The Color of Family by Patricia Jones

squarely at Mrs. Simms and replied, “The doctor you’re talking about is my boss, the head of gynecology and obstetrics for the hospital, and yes, I must tell you that he wastaken aback when he saw you nursing a child far beyond the years of breast-feeding. But Mrs. Simms, since you brought it up, I have to tell you that at his age, D.J. gets more nutritionally from his regular diet than he’s getting from your breast milk.”
    â€œI tend to doubt that,” Mrs. Simms countered with an edge to her voice. “And what about his comfort? His nurturing? He needs me for that, and even if he’s not getting anything nutritionally from me, at least he gets that. That counts for his health too, you know.”
    Ellen lowered her head with nothing to say in that moment, because she knew she could easily get into that slippery area where she just might cross over that hallowed line of telling this woman how to be a mother. So she took in a considerable breath, blew it out, then replied, “Mrs. Simms, I’m certainly not saying to you that you’re wrong for having nursed your son for so long, but truthfully, you should be thinking about what this baby’s going to need when he or she gets here, because you have to start thinking about the baby’s needs now. Even women who give birth to twins more often than not end up having to supplement with formula just because there is not enough breast milk to keep two babies sated and thriving. If you’re nursing this baby and a six-year-old boy as well, chances are you’re not going to be able to produce enough milk for both. Is any of this making sense to you?”
    Mrs. Simms’s eyes filled with the fluid of sadness. And just as the first tear fell, she asked Ellen through a quivering voice, “Dr. Barrett, did your mother nurse you?”
    Ellen looked shockingly at the woman at first, having been taken completely off her guard, then answered tentatively, “I honestly don’t know, Mrs. Simms. That’s something that has simply never come up.” And then that got Ellen to a place she had not readied herself to go. Did her mother nurse her? She wondered why she didn’t know that answer. And would that answer also satisfy so many other questions. “Why do you ask?”
    â€œI ask because my mother didn’t nurse me, Dr. Barrett, and I felt that void in every part of our relationship all through my life. I’m determined it’s not going to be that way for me and my kids. They are going to be nurtured by me, connected to me; they are going to know I love them.” And the woman let her emotionsloose so fast they filled the room so that there was scarcely enough space for any other.
    This is why Ellen pushed, with everything in her, the question she didn’t even know she had in her, back to the place where it lived in ignorance. She had to believe that it couldn’t matter, because if it did matter, it would only devilishly taunt her as it played side by side with the shadow of the man who had kept her mother disconnected from the nurturing instincts living inside of every mother’s nature. Clayton Cannon. Had her mother nursed the need for Clayton Cannon to be a part of her at the expense of nursing the needs of her only daughter, her only child at the time? She knew that void of which Mrs. Simms spoke. It was vast enough, particularly in the quieter moments of her own pregnancy, to swallow her whole. So in that moment, Ellen had to stop the questions, because one would lead to another and to another until she’d be one more undependable woman in Mrs. Simms’s life.
    â€œMrs. Simms,” Ellen said quietly, yet with professional crispness as she listened to the woman sniffle to the end of her tears. “I don’t know what happened between you and your mother, but it sounds like something you should work through with her. That’s going to be important for you, I think.