78.

He watched a baby suckling in its mother’s arms suddenly crane its head back at a near right angle to look on another baby with a bottle in a pram.  It pulled its legs in and then pushed them back out, into its mother’s chest, repeatedly, giving the mother a happy beating.  The well-bundled twin in the pram seemed to him, from the other side of the park bench, in need of being attended to.  The nipple of the bottle — wedged into the pram’s pillow — was leaking onto its cheek.  This time, not just the legs, but even the arms of the baby in arms started flailing, slapping its mother’s breast.  Through sunglasses, he watched how the mother leaned lower over the baby in her arms, cradled its bent neck, and rose slightly to reposition the bottle’s nipple back into the baby’s mouth.  Three steps back and she sat back down.  The baby in her arms was quieten now, had stopped flapping, and was holding onto its mother with a look that he felt had to it the very gravity of a parent when proud.


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