Rescuing Julia Twice by Tina Traster

simply by turning the issues over in my mind a thousand times. It’s a fallacy, but that’s how you think when you believe you are alone, that the world is a quickly shifting, unreliable place where bad things happen. I know how
I
got there, but why does my baby behave like that?
    It’s painful to watch Julia wage a daily battle against rest and relaxation. When I put her down in her crib after lunch, she immediately springs back up and sways back and forth with a crazed look in her eyes. I try to stroke her head or sing to her, but it agitates her. She won’t look at me. Eventually I leave her in place to fight it out with herself, and afterfifteen to twenty minutes or so, she does succumb, but only because she’s out-of-her-head tired.
    There’s even more drama in the stroller. When she gets groggy, she leans over the stroller’s safety bar, the way Kate Winslet does in
Titanic
at the ship’s prow, as forward propelling as she can get without doing a flip out of the vehicle. She rattles the bar with her clenched fists as though she is shackled to it, resisting the pull of sleep.
    But the car is another story. The vibration and continuous movement, especially when we’re driving on the highway, is as irresistible as an undertow at sea. She bangs her head against her car seat to keep herself awake, but it’s futile. The motion is hypnotic. Her head flops onto her shoulder or forward onto her chest. She’s transported, but to where? Does she dream? Do people in her dreams speak Russian? Is she back in the orphanage where it smells like ammonia and cooked cabbage? Perhaps she’s in the comfort of one of her caretaker’s arms, someone whose scent is more familiar?
    She looks peaceful. Beautiful, really. She usually rests for exactly one hour, like clockwork, as though she’s been rigged like a bomb waiting to go off. She does not whimper or fuss or appear to be in discomfort. But then, like a scene in a horror movie, she will wake as though someone were coming at her with a gleaming knife. Or she’s seen a ghost, which perhaps she has.
    Ricky has a theory about why this happens. He thinks when she’s asleep, she slips back to her early days in the orphanage, and when she comes to from napping, she has no idea where she is or who we are. She’s in an unsettling state of disorientation, a fugue.
    We’re still motoring along the turnpike, fifty minutes into her nap, when I get the Pavlovian stomach clench, knowing she’ll wake in ten minutes. I lower the radio and twist around toward her. I extend my arm and cup my hand around her knee, hoping the warmth and pressure might make her feel more grounded and secure. She stirs. I hold my breath and stand ready with a bottle of formula in my other hand. Her eyes bat quickly. She crinkles her brow and then, on cue, she emits a keening howl. “It’s okay,” I coo. “It’s okay. You’re here with Mommy andDaddy. Here’s your bottle.” If that doesn’t work, I offer her the
abaye,
the mysterious word she uses for her pacifier. Either way, her eyes never meet mine. Today, she takes the formula from me and sucks down every last drop of liquid like a desert-thirsty nomad. Then she tosses the empty bottle beside her on the seat. She sits up tall and strikes up her one-man band of sing-song sound.
    â€œWe’ll be there soon,” I say, guessing my words, or the assuring tone, mean nothing.
    I shift back around in the passenger seat. Ricky can sense my discomfort.
    â€œYou okay?” he asks.
    â€œYeah, you know, I don’t know,” I say. Then I add in a hushed voice, “She’s
so
not at peace. It’s upsetting.”
    â€œShe’ll get there,” he says. “She just needs time.”
    â€œMaybe, but that spooked look in her eyes worries me.”
    Ricky puts his hand on my knee, and I lean back and close my eyes. What a gift it is to receive