Milk Run
Content Warning
breastfeeding, gun violence, sexism
by Robert Dawson
Good evening, gentlemen. My name’s Steve, and I’m going to be your breastfeeding coach. I’d like to introduce my beautiful assistant — my daughter Kendra, nine months old. Hungry, Kendrasaurus? The-e-ere we go… That’s all there is to it, fellas. Class dismissed.
Just kidding, we’ve got a lot to cover in the next two months. But it really can be that easy — once you and your baby learn how.
• • •
Caitlynn rearranged her maternity smock over her lush six-month belly.
“No worries,” said Dr. Andrew Haskell. “You’re doing well, and so’s the kidlet.” He shook his stethoscope; it chimed softly, and the screen went dark. Elkie, five years old and bored, kept trying to wriggle out of my lap.
He turned to me. “Now, I’ve got a big decision for you, Dad. Do you want to help feed the baby this time?”
I grinned. “I’m good with bottles. Right, Elkie?” She ignored me.
Caitlynn, the other MD in the room, caught on. “You mean that new induced male lactation treatment?”
“Got it. Breastfeeding — not just for Mum anymore.”
“I thought that was still in clinical trials?” she said.
“Approved last week.”
“I must be getting behind on my journals,” she said. “All that stuff to do before I go on leave, you know?”
Andrew grinned. “Too right.”
“Is it expensive?” I asked.
“Well, yes — but you’re covered.” He pointed to the tablet on his desk.
“Are you sure? I’m an engineer, not the CEO.”
“Actually, it’s Caitlynn’s insurance. I was surprised too — not what I’d have expected from a university health plan.”
“Hey, I know,” said Caitlynn. “I’m on NASA’s zero-gee surgery roster, you knew that, right? Though they’ve only ever needed me once. Their key-employee plan covers some unusual things.”
He looked more closely. “You’re right, it’s not the usual code. Must be that.”
“So how does this work?” I asked, trying to keep Elkie’s hands away from the interesting shiny things on Andrew’s desk.
“Well, Steve, you know that males have vestigial mammary glands?”
“If you say so.”
“Vestigial in humans, anyway. There’s a species of fruit bat where males and females both breastfeed. Anyhow, IML lets men do it too.”
“But…”
“You don’t have to, of course.”
“Look, Andrew, I like breasts as much as the next guy, but they look better on women!”
Caitlynn snickered. Elkie, catching her mood, laughed too; Caitlynn shot me her mock-severe, now-look-what-you’ve-done, look.
“No worries, mate,” Andrew said. “A lot of the volume of a woman’s breast is fatty tissue, you won’t develop much of that. Also, most women can feed twins; with you, we’ll be aiming for about half what one baby needs. You won’t go much beyond an A cup. And they’ll go back to normal afterward.”
“You mean… I’d need a bra?”
“There’s a sort of engineered tee-shirt. You can download the files and have some made for you at most any clothing store.”
“Can I think about it?”
• • •
“So, what do you think of the Bloke From Down Under’s idea?” I took a pinch of salt from the antique porcelain salt cellar we’d bought at a garage sale, and sprinkled it into my porridge.
“Well, it would be nice to get a bit more sleep this time around. If you’re good with it.” She smiled reminiscently. “It’s nice, once you learn how.”
“It might help with the bonding thing. Remember how two years ago Elkie was all “No! Want Mommy!”?
“Oh, Steve! Is that why you want to do this?”
“Maybe. Yes. No. I don’t know. Change the subject — how’s work? Ready to put teaching aside for a year?”
She grimaced. “Not really. How about you?”
“As ready as I’m going to be, I guess.”
“That’s two of us.”
• • •
“Look, Steve,” said my father-in-law. He pointed at my support shirt, a gift from my coworkers; the fabricator had embroidered the words “USEFUL AS TITS ON A BULL” over one feeding flap. “I know you mean well, but don’t you think that’s Caitlynn’s job?”
Caitlynn’s mom, Jennifer, came to my rescue. “Don’t pay any attention, Steve. When Caitlynn was a baby, John was ever so good with bottle feeding, weren’t you, John? I think she’s a very lucky woman to have a husband who’s so supportive. Now, Caitlynn, are you sure you won’t have just a little more chicken? You are eating for two, dear, after all.”
