Before the Storm (19 page)

already taken too much time off.”

“Please don’t leave me alone with her!” I sounded desperate, which was exactly how I felt.

“She’s your
daughter,
Laurie, not a rabid dog.”

“You’re so much better with her than I am,” I said.

“I know you haven’t felt well.” He raised himself up on an

elbow and smoothed my hair back from my face. “Just walk

with her a little. I don’t think you hold her enough. She wants

to be held.”

“She cries when I hold her.”

“She picks up your tension.You just need to relax more with

her.”

“I used to be so good with babies,” I said. I’d read nearly

every book on babies ever written and suddenly seemed to

know nothing at all. “Dr. Pearson always relied on me to help

when a mother brought in her infant.”

Jamie smiled.“And you’ll be good with them again.You got

off to a rough start with the hemorrhaging and everything.

Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

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So Jamie went back to work, and I didn’t get better. I got

worse. Having a baby had been a huge mistake, and only I

seemed to know it. Sometimes I would look at Maggie—she

could be screaming or sleeping, it didn’t matter—and I’d have

to remind myself she was my child. I felt detached from her.

She could have been a wedge of cheese or a frying pan for all

the emotion I felt looking at her. I began to feel the same way

about Jamie. I’d look at him and wonder how I’d ended up

living on this sparsely populated island with a man for whom

I felt nothing.

The uncrowded quietness I’d relished living on the island

suddenly felt like isolation. I realized I had very few friends

nearby, and of those I did have, none were young mothers. I

still had a few friends from college, but they lived in the city.

The only one with a baby called to congratulate me on

Maggie’s birth, but her enthusiastic gushing over her own little

boy only served to let me know I wasn’t normal.

I apologized to Maggie repeatedly. “You deserve a better

mommy,” I’d say. “I’m sorry I’m so bad at this.” Marcus still

offered to cook a few evenings a week, but as long as he was

sober, I’d hand Maggie over to him instead and make dinner

myself. Even Marcus was better with Maggie than I was.

When Jamie came home from work, it was Maggie he

rushed to see, not me, and that was fine. It gave me the chance

to crawl back in bed with the covers over my head—my escape

in the guise of a nap.

One day during that first week alone with my daughter, I

put her in the infant seat on the kitchen counter while I heated

her bottle in a pan of water on the stove. Maggie was screaming, her face red as a beet. I was keeping an eye on the water

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when I suddenly pictured myself standing above Maggie with

a knife in my hand, plunging it through her little pink-andwhite onesie into her tiny body.

I yelped, backing away from the stove, pressing myself

against the pantry door. I saw the knife block on the counter

and quickly grabbed the entire block, carrying it down the hall

into Marcus’s room, where I stashed it under his bed. Surely

if I had to go to that much trouble to get a knife, I’d have time

to talk myself out of harming Maggie with it.

Back in the kitchen, I trembled as I picked her up, took the

bottle from the hot water, and settled down in the rocker to

feed her. With the nipple in her mouth, she quieted down.

I thought of mothers who hurt their children. People who

shook their babies so hard they caused brain damage. I was

scared. Was I capable of doing that?

“I love you,” I told her as I rocked, but the words sounded

like a line uttered in a play by someone pretending to be

someone else.

“I need to sleep,” I muttered from bed the next morning

when Jamie was getting dressed. We’d both been up half the

night, taking turns walking with our colicky daughter.

“I’ll take her to the office,” Jamie said, surprising me. I didn’t

even wonder how he would manage having her at the real

estate office with him. I rolled over and went back to sleep,

my relief at the thought of a day without Maggie outweighing

my guilt. Soon, he was taking Maggie with him every day while

I slept. I vaguely wondered what his coworkers thought about

the situation, but I didn’t really care. Jamie would find a way

to explain it.

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I felt drugged half the time, as though someone was slipping

narcotics into my drinking water. In my sleepy state, I fantasized about running away. I could go someplace where no one

knew me and start over. When my chest hurt one afternoon,

I hoped I was having a heart attack. A fatal heart attack would

put an end to the numbness I felt inside. I wouldn’t have to

hear Maggie screaming any longer or do laundry or worry

about what to make for dinner. And Jamie and Maggie would

be better off without me. I was completely convinced of that.

“Do you remember Sara Weston?” Jamie asked me one

Sunday afternoon.

It took me a minute to place the name. “The woman who

came to the chapel a few times in the beginning?” I hadn’t been

to the chapel since Maggie was born, and the pentagonal

building down the beach from our house seemed miles away.

“Right. She came back today with her husband, Steve. He’s

stationed at Camp Lejeune. Anyhow, the reason she hasn’t

been coming is because Steve wasn’t interested but she finally

talked him into it today.”

“Did he like it?”

Jamie laughed. “I don’t think it was his cup of tea, though

he was a good sport about it. But anyway, what I’m getting at

is that Sara asked about you and I said you could use some help

with Maggie and she volunteered.”

Oh no,
I thought. “I don’t want a stranger in the house,

Jamie,” I said.

“No, I know you’re not up for that. But she can take Maggie

when I’m tied up during the day.”

“We hardly know her.” I thought about the knives, which I’d

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had to bring back to the kitchen to avoid having to explain their

whereabouts to Jamie and Marcus. Sara Weston could hardly

be as dangerous as I was.“If you feel okay about her, then that’s

fine,” I said.

