"Ma'am" by Emma Brewer
This is a story from our Winter 2022 Issue, guest edited by Raad Rahman. Click here to purchase the print edition and click here to purchase the digital version.
Agnes had never been called for jury duty; this was her first time in one of these buildings. She shuffled through each stage of the selection process—loose hours in a cavernous holding room, absorbing various bursts of instruction—with a sense of puzzled focus, not wanting to do anything wrong. In her tote bag was the pump.
She gripped the straps always, wary of being sent abruptly to another room and leaving the pump behind. It was a Medela InStyle™ MaxFlow breast pump, and although it wasn’t terribly heavy, it did sometimes leave red streaks on her shoulder from carrying it. Agnes leaned her elbow on the pump now, waiting for her name to be called, waiting for eleven-thirty, when she would swell with a rush of milk, reliable as clockwork.
Around her, people expressed small sounds of listlessness, or frustration, or outrage at this episode of inconvenience. Some of them performed complex dramas in order to be excused, while Agnes experienced this mandated waiting as a decadence: a guiltless break from her life, an excuse to ignore work emails. She read a longform article about a man who had died attempting to cross Antarctica on foot (not a subject she’d normally have an hour for) and felt sorrow and fulfillment at finishing it uninterrupted—as if she herself had completed a journey.
At eleven-fifteen, she felt her breasts fill in. She shouldered the tote and began to wander. Near the holding room entrance, a court officer explained that while they were (of course!) supposed to have a lactation room, they didn’t, and she was welcome to use the court breakroom. Agnes was accepting this uncomfortable fate when she heard her name announced from the main desk.
“Oh,” Agnes whispered to the officer. “What should I do?”
“Can’t you pump after? You’re selected for trial.”
Agnes tried to explain. Her mammary glands and her baby and her employers had established a daily rhythm of productivity and feeding which worked for everyone, and that cycle was so concrete there was no way out of it. Pumping once at eleven thirty and once at three kept her breasts from exploding at those times. The court officer held up her hand. She looked compact and serious in her uniform.
“Ma’am. You’ll get a break.”
Agnes went where she was told.
***
While being led through the halls, along with twenty or so other potential jurors, Agnes was aware of the mythical breakroom, receding further and further into obscurity as her bra grew tighter. Beneath her arm, the pump and its tubes and flanges clattered urgently. Everyone switched off their phones before proceeding into the courtroom.
From her bench, Agnes attempted to comprehend a series of instructional speeches while her breasts bulged and ached. Her eyes swept around the courtroom, searching but unsure what for. Someone to witness her distress, maybe. Or an obvious exit into a dark and private room. And now everyone was standing. Agnes leapt up in a swoon of relief; this must be the break.
She was wrong.
The jurors (was she a juror now?) all mumbled “good morning” to the plaintiff, and then to the judge. This second “good morning” was more robust, as the room gained a collective confidence in what to do. By the time a third introduction was made, Agnes was so happy to have picked up on the pattern that she practically sang out “good morning!” to the defendant, looking straight into his eyes. He smiled at her, or maybe at the jurors in general, and something in this smile registered to Agnes as honesty. She scolded herself for this irrational response, as everyone took their seats. Against the insides of her arms, she could feel her breasts expanding, bricklike and hot.
When was the break? Agnes looked again for a court officer. Beside her, the pump sighed.
“I know, Mom. Jesus,” Agnes said, abruptly glancing around in a horror of embarrassment; why did she say that? And then the charges were read.
She had imagined the trial would be boring or technical, like tax fraud, but it wasn’t. It was so much worse that Agnes struggled to actually hear the words. Inside her was a hushed panic that grew shrill, a piercing wordless echo, while the details of each victim were read aloud: the body parts, the ages, the names. Her breasts swelled to an itching point and she knew what this meant, this was the tingle, this was the stretch, this was the milk so full that it brought the nipple taut across her flesh so that when her newborn daughter tried to latch she found nothing but an impossible spray, nothing soft to pull into her frantic mouth. Agnes felt the spray now. She couldn’t stop it.
“If anyone has reason to be excused from this jury selection, please come forward at this time.”
Agnes lurched along the bench without a clear plan, muttering small apologies like in a theater. Under her arm, the pump trembled and groaned.
At the front of the room Agnes found herself triangulated by the judge, the defendant, and the stenographer, each in their proper place, each of them staring at Agnes. She was supposed to speak now. The judge, tall and solid, the stenographer with a neat cardigan, the defendant with an easy smile, and Agnes, numb and stammering.
“Can I do a different trial? I’d be happy to stay and do another one.”
“Ma’am. We need a reason stated for the record.”
Agnes was momentarily stunned into guilty bafflement. Did she think she was special, somehow? That the other jurors should handle this situation but she was entitled to sit it out? In her bra was a warm, shifting pulse as her absorbent pads began to pucker and droop.
“I’m having some sort of reaction. To the, uh. To the content.” The stenographer’s fingers hovered, waiting. “As ah, a mother, and…” Agnes eyed the stenographer, the controlled mania of his hands.
Are you fuckin serious?
Agnes jumped. The voice had come from her tote. Could everyone hear it?
“And, I guess, as a woman who, uh... was once a child.” Agnes recognized the stupidity of her statement so far, but had no more authority over it than she did over her leaking body.