• • •
With one final groaning push, Caitlynn brought our second daughter into the world. Andrew picked her up, checked her over, and put her into Caitlynn’s tired but eager arms. Kendra began to cry; but then her mouth found Caitlynn’s nipple and she started to root at it. Soon she was making a first attempt at suckling.
“Nicely done, Caitlynn!” said Andrew, his fingers busy with the umbilical cord. “You won’t even need stitches.”
“S’good. Isn’t she beautiful? “
“Course she is. All the sprogs I catch are. Smart, too.”
Half an hour later, he turned to me. “Now we move away from the usual script, Steve. Could I get you to lift your shirt up? There we go… May I palpate?” He pressed the recent bulges on my chest firmly and impersonally with his fingertips; I tried not to look embarrassed. “Yes, looks as if you’re ready.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Nothing yet. The one thing IML doesn’t do is generate colostrum with the right antibodies; and that’s what Kendra needs right now. Tomorrow, before you take Caitlynn home — if you’re still going through with this — I’ll give you the injection. Oxytocin and a little something for your pituitary gland.”
I looked at Kendra feeding and felt an odd prickling behind my nipples. “Yes. I’m going through with it.”
“Good on yer, mate. Great pair like that, be a shame not to use them.” We laughed; Caitlynn rolled her eyes.
• • •
“Yes, Jennifer, we’re home already. Both fine. Oh, beautiful, if you like them redfaced and squally. Yes, bring Elkie home whenever you like. Yes, sure. Caitlynn? It’s your mom.” I passed her my phone, and sat beside her on the black leather couch, listening to the tinny whisper of Jennifer’s voice and Caitlynn’s brief answers, watching Kendra feed.
I took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet baby fragrance. There was a pinching, prickling feeling in my breasts, and a sudden feeling of fullness. I looked down; there were two damp spots on my support shirt.
“Honey?” I pointed. “Where are those nipple shields?”
“Just a moment, Mom.” She covered the phone with her hand. “Why? I think they’re in the outer pocket of the hospital bag. Can you get them? My hands are full. Oh my God, is thatmilk? It’s really happening!”
• • •
“My nipples hurt, Caitlynn. And they’re all swollen up. Dammit, this just isn’t working.” I’d been trying over and over for three days and it hurt worse each time.
“Let’s see. Ooh, they do look sore, don’t they? They’re not bleeding, are they?”
“I don’t think so, but they hurt like hell.”
“She’s probably still not latching right. Are you OK to keep trying right now?”
“I guess so. It’s not that bad.”
“Good. Now, once more: you need to get her mouth to squeeze you here…” She squeezed my breast, just behind the nipple; a thin jet sprayed her maternity blouse. She giggled. “Hey! Stop that! Give me that towel! Now, try again with Kendie.”
I lifted her to my chest.
“Okay. Turn her a little and put her upper lip against your nipple. That’ll make her open her mouth wide. You want her to get as much of your areola in her mouth as she can.” I had an advantage there; mine were still only the size of quarters. “There, Steve, she’s opening up. That’s Daddy’s good girl! Now pull her in against you…”
Half an hour later, Kendra was making tiny happy noises, feeding contentedly. And I was sitting there, in a warm haze of hormones, in love with her, and Caitlynn, and the whole world.
• • •
“What are you doing, Daddy?”
“I’m feeding your little sister, pumpkin.”
“Oh. Are Daddies s’posed to do that?”
“If they can. Mostly they have to use bottles.”
“Did you feed me like that?”
“I didn’t know how then, Elkiesaurus. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, Daddy. Can I have a Popsicle instead?”
• • •
Caitlynn’s phone rang — the emergency ringtone. She worked it out of her pocket with her right hand, her left still supporting Kendra. “Mindenhall here.”
Ten seconds later, pale-faced, she passed Kendra to me. “Are you sure? What about Lionel? Can’t he… I’m on leave, remember? … Only six more months. Isn’t there anybody else? … Look, I’ll have to talk to my husband. Can I call back? Bye for now.”
