab more at the store earlier. Their afternoon was spent with her slathering new skincare on her face, trying out lipsticks, rummaging through her clothes. Recreating herself. Then, for hours, Luna contemplated ​on ​whether or not to return to work at all. The moon was a moment past reaching the sky’s pinnacle when they ​creeped ​​crept ​into the night.

There, in the store’s almost empt​y​​ied​ parking lot, Luna caught a pair of speckled green eyes just as the owner of them caught hers. They held each other in a stare down, her on the way back to the car, him trailing behind a group of friends. She broke eye contact first, listening as the group’s conversation broke off behind her. ​​His shadow approached and stretched to join hers just as she unlocked the doors.

“You heading home?” ​h​​H​e asked, his broad shouldered body halting at a fair distance between them.

Luna smirked, throwing the box of diapers in the car before securing both her hands on the cart again, making sure Gemma was still asleep.

“Looking this way at this hour? You can bet on it,” Luna replied, watching him watch her. Up this close, she could see the speckles in his eyes were brown, making them a murky lake Luna could drown in.

“Well, you can’t have no man to hurry back to. I know he didn’t send a pretty thing like you out by ya self.”

To this, Luna didn’t acknowledge. After waddling around for nine months, after giving birth, ​​the flame of attention could still burn her alive if it wanted to. She tightened the muscles in her thighs, threw a hip out then added her hand on top. A warmth was rising inside of her, incinerating the isolated season she had been in as of late.

At her lack of a reply, he continued, saying, “I could grab us a case of beers. I could come over? We could have us a night.”

Possibilities kept spreading from his mouth, and it was like the bulge Luna gained during pregnancy finally lacked in meaning. She could accept his invitation because her body belonged to her again.

They exchanged numbers, Luna gave him her address.

Not once did he look down in Luna’s cart to notice the baby bundled inside.

***

With Gemma tucked away in the bedroom, Luna stood alone with the man in the main room. Everett was his name. ​​He made a big show out of ​​sitting the bag with the case of beers down, extending his muscled arms to stretch, and letting out a satisfied breath. Then, he dug into his loose jeans, pulled out a pack of Marlboros, a lighter studded in a gold case, and a roll of cash the size of his fist, lining them all up on Luna’s worn coffee table. Leading the way, she pulled him down on the couch beside her. The next day had come, time heading on into the morning hours, and with it, Luna’s senses sailed too.

Everett cocked his head back, looking behind him. He trailed a finger along the spines lining the built-in bookshelves.

“Gotta lil’ collection here, huh?” He rubbed the stubble on his chin. The jersey he wore was oversized, but when he leaned back into the cushions, his stomach jutted out.

Luna gave him a bashful smile, waving away that part of the conversation with a nod. Everett pulled open the beer case, the TV flickering across them, turning them red then yellow. The show was only background noise to the invisible music they were playing with their fingers, probing parts of each other. She laid her hands across his knees. He curved a thumb around her baby weight, making her cringe. The heat waves of earlier were grasping for her even at this late hour. ​​Heartbeat skipping like the wrong radio station, Luna leaned in closer, the silver cross pendant of her necklace swinging to touch his chest.

Subtly dodging a first kiss, he returned another question to her. “How long since you had your kid?”

She didn’t let the hint linger, didn’t let it rub against her. Luna gave him the distance he needed, backing away, one leg beneath her now so she seemed perched. The reminder of her parental status tickled a thought that kept resulting in another: She was a mother now. There’s an entire person, alive in this world, who she was responsible for. Gemma could wake up screaming at any time now. She was attached to Luna’s hip, her arms, the very genes of her being, even tucked a room away. ​​She was a mother now.

Thinking this made her desire to float away in his cloudy eyes intensify, made her head spin. Clawing away from who she was now, tearing to get back to a single twenty-something girl. Not the bloated woman she’d become.

Everett’s look on her was relaxed, but his hands fidgeted as if he had forgotten he had placed his things on the table.

“Almost two months now,” Luna said, ​​the static steadily increasing inside her, a feeling that was readying itself for something she did not know.

With this answer, he began to trace the outline of her stomach again, ending right at the top of her waistband.

“Oh, you’re good and ready to go then,” he said, hoisting himself up higher now.

There was a bomb stuffed into Luna’s crevices, counting down until Gemma’s next cry. The next time a man might look her way and see a resemblance of the wild streak she used to have.

Luna took the opportunity again, swinging her body around to sit in his lap. Up this close, his features defied his loose nature. His shadowy beard, sprinkled here and there with gray hairs. ​​The thick, but mushy girth of his body. The deep lines around those eyes. She wriggled out of her clothes, tight now since post-pregnancy days, then unfastened his belt, pulling his jeans down to hug his shoes.