And what’s that supposed to mean? The pump issued a hollow, incredulous chuckle.
“Shh,” Agnes responded.
The judge leaned forward, her voice slightly less musical now, “Can you clarify, please? Are you saying you have experience with this type of case, experience which would prevent you from being a fair juror?”
“No, that’s not exactly what.” Agnes felt two soft ruptures as her pads gave way and warmth trickled to the waist of her skirt. Somewhere in the swirling dread in her body were the words she needed. She opened her mouth.
“I can’t. Because I can’t.”
Wow. Nailed it, said the pump. What an interesting moment you’ve chosen for your little performance. Agnes recognized the use of interesting; her own mother had wielded the word artfully. As a weapon it was wide-ranging and precise, sheathed in innocence, unfailing in its ability to inflict self-doubt.
“Please shut up.” Agnes said. The stenographer glanced up in confusion.
What was the pump’s deal? Agnes considered it a friend. The plastic sacks of milk she brought home each day from the office meant that she was free the next day to return to work. It was a steady flow of relief, storing them in the fridge, leaving them for her husband, who was home from his teaching job for the brief and blesséd summer—safe with the baby and the milk. The little sacks of milk! The Medela InStyle™ MaxFlow meant everything. It extended the lovely, vital tetheredness to her baby by increments. It meant they didn’t have to start paying for formula yet. It meant she didn’t need to sprint to catch the train in the evenings, that for now she could, occasionally, stay late for a project, or sit on a bench somewhere and stare at the birds before heading home. It was work-life balance, baby!
“Ma’am, are you saying that your emotional response to the details of this particular trial inhibits you from being a suitable juror, or presents an obstacle in following the proceedings to the best of your ability,” said the judge in a rush of patient syllables.
Agnes drooped. “Yes, that,” she breathed.
“I’m going to need you to state that in your words.”
Agnes realized she was weeping, furious that she couldn’t do this simple task, her public duty. She was, at this moment, remembering the first time she’d attempted to use the pump: days after the birth, blurry with panic at her hungry, tongue-tied, needle-mouthed infant, Agnes had fixed the flanges on wrong and nothing was coming out but two fine arcs of blood. And then the fuckin…the fuckin strap thing that was meant to keep them attached to her front had torn off, and Agnes hurled the pump bottles against the wall. Her mother, who was there to help—who was there for Agnes since Agnes’s husband had at that point used up his three days of paternity leave —her mother backed away from Agnes in terror. As if Agnes had committed some unspeakable violence. She hadn’t, had she? Her mother re-packed her bags that night and left. Agnes had been overwhelmed, sure, but she wasn’t frightening, was she?
The defendant grinned and grinned at Agnes. The judge peered closer.
“Do you understand, ma’am, what is being asked of you?”
She mouthed a garbled version of the judge’s excuse: emotional response; best of my ability. The stenographer hammered away. Someone handed her a note; she was excused from jury duty. And then the court officer, that stout angel, was leading Agnes from the room by the elbow.
***
In the breakroom, Agnes barely registered her complete exposure, surrounded by lockers and sugar packets and lunch bags. She shivered out of her shirt and sopping bra and dropped them on the floor. She sat in a wide straddle at the staff table and set the pump before her. She faced the door, nestled her breasts into the funnels, gripped them both with one hand as a pianist cradles an octave. She flipped the switch.
Milk hit the tubes with a frantic, syncopated hiss, slashed into the dangling bottles. Agnes stared unseeing. Inside her head was a pearly blankness, like the peak of a yawn, her eyes hung open, her jaw loose.
Okay. Okay, said the pump, choking. Agnes turned the dial up to 7. The flanges pulsed faster and louder. They tugged her nipples deep, deep into the tubes.
OKAY, OKAY, OKAY, said the pump. Agnes turned the dial up to 10. The suction thundered. The pump sputtered and drowned.
With the bottles filled, Agnes tipped the milk into the little packets, zipped them shut, and went home.
***
Agnes spent the weekend in a state of suspended fuzziness, lolling in bed with the baby, drifting to the couch, she and her husband taking turns dozing and bringing each other coffee and toast, marveling at the baby’s bizarre sounds, her animal faces. Sometimes she lost herself in work emails, and accidentally spoke with impatience at her family and then remembered to hide her phone away from herself. Sunday night she bathed her daughter and they laughed and laughed in the bubbles and almost forgot everything.
On Monday, the smell woke her. Agnes kept catching it as she dressed and gathered her things, a curious rotten waft, out of place yet familiar. She found the warm packets in her tote, left over from the courtroom. The milk, golden and priceless: she hadn’t stored it in the freezer.
Agnes swallowed back fuming nausea as she opened the packets over the kitchen sink. From somewhere the baby wailed, her husband shouted a question from the toilet. The force of the smell filled her with awe: the fact that she was capable of such ruin and putrefaction was terrible, it made her want to bring the spoil with her everywhere, fling it about on the subway, shake handfuls of it at her managers, her colleagues, show the world what a rot she could make by forgetting one small thing. Instead she washed it all down the sink. She cleaned up her mess because she knew, as always, what was being asked of her.
Emma Brewer is a writer from Vermont. Her work can be found in McSweeney's, The New Yorker, The Cut, Hobart, Fractured Lit, and elsewhere. One of her stories is featured in And If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing, an anthology of speculative stories about parenting.
