Free The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel by Stephanie Knipper

misunderstood him.
    “He’s decided to go to seminary. Apparently, I’m a distraction.” She puts a hand over her eyes.
    That doesn’t sound like Seth. I’m about to say so, when a soft bleat comes from Antoinette’s crib. I don’t want to leave Lily, but she shoos me away. “Go check on her.”
    I hesitate. “I’m fine,” Lily says. “Go get her.”
    This time I listen. I lean over Antoinette’s crib. Her eyes are open. I freeze, hoping she’ll go back to sleep. When she doesn’t I say the first thing that pops into my mind. “I’m your mom,” I whisper. “Do you remember me?”
    “Of course she remembers you,” Lily says. She flings back her sheet and sits on the side of her bed. She sleeps in one of Seth’s old white T-shirts. It’s only May, but her legs are already brown.
    Antoinette kicks her feet and waves her hands in front of her face.
    “Have you called him?” I ask as I pick up Antoinette. Her hand wraps around my finger. She has a tight grip for a little girl. As usual, her touch calms me.
    “He won’t answer my calls.” Lily traces the lines between the wood planks with her toe.
    I carry Antoinette to the rocker in the corner of the room and sit down. “I could talk to him.”
    Lily shakes her head. “You have enough on your plate.”
    Antoinette closes her pale blue eyes and nuzzles against me, causing a few drops of milk to leak from my breast.
    Quickly, I lift my shirt. I haven’t been able to breast-feed her yet. My first job as a mother was to carry her for nine months. My second is to feed her. Antoinette is only six weeks old, and already I’ve failed at everything a good mother should do.
    “Your body experienced too much trauma,” the nurse said at my last checkup. “If your milk hasn’t come in yet, it’s not going to.”
    I whisper a prayer. Please, let me get this one thing right.
    Antoinette latches on and begins to suck, but within seconds she curls her fists into tight balls and screams. I want to cry. I squeeze my eyes shut and push my toes against the cold wood floor to get the rocker going. The motion soothes Antoinette, and she settles into a hiccupy sob. “Is there a flower for disappointment?”
    I hadn’t meant to ask the question, so I’m surprised when Lily answers: “Yellow carnations.”
    “But they look so happy.”
    Lily stands and stretches. “Appearances can be deceiving.”
    Antoinette opens her mouth wide, but no sound comes out. She’s hungry. I need to go downstairs and warm up a bottle. I push myself up, but when I stand the room swirls.
    I fall back into the rocker. Antoinette wails. “Lily,” I say over Antoinette’s cries. “Can you go downstairs and warm up a bottle?”
    She is out the door and down the hall before I stop speaking. How am I going to get through the summer without her?
    Antoinette still screams. I start rocking again, but this time, the motion doesn’t soothe her.
    “Hush. Hush.” I place my lips next to her ear and whisper, but she doesn’t stop.
    “Let me take her.” Mom leans against the doorway, eyes red from lack of sleep.
    I shake my head. I can do this. I can take care of my daughter.
    “Rose,” Mom says in a voice so soft I almost miss it, “let me take her.”
    “But I’m her mother.” I don’t want to let go. I want to get one thing right.
    “Part of being a good mother is learning when to ask for help.” Mom smiles to soften her words. “Not your best quality.”
    She leads me to my bed and eases me onto it. She cradles Antoinette in one arm and me in the other. As Antoinette settles into her grandmother’s arms, blessedly silent, I realize I will never be the kind of mother I want to be.

Chapter Five

    Lily left Covington before sunrise. After 111 minutes on the road, she reached the outskirts of Redbud, Kentucky. The town was named for the trees that grow wild over the hills, making the air in early spring smell sharp and sweet.
    It had rained last night, and the grass was still