“What’s up?” I asked.
“One of the researchers on Space Station Three has a dissecting aorta, high in the arch. They’re keeping his blood pressure low with medication, but bringing him back to Earth is too risky. He needs surgery, and it’ll have to be up there.”
“But you’re on maternity leave!”
“Yes, I know. But Margalit had a TIA two months ago, and Lionel broke his wrist playing squash yesterday, can you believe it?”
I had a moment of jealousy. When I got into rocket motor engineering, I’d assumed that I’d get to go up myself some day; but they don’t build rockets in space. Not yet, anyway. I swallowed it down. “You’re good to go. I can hold the fort. Your parents will help me out.”
“But — but I can’t leave Kendra.”
“That’s what I’m here for. Don’t worry, it’ll be easy.” I grinned. “A milk run.”
She laughed weakly, picked up the phone, and pressed the callback button with a trembling finger.
• • •
“Right, Caitlynn.” Andrew stretched a Band-Aid onto her arm. “That should dry you up for the next few weeks, and we’ll start you going again when you get back. As for you, Steve, yes, if you insist, you can probably feed a twenty-five-week baby on your own; your supply should increase with demand, and I can give you an injection that will help. But it may make the treatment less reversible; you could end up with permanent gynecomastia.”
“Gyneco…?”
“Moobs. You could just supplement with a bottle, instead.”
Caitlynn started to say something, but I’d started this and I was going to finish it. “Half the guys at the gym are like that anyhow just from too many donuts; I’ll give it a try. If it doesn’t work, I’ve had plenty of practice bottle-feeding Elkie.”
• • •
The next day at sunrise, I kissed Caitlynn goodbye at the front door, while her taxi waited.
Somehow, the blogfeeds got hold of the story. By nine o’clock, “NEW MOM TO OPERATE IN SPACE” was spattered across the Internet, and my phone started ringing.
“Mr Stephen Adler? This is Jenny Mallen from Continental News. Have you got a few minutes to talk to me?”
“Not really, no.”
“Is it true that, with the help of modern medicine, you’re breastfeeding your baby while your wife’s on a mercy mission to outer space?”
“No comment.” I pressed the disconnect button.
In the next hour, I disconnected several more blogorats. Nonetheless, by midmorning, the top headline was “MOM TO OPERATE IN SPACE, DAD BREASTFEEDS.” Finally, after a call from a woman who told me that what I was doing was against God’s will, I set my phone on known-numbers-only.
• • •
We were sitting in front of the screen, watching the newsfeed from Cape Canaveral. Elkie and I were eating popcorn, and Kendra was on my right breast feeding like a pro. I was on my second glass of water — these days it seemed that I was thirsty all the time. I seriously missed beer.
The countdown started. Elkie’s eyes were wide. I was sitting silently, trying not to think about how many astronauts’ kids had become front-row spectators at Dad or Mom’s public cremation. Finally, the flames appeared, and the ship lifted off with my Caitlynn on board. The image on the screen grew smaller and fuzzier and wobblier and fainter and finally vanished.
“Can I go to space like Mommy when I’m big?” asked Elkie.
“Maybe, pumpkin. If you study hard when you get to school.” I turned towards her and hugged her with my free arm.
• • •
“Hi, this is Steve. Is Mary-Lou there?” Mary-Lou was our next-door neighbor, a lean, cheerful, earth mother in whose heart the nineteen-seventies had never ended.
“Hi Steve! How’s the poster boy for breast-feeding? Getting tired of it yet?”
“Sore. I think Kendra was getting more from Caitlynn than from me, and she’s getting frustrated and hungry.”
“You could try giving her a bottle, you know.”
“I never thought I’d live to hear you say that, Mary-Lou! Look, the reason I called — could I come along to one of your support group meetings and get some pointers?”
“Sorry, Steve. I’d love to invite you, but it’s a women-only space. Some of our mothers are from very traditional cultures, and having a man in the room just wouldn’t work. I’ll email you some links, OK?”
