He looked at her like she was not sane at all.
“I’m going to work,” he said. “Remember?”
She tried to laugh it off, playfully face-palmed herself. Of course he was going to work. They had been talking about this day—his first day back—for the past couple of weeks. His law firm had been progressive in offering him a month of leave—double what most companies offered, if they offered anything at all—and now it was time for him to return. She envied him, his ability to just go to this other place and dedicate his thoughts to this other thing.
“I remembered. I was just ... not thinking straight.”
He glanced at the phone in her lap.
“What were you looking at? Why are you crying?”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m just emotional these days. Hormones and all that.”
She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t be honest with him. They had always been so honest. She knew it would create a divide between them, this hiding of the person she’d become, but she thought that showing the person she’d become would create a divide too. There seemed to be no winning.
He came closer, peered at the phone. The video of Angeni Luna’s home birth was still playing on a repeated loop.
He sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh.
“Hon,” he said. “You can’t be doing this to yourself.”
She didn’t want to resume crying, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Maybe you need to talk to someone?” he suggested. “Or weren’t you going to do a support group for new moms or something?”
Shehad beengoing to do a support group for new moms. She’d identified a popular one—there was a waiting list because they insisted on keeping the group to just ten mothers “dedicated to fostering intimacy”—and enrolled when she was halfway through her pregnancy. She’d envisioned herself showing up and serving as a sort of role model for the other moms, who would be emotional and harried and desperate for guidance. She would be the leader, the mother of all mothers,the Mother Hen. If she was lucky, a couple of them would become lifelong friends.
She couldn’t imagine herself showing up to that group now.
“Or maybe my mom can fly in for a week or two?” he said.
This was an option they had never discussed. She thought about that doctor’s advice—“tap into family.” Everyone always assumed that people had family nearby, waiting in the wings to offer support and comfort, or at least bring a selection of casseroles. She and Jeff didn’t have that. Jeff’s parents had divorced when he was young, and he rarely spoke to his father. He was close to his mother, but she was in her seventies and living in a retirement community in Florida, clear across the country.
“You’re not calling your mother,” Gwen said.
“What about your mom?”
“No,” Gwen said without a second thought.
Gwen’s father had had a sudden-death heart attack when she was in middle school, and her mother had gone into a reclusive depression from which she’d never emerged. There is so much said about how hard depression is for the person who has it, but so little said about how hard it is for the people who depend on them. Gwen had only known her mother as someone completely self-absorbed, gazing at her own glum navel.
When Gwen was in the hospital after June’s delivery, when she felt more fragile and vulnerable than she ever had before, she couldn’t deny the craving she felt for her mother. Did every daughter feel this craving? She caved, called her mother, who had done nothing for her during the pregnancy except send a check for a hundred dollars as a shower gift.
“The baby is herealready?” her mother said, seemingly offended by the news.
Gwen informed her that, yes, the baby had been born early. Then she took a risk by suggesting that her mother come visit. Gwen had visions of her mother transforming into someone she wasn’t—someone generous with her time and energy, someone loving and helpful.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting the baby to come inMay.”
“Neither was I, Mom.”
“I had some days reserved for you in June, but May is just ... well, it’s packed.”
“Never mind,” she said.
“Maybe—”
“Mom, forget it.”
