The cracked linoleum is so cold beneath her bare feet. She shifts from foot to foot as the water boils, rubber nipples and plastic caps bubbling around, dancing. A yellow egg timer in the shape of a chicken lays down a steady tempo. She stares at this dance, her eyes transfixed whether by the motion of the bottle caps or from sheer exhaustion she can’t even tell anymore. A box of goodies given by the Navy hospital sits on the card table next to the hot plate on the counter that plays as a stove. In the box is the last can of formula. She tries not to think about this as she watches the water boil, holding her hands high over the steam to soak in the wet heat and take away a little of the night chill that has soaked into her bones and just won’t go away. The egg timer buzzes and scares her so badly she nearly scalds herself as she takes the pot off the hot plate, scoops out the nipples and caps with a wooden spoon and lays them to dry on a paper towel. She fixes the disposable bottle liners in place and uses the can opener from her husband’s Swiss army knife to open the final can of formula. She pours it carefully, all the way to the brim, into four eight-ounce bottles. These will last until tomorrow afternoon. Then, tomorrow, somehow,

somewhere she will have find some more. Damn. She cups her breasts, useless things. They look so pretty in the wrapper, don’t they? She sighs. Nothing is ever simple, is it? She puts three bottles into the compact fridge her husband has “appropriated”. That’s what grunts in the military call stealing. Nothing is ever really “stolen” as it is “appropriated” to serve another cause. The whole façade  used to bother her at first but pawn money those “appropriated” items brought in enough grocery money to soothe any moral queasiness she used to have.

She keeps one bottle with her to have at the ready when the little tyrant wakes up. With that motherly chore done, she flips off the kitchen light and makes her way in the dark, through the living room, to the bedroom. A nightlight shines dimly and casts a web of shadows on the baby sleeping in the playpen. A piece of the shadow breaks away and scuttles across and up the wall. She slaps at it without thinking and the baby barks out a cry, wiggling

weakly inside the tightly bound blankets. “Shhhhh! Shhhhh, Baby……shhhhh, it’s okay. Momma’s here.” She reaches towards the baby and sees the stain of the smashed bug on her hand. She grimaces and stands for a second, holding her hand away from her like a leper. “Hold on, Baby, hold on….”, she says, glancing towards her sleeping husband. He is stirring. The bathroom is only three steps away. She hurries inside where there is a tub and a toilet. She sets the bottle on the toilet tank and turns the knob in the tub and runs her hands under the cold, cold water. Thinking twice, she grabs a sliver of soap left in the dish and lathers her hands. The baby’s cries outside crescendo. “I’m coming, Baby, just hold on, for crying out loud….” She rinses her hands in the already warming water. Great, she thinks, now I have to pee. She hears the crying stop. Alarmed, she half dries her hands on the towel hanging over the shower rod and grabs the bottle. She goes to the door and looks into the playpen. Empty. She hears a sweet gurgle.

Her husband has gotten up and is holding the baby. He has wrapped himself and the baby in their old blue bed sheets. In the dimness of the nightlight, with his closely cropped hair, he looks like a shimmering Buddhist monk. She smiles at that thought. God, I must really be tired. My husband, the Marine……how would he feel about the comparison?

“Don’t worry, Hon. I’ve got her.” He reaches out to her. “Hand me the bottle.”

“Here.” She says and sits down next to them on the mattress on the floor. Beds are a hassle to travel with, are expensive and, besides, when the baby gets older, we won’t have to worry about her falling off in the middle of the night and hurting herself, right? She hears this litany from her husband at least once a month. She figures he needs to hear it himself more than she does by now. He cradles the baby in his arms and teases the lips of the now sleeping baby with the nipple. “Just look at her.” He says, “Out cold. She just wanted a little snuggle time with Dada, that’s all.”

She smiles, weakly, and says, “I’ll take her. You go on back to sleep now. You need it for the hump coming up.”

“I’m okay. I’ll be just fine.” He caresses her cheek gently against is neck, carefully, away from his stubble. He brings her to his face and kisses her on the nose. “Just look at her. Isn’t she beautiful?”

She looks at him and marvels at his dopey radiance. Sitting there on a lumpy mattress in an infested apartment holding his baby and he looks like he is King of the World. She couldn’t see herself but she was certain no one who might’ve stumbled onto their two a.m. slumber party would’ve thought as graciously about her. The only mirror she had seen herself in lately was in the bathroom with that damn fluorescent lighting. She tried to convince herself that it was the lighting that made her look so bad, the shadows cast under her eyes were just tricks of the bulb. But she knew she was just lying to herself again. Where is my glow?

Her husband stands up, cuddling his baby, and walks with her, rocking her deeper into sleep. He is singing a song but so low under his breath that she can’t make it out clearly. He looks good in his boxers, his hard Marine Corps body sculpted and fingered by the moonlight coming in through the slotted blinds. She wants to want him but where there used to be fire there is nothing, a hole. Is that where the glow went?

“You know,” he says, “when I look at her, I can’ t help wondering how anyone could hurt something like this. So beautiful and innocent. Can you?”

She sighs and lies across the mattress that lays on the floor in the only other room of an infested apartment wit crackled linoleum and whispers, “No. I can’t.” and drifts off to sleep.