Not a metaphor.
A physical, brutal, total nausea, as if my body understood the scope of it before my mind did.
Baby bottles.
The last night.
Miriam’s visit was “to help” with the children because I was exhausted and Trevor had had to go out for a while for something I don’t even remember now without hating myself for not insisting.
The sterilized jars are lined up next to the heater.
The strange smell that I attributed to tiredness.
Emma was breathing fast, so fast that the pastor had to kneel down to see her better and speak to her with a calmness that I don’t know where he got it from.
—What else did you see, honey?— he asked.
Miriam screamed.
Finally, he screamed.
“She’s making it up! She’s a child! She doesn’t understand what she saw!” she shrieked in a voice so hysterical that no intelligent person could have continued to mistake her for wounded innocence.
She wanted to move towards Emma, but the pastor raised his arm in front of her with an authority that, for the first time in that family, came exactly on time.
“Don’t take another step,” he said.