“Bye, Mary-Lou. Thanks.”
• • •
“Mr. Stephen Adler?”
“Speaking,” Was something wrong? It was after eleven. Not quite the hour when all news is bad news, but getting there.
“Please stand by for an audio-only call from Dr. Caitlynn Mindenhall on Space Station Three.”
The phone crackled and clicked, and Caitlynn’s voice came on. “Hi, Steve. I’ll have to keep this quick, but the operation went well.”
“I knew it would, honey.”
“They won’t be able to get me onto a shuttle back for almost three weeks. I’m — I’m sorry.”
They don’t turn the siren and lights on to drive the doctor home. “That’s okay. Enjoy your vacation. I wish we could be there with you.”
“I miss you so much! And — and Kendra and Elkie. Oh, I wish you could be here too, Steve. You’d love it. Especially the stars — it’s like that night in Algonquin Park times a million. Remember that night, darling?”
“Mmmmm.”
“Is the breastfeeding going okay?”
“It’s rough, but I’m getting there.”
“Elkie’s asleep, isn’t she?”
“I’ll wake her up.”
“No, there won’t be time. They need this channel back now. Give the girls an extra kiss for me, won’t you? And stay safe.”
“You’re the one in orbit, honey. We’re safe at home.”
“I’ve got to go now. Love you, Steve.”
“Love you, Caitlynn.”
• • •
Freshly cut grass scented the air, and somewhere out of sight the robomowers were still humming away. Elkie had spent an hour running all around the park with her arms out, being a spaceship, and now she was taking a nap in the stroller, soothed by the soft rattle of wheels on gravel. Kendra slept in the Snugli. A few blogorats photographed us from a legal distance.
A slight gray-haired woman, no more than a hundred and fifty centimeters tall, stepped onto the gravel path in front of the stroller, blocking my way. The pleats of her prim old-fashioned dress were sharply ironed; her hair was in a neat bun. Her face was nervous but determined. She glanced at my face, then my chest.
“Are you Stephen Adler?”
“Yes…”
“What you’re doing is wrong, young man.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s unnatural, against God’s law. God loves you, you know. His laws are for your own good.” Her voice was shaking. “You must stop this abomination. Ask Him for forgiveness.”
“Are you finished?”
“Just remember what I told you. Please. For your own sake. God loves you. Don’t make Him angry.” She stepped aside.
• • •
“Thanks again for taking Elkie, John. Now I’ll be able to clear up a bit before Caitlynn gets back.” I looked around at the mess of laundry, toys, and dirty dishes.
“No problem. We’d love to take Kendra too, but unless you have something I can give her…”
“Just taking Elkie is great.”
“Does the zoo have a fruit bat, Grampy?”
“I think so. But don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t have a baby bat to feed right now.” John winked at me.
“Let’s go see the fruit bats, Grampy!” She grabbed his hand, and pulled him toward the door.
I started gathering laundry. It seemed as if everything I owned smelled of sour milk. Kendra started to fuss, so I picked her up out of her swing and carried her. Just as I got the washing machine started, the doorbell rang.
What had Elkie forgotten? I went to the door.
A woman stood on the front step. Her clothes were rumpled, her hair unkempt. Her eyes were bloodshot and wild, glaring truculently out of dark sockets. She had a yellow cloth diaper bag over her shoulder, printed with colorful Noah’s Ark animals. And she had a small black handgun, pointed at my navel.
“I’m sorry to have to do this, young man, but this gun is loaded, and I do know how to use it.” She talked quietly but auctioneer-fast, as if somebody was about to cut her off. Manic? Psychotic? Caitlynn would have known. “Please take a couple steps back, keep your hands in plain sight. Move slowly.”
Then I recognized her: the politely insistent evangelical lady from the park. What had transformed her? Stunned, I did as she said. She stepped into the porch.
“Take your phone out of your pocket, slowly. Throw it on the floor by my feet.”
I tried to drop it gently onto the doormat. She kicked it off onto the tiles and stepped on it hard with a scuffed, flat-heeled shoe. I heard plastic crunch and metal grate.