The position was intentional, she did not want to take her hungry gaze off of his. He returned the look, but then pressed his eyes shut, thrashing his head from side to side.

“Look at me, baby,” Luna said.

Everett gripped her hips harder, continuing with the same head motions.

“Open your eyes. Look at me I said.” Luna grabbed his head in the same fashion as the hold he had on her.

In that one small moment, she realized that feeling inside of her needed the polluted water in his eyes to satiate her thirst. Everett’s green eyes were the answer, a gateway back to a place that would make more sense than where she was now. She could swear she heard a whine from the bedroom, yet she continued bouncing, keeping her hold on him fastened.

Luck, chance, had been on her side tonight. She never let the diaper supply run low, and the one time she did, a solution materialized. Everett could remain imprisoned in this moment, he did not have to promise her any more time. ​​All he had to do was keep looking at her, keep the possibility of returning to herself alive.

“The hell, girl?”

Everett slung her off of him then stumbled across the room, hurriedly untwisting his pants legs.

Luna spun around in the couch corner, crouched there, her nails digging deep into her sides. Long, black strands of her hair stood up and around her nodding head.

​“Can you see me now? I said open, open! I can make magic happen if you would just look at me,” Luna pleaded, her voice becoming softer, fainter, like a young girl’s.

His face warped into a mix of confusion and disgust, snatching his belongings up from the table, rolling the wad of money around in his hand, eyeing her for the last time before he left.

A soft, yellow hue masked the windows now. Luna uncurled herself, dressed.

She walked around the narrow space of her home on her tiptoes, feeling light for the first time in over a year. She could be herself, again. This was a fresh morning, it was a new day fit for ​​a freshened Luna, again a girl in a tube dress–this time, with fresh eyes. Eyes like Everett’s, Luna joked to herself. Except, hers were a brilliant green, shedding light on a newly paved road. Her senses dizzied themselves, swirling with the sudden escalation. The lack of sleep made her body twitch, but a surge of energy was thumping against that, refusing to rest on her new discovery.

These exciting thoughts played around in her mind as she came into the second bedroom. Gemma’s pristine nursery, the one room Luna had labored over exacting the right paint hues. Two varying purples, one lilac, one royal. Her feet sank into the plush rug while she let her fingers trail over all the baby items. An aunt had given a wooden crib that turned into storage space. Another gift was the matching diaper bag and stroller. The memories of the baby shower, the artificial support given, made tears stream down Luna’s face faster than she could catch them.

Just like water to a stove fire, the tears only added fuel for her desperate thoughts to expand. She had to leave, had to abandon this nursery, the overflowing trash in the kitchen, any cry for help.

In between changing and feeding Gemma, Luna stuffed a trash bag full of what she deemed essential for the two of them. The ride could be long, could be short, but the destination would find them on their way. In her mind’s eye, there were glowing, green street lights illuminating the right direction.

Loading the car and strapping them both in, Luna began to drive through the sleepy town towards the interstate. ​​Outside the car blended together like water colors. Luna accelerated, disregarding curves, merging into tight spaces.

After a while, the green lights were all she could see.

***

Sticky bandages were clinging to her. One on her arm, another bloodied on her leg. It was time for them to be changed. A shy moon lay half hidden by clouds in the night sky, not that it didn’t always look like night from the tinted windows on the hospital’s fourth floor. That was fine. Nights comforted her.

“You experienced a manic episode,” the ward’s doctor had explained days ago, but up until this night, the word still rattled around her mind. Manic. The doctor had let the spiked word drop out of his mouth, landing flatly on the grimy floor tiles.

Bipolar disorder. Usually develops in early to ​mid adulthood​​mid-adulthood​. Medication induced. Postpartum. Right, right, sure does take a village.

The doctor, the nurses, the sitters, they all talked as if this wing was a morgue, as if all of the patients’ ears had already fallen deaf.

In the early night hours, the nurses would come to check vitals. They would find Luna, curled around herself, rocking a bundle of blankets.

To anyone who would listen, she would say, “My baby will be one soon, she’s getting so big. You see that mole by her eye? Look, got that right from me, her mama. Think we look alike? She was born a month after my birthday, on the exact same day. Funny how the universe works. Our names kind of rhyme. I’m Luna. This is Gemma–Gem for short. Not like a boy’s name, like a jewel or treasure. Gem.”

​​And, she would continue rocking her bundle, there in her assigned room, until night became morning.