Milk of the Earth

The mahogany trees in Sierra Leone cracked under the worrying sun.

Joseph trekked, kicking up dirt with porous sandals. His newborn daughter, Hawa, was cradled against his bare chest, suckling at his nipple. Wincing, he fixed a woven, white cloth over her head.

Ten minutes passed until he came within ten feet of his friend’s hut. He shouted, “Abu!”

Abu rounded unhurriedly from the back, his head lowered to the betraying earth, holding what looked like a deformed stone. Joseph knew that Abu had not procured the goat’s milk.

“What am I going to do? Wha-What am I going to?”

Abu looked up and implored, “I will get a hold of some by tomorrow morning, I promise. Here, take this yam and boil it. Mash it up as usual but stir in lots of water. Try feeding it to her. Come again tomorrow morning.”

Joseph took the yam in his hand and touched it to his sweltering forehead. “Okay, okay. Please. You know where I found some last time. I don’t know why there was none.”

Abu pivoted regrettably and then faced Joseph with assurance again. “Come tomorrow.”

Joseph hugged Hawa even closer to his chest and turned to leave.

On the horizon, almost home, were cold-static heat waves, making his hut seem like a floating impertinence. The only corners of it pointed in unclear directions. He didn’t yet know where his late wife had been assigned a burial. The safety team didn’t know more than he knew.

Hawa stopped suckling him, and her cries startled his preoccupation. He wiped the sweat from his salty lips and cooed, “Shhhh. Shhhh.”

He opened the latch to his door haphazardly.

Hawa’s piercing cries seemed to enter their home sooner than he did, and the wooden chair he had knocked down on his way out that morning surprised him. Somebody still lived here. He kicked it hard against their empty bed. Hawa cried louder.

“Hawa, shhh shhh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He used one hand to fill a cooking pot with well water. Lifting it to the three-stone stove, his hand shook violently, and he dropped it. The shrill of Hawa confused him, and he paced the rudderless floor, forgetting what he wanted to do next. He stopped and held Hawa out in front of him. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

What his mother might have done surpassed all reason, but he moved inherently and placed the wailing Hawa on their bamboo bed. The dense air doubted him, so he sat beside her and swept her warm belly with his palm. Until he remembered the fire. “Yes,” he whispered to Hawa. Beneath her now-softer cries, he leaned in close to her. “There was fire for her. She — she was having contractions, your mother. The water had warmed enough. She pushed and pushed you — .”

He darted up as if he heard something break. He blinked once and, without intention, turned toward the stove. He picked up the pot while he crouched down to light the fire.

Hawa started to wail again.

He tripped to the bed, his left leg buckled, and he used his left arm to hold himself from the bed. Then he picked her up and held her to his chest again. A silence startled him as she began sucking hard. Wincing from this unnatural pain, he let himself down onto the bed and rocked.

Soon, time suffocated him, and he closed his eyes, hearing his dead wife’s spectral voice calling him outside. He rocked faster.

“Papa God, Papa God.”

Then it stung him so hard, he ripped Hawa from his chest and stared incorrigibly at the door. He waited. He waited for the pain to enter the room. He waited.

Hawa screamed.

Visiting the sound, he looked down, bewildered. Discharging from his nipple was a drop of something white. His head rattled as if he saw venom. His belly contracted, and he started to huff. He couldn’t catch his breath. He stuttered in broken seams like lace moving sluggishly under the needle of a sewing machine. He said something to Hawa. He said something else.

And then he floated above her grave, and she said, “Here.”

So, his neck downed his head, and his ear nearly touched his shoulder. He pulled Hawa in again.

She ate, and she ate, and she ate.

“Papa God! Papa God! Oh…hahaha! Hawa, my love! My only! Drink! Drink!”

A light, untethered by grace, sifted through the bottom of the door.