The Cradle Robbers by Ayelet Waldman Read Free Book Online

thing. They gave me one of them at WIC, but I’d squeeze and squeeze and nothing would come out.”
    “Oh, those hand pumps are terrible. I rent a monster electric one. It’s bright yellow and I feel like a Guernsey dairy cow hitched up to a milking machine, but it’s the only way. You could use a hand pump for a week and not get enough for even one feeding.”
    Pauline shook her head. “I just took her with me wherever I went. Until I went away. You can come in. You’ll want a glass of water before you nurse that baby.”
    Pauline, her mother, and Pauline’s young daughtershared a one-bedroom apartment that was designed around a shrine of photographs of a man in a police officer’s uniform. The pale blue velvet sofa and matching recliners all faced the altar; the television on its cart was angled toward it. Even the small dining table in the dining area had an empty place at its head, leaving a clear line of sight from every chair to the grouping of photographs, the framed officer’s badge, the parchment police academy graduation certificate, and the wall of award citations.
    I left the stroller wheels in the tiny front hall and brought the car seat and sleeping baby into the living room with me. I sat down on the edge of the sofa and put Sadie on the floor at my feet. The wall-to-wall carpet was thick piled shag, worn in places and covered in odd spots by woven throw rugs. I supposed that the rugs covered stains or tears.
    Pauline handed me a glass of ice water and placed a platter of corn chips and a small bowl of salsa on the table. “We don’t have any mild,” she said, sitting down on a recliner and settling her daughter in her lap. “And I don’t think the spicy’s too good for your milk. Maybe you should just have the chips plain.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “Plain chips are great.”
    “My other baby, she a little older than yours.”
    “Your other baby?”
    “Not this one; not Dericia. Taniel, my younger baby. The one you asked about. The one the Lambs of the Lord took. Next week, on the eleventh, that’s her seven-month birthday.” Pauline rested her chin on Dericia’s head. The little girl wiggled off her mother’s thighs and ran to the television set.
    “Dora?” Dericia said, patting the TV screen. “Time for Dora?”
    “Okay, baby,” Pauline said. “But go watch in the bedroom.” Dericia ran out of the room and her mother turned to me. “I don’t like for her to see me cry, and I can’t think about Taniel without crying.”
    “She’s bright,” I said.
    “Just like her sister. I know my Taniel is smart like Dericia.”
    “You were pregnant with Taniel when you went inside?”
    She nodded. “Only just. I didn’t know for sure until after I got arrested. And then I thought for sure I’d be out before I had her. I didn’t expect no fifteen-month sentence, I’ll tell you that.”
    I knew enough not to ask what she had been convicted of. That’s a rule with prisoners and ex-prisoners.If they want you to know their offense, they’ll tell you. Otherwise, you mind your own business. But Pauline was willing to share.
    “I took fifteen months on a crack-cocaine charge. Pled to it, finally. My lawyer, he said if I went to trial I’d get lots more. Still, it seems like a long time away for just half a gram of crack, don’t it?”
    “Yes, it does.”
    “My mama, she nearly died, she was so ashamed. My daddy, he was a police officer. That’s him over there. He died when I was a girl. Just had a heart attack one day in bed. He wasn’t but thirty-six years old. Sometimes I think it’s better he died before he had to see me go to jail.”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    Pauline sighed and her eyes filled with tears. “Prison wasn’t even the worst part of it. Losing the baby. Losing my Taniel. That’s a life sentence.”
    I shifted forward in my seat, leaning toward her. “What happened, Pauline?”
    She wiped her eyes. “Call me Sister Pauline. That’s what people call me.