![as i walk these broken roads as i walk these broken roads](https://66.media.tumblr.com/d87bf6db75fbf1442100cd21722d1007/tumblr_oxvtbyK8VY1uqtds1o1_1280.jpg)
“Isn’t she amazing?” the nurse says, bundling her safely into Mali’s aching arms.Īmazing that something so pure can come out of something so misshapen, Mali thinks. Mali winces just looking at her movements. Natalie makes soft crooning noises and bends to lift the baby. Natalie lifts the baby and peers at Mali. She presses the call button, and Natalie, the curly-haired nurse, pops her head in. Mali tries to sit up a deep burn spreads across her middle. The baby’s tiny eyes are squeezed tightly shut, and her head is turned to the side, as if to say, “I’ll just lie here and cry, don’t trouble yourself about me.” She cranes her neck to peer into the plastic crib. The baby starts to cry, and the sweet helplessness of the sound makes Mali’s eyes fill. Because when in the throes of back-labor, the thought of co-parenting with Nosson was just plain exhausting. Again, maybe it’s not his fault she needed a C-section, but he definitely didn’t make it any less inevitable. Nosson outdid himself in the unhelpful department. Just the memory makes her roll her eyes.īut today really takes the cake. Maybe that one wasn’t his fault, but it was his fault that he curled up on the couch and moaned every single day for two months straight, while she cooked and worked and shopped her way through it.
![as i walk these broken roads as i walk these broken roads](http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wkar/files/styles/x_large/public/201707/broken_sidewalk.jpg)
He hadn’t locked the door before they went grocery shopping, even though he’d been positive he had and refused to go back to check. He hadn’t signed on the apartment in time, the realtor said. Because honestly, that’s where all the broken, potholed roads lead to. She could check her mezuzahs, or go to an ayin hara lady. And then, to top it all off, they’d been burgled. Of course, that hadn’t been the official reason, but she knew. Then they’d both gotten mono and been out for the count, and Smith & Cohen had fired her. It just follows the not-so-comedy of errors that has been her life since she married Nosson two years earlier.įirst the apartment on the kollel block had fallen through, and they’d ended up in that hole of a basement. It figures that Mali Baum née Sheiner would need a C-section after 21 hours of labor.