“Now, keep your hands in sight and get back into the house.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked as I backed into the living room. Kendra kept gurgling obliviously.
“Because it’s the only way to make the government stop this wickedness, if they had paid attention to my emails none of this needed to happen.” She did not sound angry, just very disappointed, a messenger ignored. “Sit down.”
I sat. For a long time, she said nothing. Finally, she asked: “When is your other child getting home?”
“She’s away for a week.”
“That’s not true, I heard her talking to the people who were taking her to the zoo. When is she getting home?” The gun came up to my face.
“About five o’clock.”
“Good, if she’s here too, the Prime Minister is more likely to listen to what I have to tell him. You must not try to send her away, if she does not come in or if anybody else does the baby will die.”
Over the next hour I tried to talk to her, but she did not answer. Sometimes she muttered angrily to herself; the gun never left her hand. Eventually Kendra got hungry, and started to cry. Out of habit, I started to open the flap on my shirt, fabricated to look like a pocket.
“Stop that! That’s perverted!” She raised the gun.
Finally I had her attention. “But she’s hungry.”
She lowered the gun, and, to my astonishment, smiled. “Well! I came prepared.” She pointed to the bag with the Noah’s Ark animals. “There’s two cans of formula in there. Get one out, it’s a good brand, it’s the one that three of my children had. And there’s a bottle in there too.” She gestured with the pistol. “Go on. Take it into the kitchen and warm it up: do you know how to do that?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But move slowly, and don’t try anything”
I picked up the bag. “You have three children?” Could I get her talking? Could I talk her into letting us go? Could I do it before Elkie got home?
“No, four. Two birth-children and two adopted.”
How could I use what I was learning? I thought of Professor Ghosh, my engineering design instructor, and his line from Marcus Aurelius. This thing, what is it? What is it made of? What is its form, and what does it do? This wasn’t about her church, it was about a chemical imbalance in her brain. She was delusional, but not raving or hallucinating. (But the gun didn’t care.) Could I understand her well enough to use my understanding against her? No — get the problem right! — to save Kendra? And Elkie? And, if possible, myself?
“Four? That’s wonderful, Ms. — what did you say your name was?” I said.
“I’m Susannah Burkell.”
“I’m Steve. This is Kendra.” We have names, we are people. “You said three of your kids had this brand. Did the other have food sensitivities? So many kids do these days.”
Her voice behind me sounded a little shaky. “No! I breastfed Elijah. Me! Not my husband! But the doctor told me I had a gene that would give me breast cancer like my mom and aunt so I had to have a double mastectomy, that was the year before Anna was born and later I had to have my ovaries out, too, so Benjamin and Jonah were adopted.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Burkell.”
“Thank you, Steve. But because of what was taken from me I know how precious and sacred breast-feeding is, it’s a special gift to mothers and nobody should try to twist it into anything else.”
I didn’t want her getting back to that topic, so I busied myself preparing the bottle. I measured and microwaved the formula, giving it the time I remembered from when Elkie was a baby. While it was warming, I deliberately dipped my damp index finger deep into the porcelain salt cellar. Then I took the jug from the microwave, swirled the formula to make sure it was all one temperature, tested it with my finger, poured it into the liner, and screwed on the cap and nipple. Sorry, Kendie. There’s a good reason for this. I won’t let you drink more than a drop, I promise.
Sure enough, as soon as the first drop of the salty liquid touched her tongue, Kendra screwed her face up and howled. “I’m sorry, Ms. Burkell,” I said. “But Kendra’s just not used to it. I’ll have to feed her myself.”
For a moment I thought Ms. Burkell would refuse. Then the mother won out over the crusader, and she said what I’d hoped for. “All right. She’s hungry, poor little thing.”
“May I do it in her bedroom? It’s what she’s used to, and as you can hear, she’s fussy.” This last was a bare-faced lie; Kendra would have taken a breast on center ice at the Stanley Cup finals. During overtime.
“I suppose so.”
I took Kendra, still crying, upstairs. I sat in the big nursing chair and undid my shirt again, this time deliberately unzipping more than necessary, right down the front. Ms. Burkell looked disgusted and closed the door. I silently punched the air.
