They were surviving on takeout nearly every night because Gwen still could not bring herself to cook anything. She didn’t understand how these other mothers did it. Angeni Luna was simmering tomatoes—tomatoes!—for homemade sauces and making whole roast chickens.
“Avoiding dairy would have been hard, but this seems totally manageable,” he said.
Gwen was irritated with his optimism, his sprightlyokay, that’s solvedattitude.
“I mean, tomatoes are in a lot of things,” she said finally, interrupting his cascade of positive thoughts. “Salsa, marinara sauce, ketchup ... a lot of things.”
Gwen watched him inhale a deep breath, his chest filling and expanding. He set down his fork and looked at her, his eyes pleading with her tojust please stop.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he said.
As if on cue, June started crying, having woken up from her too-short nap in the swing on the floor. She would only sleep in the swing, going at full speed. The thing required D batteries and burned through a set every two days.
Gwen lifted her out of the swing and got her settled on her lap, unbuttoning the front of her shirt with one hand. She had become an expert at this, at least.
“Did you hear me?” Jeff asked her.
Did she? She didn’t know. Had he said something? June latched on to her left breast and began suckling. Gwen stared at her baby’s closed eyelids, her long eyelashes. She’d made this child. It shocked her every day.
“Sorry, what?” she said.
He looked at her likeAre you serious?
“I said I. Don’t. Know. What. To. Do. Anymore.”
“With what?”
“You,” he said.
There it was, finally—irritation. All this time, he’d been too kind, too concerned, too focused on solving her problems. This was what she deserved—his wrath.
“I’m sorry my struggling is so inconvenient for you,” she said, her tone completely flat.
He rolled his eyes.
“Don’t do that. Come on, hon. We’re better than this.”
Theywerebetter than this. Before. In their previous life. That life was over.
“I’m not better than this anymore,” she said.
“I think you need to talk to someone. Try the support group. Something. You have to take some initiative to ... improve things.”
“Someinitiative? You don’t think I have enough initiative?”
She raised her eyebrows in genuine curiosity. How did he see her now? As a loser, a failure? What was it, if not initiative, that motivated her to tend to their daughter’s every need, with so few seconds between the expression of that need and Gwen’s maternal response?
“I just think you’ll feel better if you take some steps to ... feel better.”
“You think I’ll feel better if I take some steps to feel better.”
He sighed, flustered. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know if I do.”
“This is a hard phase. Everyone said it would be hard. This is the time to call in as much support as we can.”
She resented the “we.” He didn’t seem to be calling in support. He was telling her to call it in, telling her totake initiative.
