She sighs. “Karissa,” she finally says. “She opened up.”
I step into my pajama pants. “About?”
“Her depression. Postpartum, I guess.” Megan shakes her head slightly. “The thoughts she has. The feelings. I don’t…I don’t get it.”
“You wouldn’t,” I say gently. “You’re not her.”
“I know,” Megan says quickly. “But I guess I just don’t understand how…” She pauses, choosing her words. “I want a child so bad. And here she is with not one but two. And sometimes she doesn’t even want them.”
My chest tightens. “She said that?”
She nods. “Not all the time. But when she’s really in it—when she’s depressed—she said that’s how it feels.”
I don’t answer right away.
“And Cody…” Megan continues, voice quieter now. “Karissa said she doesn’t like Cody either in those moments. That she hates everything—her life, the kids, her husband.” She swallows. “It just feels really dark.”
“It is,” I say. “That’s what depression does.”
She shakes her head slowly. “I just don’t think I could ever feel that way about my kids. Or my husband.”
Something in me tightens. It’s not anger, not judgment…just awareness. I’ve seen what untreated depression can do. On the job. In people who never thought they’d end up where they did.
“Don’t say that, Meg.”
She looks at me. “What?”
“Don’t put yourself above someone else’s suffering,” I say quietly but firmly. “Hormones are brutal. PPD isn’t a mindset—it’s a chemical storm. She isn’t choosing to feel that way.”
“I didn’t say she was,” Megan says, defensive now. “All I’m saying is I don’t think I could ever—”
“Don’t,” I repeat, softer this time. “You don’t know what you’d feel if your brain turned against you.”
She goes still, staring at me.
“Sorry.” She swallows.
“Don’t apologize to me,” I say gently. “Just…be there for her.”
She nods. “I will.”
* * *
I wake up to find Megan taking up half the bed and all the blankets. Typical. She’s tangled up like a burrito while I’m left with the edge of the sheet.
When I try to tug some back, she makes a sleepy sound andburrows closer, her toes icy against my leg.
“No,” she mumbles into my chest, voice muffled and tired. “I’m cold.”
I laugh softly. “You’re always cold.”
“I know.” She sighs dramatically, half asleep.
I settle back against the pillow, brushing her hair away from her face. It’s barely light out. The world’s quiet. For a minute, I just breathe her in—shampoo, detergent, all of it that makes herher.
She shifts against me again, arm draped over my stomach now, fingers tracing lazy circles through the fabric of my shirt. “You’re warm,” she murmurs, her voice thick with sleep.
She presses a kiss against my neck. Then another. Then a slower one just below my jaw.