As soon as Kendra was quiet, I zipped the loose shirt up around her, snugging her against my belly, and tucked the bottom of the shirt in firmly. The window was already partly open; I quietly slid it open the rest of the way.
A minute later I was climbing down the trellis on the outside wall, hoping that, when I’d built it, I’d made it strong enough. I’d used four-centimeter-square spruce; I wished I’d used titanium I-beams. I was holding Kendra in place with one hand and trying to climb downward and untangle myself from the clematis, all at once, with the other. The next time I accepted an anatomical modification, it was going to be an extra arm. Preferably two. Or a prehensile tail.
Above me, I heard the bedroom door open. Kendra started to cry again. I looked down. Close enough — I dropped the last two meters, with a moment of panic when one foot caught in a loop of clematis. But the vine ripped free of the trellis at the last instant, and I got away with nothing worse than a scuffed palm and a slightly twisted ankle. Kendra began to cry harder.
As I stood up, Ms. Burkell’s head and arm appeared in the window, and I heard the ringing crack of a gunshot. It must have been an awkward shot, one-handed, leaning off-balance through a low open window; she missed us, twice. By the third shot, I was around the corner of the house, hugging Kendra and sprinting for Mary-Lou’s side door.
• • •
Soon I was sitting in Mary-Lou’s kitchen, out of sight of the window, enjoying a cool glass of water and the smell of baking bread. Kendra was finally feeding undisturbed, while Mary-Lou cooed over her and every siren in the city wailed down the street outside.
Eventually Kendra was full; I burped her, with hands that had almost stopped shaking. There was a knock on the door. Two policewomen stood in the doorway. “Is there a Mr. Stephen Adler here?”
The intruder, they said, had surrendered without a fight, and was being taken away for a psychiatric examination. Whether charges were pressed would depend on the report. And they would need a statement from me. Was I able to give it on the spot?
As I explained the situation, I caught one of the policewomen staring curiously at my chest. The irony of the situation struck me. “My eyes are up here, lady.”
“What was that, Mr. Adler?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. So anyhow, she turned up again on my front steps…”
They offered to drive us to the hospital, in case we’d been injured during the escape. But after I had shown them the tiny graze on the palm of my hand, and Kendra had responded appropriately to being told that she was just the cutest little thing ever, they let us go home.
• • •
I sang, out of key, over the soft clatter of the reel lawnmower. Caitlynn was due home that night, and I was mowing the lawn, wearing just shorts and sneakers in the privacy of our high-fenced back yard. Elkie strutted behind me, pushing a brightly colored toy mower with a plastic dome full of bouncing, rattling beads.
Kendra was in a baby sling that I’d MacGyvered to fit better with duct tape and cable ties. I’d seen a National Geographic video with women breastfeeding their babies handsfree as they worked in the fields; it seemed like a good idea, but so far Kendra wasn’t buying. Never mind. Life was good.
I heard the garden gate unlatch behind us, and turned. There was Caitlynn, six hours early! Elkie abandoned her little mower and ran squealing. Caitlynn dropped her flight bag, ran to meet her, gathered her up, and we tangled in a family hug.
“Hi darling!” she said. “I didn’t have time to warn you, but there was an empty seat on an Air Force flight. So I got back early, and one of the pilots drove me into town. How did you get on?”
“It was — interesting. I’ll give you the details after Elkie’s in bed.”
“Guess what, Mommy? I saw a fruit bat at the zoo! And he had a baby bat!”
About the author and the piece
Robert Dawson teaches mathematics at a Nova Scotian university. He has been writing speculative fiction for about fifteen years, and is an alumnus of the Sage Hill and Viable Paradise writing workshops. His work has appeared in Tesseracts, Nature Futures, and Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF. Many years ago, when his kids were small, he used to be fairly handy with a baby bottle.
He tells us that this story is both an anthology killer, having been accepted at one called Malarkey that never made it to press, and has racked up an impressive 29 rejections, with many markets balking at the very prospect of daddies breastfeeding.
©2025 by Robert Dawson. All rights reserved. May not be used for A.I. training.