Manu thrust the crying child’s little body into my arms as soon as I walked in the door, never mind the IV port on the inside of my left arm which meant I couldn’t bend it.

“Here’s your child. I’m tired and I need to deal with the laundry before bed,” she said before disappearing into her bedroom leaving me standing there unsure what to do with this colicky baby who wouldn’t be soothed even by the people who were around him every day.

He’d been born the day I was due back at boarding school so I hadn’t spent any time with him, let alone held him for longer than 15 minutes three months prior. I was home sick. I had malaria and my blood sugar  had gone so low that I’d passed out and my parents had had to come get me.

“Okay, Bubba,” I said softly, lowering myself into the rocking chair by the door, “let’s sit down here and give mama a break.” His name’s Sebastian but we each call him by a variation of pet names. Sebastian’s such a big-boy name for such a tiny little thing.

I shifted my body until we were both comfortable and he stopped crying. I hoped he’d fall asleep quickly but he just lay against my chest, wiggling his little feet every so often, eyes wide open. My left arm was stretched out over the arm of the chair so neither of us mistakenly yanked the port out. It hurt a little.

“I do that all the time and it never stops him squirming and crying,” Manu said. She was now standing at the dining table with one hand on her hip and the other on the hot water flask. She looked frustrated. Or maybe irritated – maybe both.

“Hmmm,” I said.

She poured some hot water into a mug and sat down. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her looking at us.

When she picked up the mug, I tensed up. A memory from when I was five or six came back to me. She’d been 11 at the time, I think. I’d been sitting on the verandah of the boys’ quarters playing by myself about five feet away from where she sat combing out our aunt’s hair when she’d chucked a cup of hot water at me just because. She’d been the baby for six years before I was born. I guess it made sense that she didn’t like me. Still, that attack had been a step up from the nightly reminders at dinner that I “wasn’t part of the family” because I didn’t have a chair at the table that matched the set. My retort had always been, “Well, I get to sit next to daddy.” The frustration on her face following that had always been satisfying. I relaxed again. She wouldn’t throw a hot cup at me while I held her child. 

We sat in silence for a while and then we chatted about motherhood. We spoke now like old friends, like we’d always liked each other – like we’d always loved each other.