Okay, honey, look pretty, Mr. Johnson said, which was what he always said. I thought of my daughter on a screen, late at night, in a lonely den.

I strode across the set, plucked her from the man’s lap, and walked out. In the bathroom, I wiped her face with wet towels. On the way home, I stopped at a lake. We sat on the grass. Brazen ducks approached but departed abruptly when they saw we had nothing to give them.

On Monday, Mr. Johnson called me to his office. I waited ten minutes for him to emerge from his private bathroom. At last the flush resounded and he came out, fastening himself. He sat at his desk and leaned back.

I had two things to do today, he said. Take a shit and fire you.

At home, I tried crafts. I melted wax in a pan and poured it into molds I’d cut from milk cartons. But the cartons split and the wax flowed quickly into the sink and down the drain, where it promptly hardened. It took the grim plumber six hours to scrape it out.

Lady, he said when he left, stick to sewing, okay?

I bought a stack of cookbooks and attempted various bakes and dinners. One night, chopping onions, I cut my hand to the bone—I saw it, white, swimming in the brimming gash. In a damp, tingling suit of skin, I slid to the floor. Later—how much?—my husband shook me awake and drove me to the hospital.

Ouch, I said to the nurse who stitched me.

That hurts? she said.

Yes, I said.

That doesn’t hurt, she said.

My doctor asked: did I want a natural or an unnatural birth?

I need something for the pain, I told the old doctor. I was his last delivery before retirement.

I’m so tired of all you women, he said.

When it was over, I had another daughter. It was summer and I was high. They’d cut me, anus to vagina—no matter. I lay in bed with my girls. The smell of flowers came in. We slept.

I had a dream. On the porch, with my foot, I rocked the baby in her bassinet. Then, with its cruel mouth, a large, muscular dog picked her up like she was a bone. It ran. I chased—too slow. The dog stopped to shake its toy. The baby screamed.

I’ll get you some pills if you want, my husband said.

Flowers shriveled and our shocked lawn blanched beige. I drowsed through the house, bumping walls and tables. There was a sense of the earth in a fever. There was a question of when she’d boil over.

I gave birth again—this time to the clotted, rotted wad of gauze the old doctor’d stuffed me with to stop my blood.

I got him on the phone. I think you forgot something, I said.

You survived, didn’t you? he said.

Then, on the porch, on a day suspended by insect drone, we held our hands above our heads and turned them as though the breeze might be twisted on like a faucet. The older girl laughed and the younger one burped and bubbled at the mouth.