I was still in bed the following Tuesday morning when Jamie

knocked on the bedroom door.

“Laurel?” he said. “Sara Weston’s here. Come out and say

hi.”

I shut my eyes, trying to draw energy from someplace inside

me. “I’ll be out in a minute,” I said, too softly.

“What?” Jamie was right outside the bedroom door.

“In a minute.” I spoke louder.

I got out of bed, pulling on the same clothes I’d worn the

day before, and stumbled into the living room.

Sara looked as she had many months earlier, when I first saw

her at the chapel. Only now, in summer shorts and peach-

colored polo shirt, I could see that she was athletically built.

She looked like a soccer mom. She sat on the sofa, holding

Maggie on her lap.

“You have one gorgeous baby.” She smiled at me.

“Thank you.” I pasted on the smile as I sank into the rocker.

Jamie set a glass of sweet tea on the coffee table in front of

her.

“And I love your house,” she said. “So unique.”

“Thanks.”

“I wanted to meet you since I’ll be helping out with Maggie,”

she said. “You know, to see if you have any special instructions

or anything.”

“Just—”I shrugged“—you know…don’t kill her or anything.”

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She and Jamie stared at me, and I laughed.

“You know what I mean.” I knew I sounded insane. I didn’t

care. I wanted to go back to bed in the worst way.

“Well, okay.” She laughed, glancing at Jamie. “I think I can

manage that.”

I had my six-week postpartum checkup with my obstetrician in Hampstead. Once he was finished examining me, I sat

up, crinkling the paper sheet around my thighs.

“I’m still so tired all the time,” I said.

“The new mother’s lament.” He smiled, then scratched his

balding head. “You’re still slightly anemic. Are you taking

your iron?”

I nodded.

“How are you sleeping?”

“Not great at night. I take care of the baby during the night

because my husband takes her during the day.”

“But you sleep in the daytime?”

I nodded again.

“How’s your appetite?”

“I don’t really have one.”

“I think you’ve got some depression in addition to the

anemia,” he said.

I hated that catchall word “depression.” I knew there was

something wrong with me, but depression was too simplistic

a term for it. “If I could just get caught up on my sleep, I think

I’d be fine,” I said.

“I’d like to start you on a trial of Prozac.” He pulled a prescription pad from the pocket of his white coat. “Have you

heard of it?”

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The new miracle antidepressant. “I don’t want an antidepressant,” I said. “I don’t feel
that
bad.”

He hesitated. “Well,” he said, “I want you to know it’s available to you if you’d like to try it. And I can refer you to a therapist. It might be good to have someone to talk to about how

you’re feeling.”

“I don’t think so, thanks.” How could I tell a stranger that

I’d thought about killing my child or running away? He’d send

me to the loony bin and throw away the key.

The doctor reached for the doorknob, then turned back to

me. “Oh, and you and your husband can begin having sexual

relations again,” he said, and I masked my antipathy with a

smile.

Over the phone that afternoon, I told Jamie the doctor

had said I was still anemic.

“Did he say we could start making love again?”

“A couple more weeks.” I winced inwardly at the lie. “He

said I could have an antidepressant if I wanted one, but that I

didn’t really need it yet.”

“You don’t need drugs.”

I could picture his scowl. “I know,” I said.

“I think all you need is to be in better touch with God,

Laurel,” he said seriously. “You’ve lost that part of yourself.

Where did you experience God this week?”

I wanted to punch him. If he’d been there with me instead of

miles away in his office, I would have.“Nowhere,” I said sharply.

“I haven’t experienced God in six long, miserable weeks.”

Jamie was undaunted. “Well,” he said, “I think we’ve identified the problem.”

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* * *

front of the TV watching an ancient rerun of
I Dream of Jeannie

when she knocked on the screen door.

“Let yourself in,” I said.

She was carrying a pan of something as she shouldered her

way through the doorway.

“I’m going to put a casserole in the fridge for you,” she said,

walking into the kitchen.

“Where’s the baby?” I asked.

“I left her with Jamie. He’s doing some paperwork at the

chapel,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Oh, no.

Sara pulled one of the dining room chairs over until it was

next to the sofa. I looked at the TV screen instead of at her. It

was the episode where Tony and Jeannie got married, not that

I cared.

“How are you feeling?” Sara asked.

“Okay,” I said.

She leaned forward. “Really, how are you feeling?”

I sighed, wishing she would leave.

“Tired,” I said.

“What does your doctor say?”

“About what?”

“Your tiredness.”

I didn’t like her pushiness. “I’m anemic,” I said, although I

doubted I still was.

“Jamie told me your doctor offered you Prozac.”

“That’s really personal information.”

“He told me because he’s worried about you,” she said.

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“Jamie’s kind of old-fashioned about taking antidepressants,

but I wanted to tell you that I have a friend in Michigan who

takes Prozac and it’s really helped her.”

“I’m not that depressed, Sara,” I said. “I’m
tired.
You’d be

tired too if you were up all night with a screaming baby.”

“Laurel, you’re a
nurse,
” she said.“I didn’t even finish college

and I can tell you’re depressed.You want to sleep all the time.

Jamie says you don’t get excited about anything. Especially not

about Maggie.” She nearly whispered the last sentence as

though someone might overhear her. “It’s not normal to be

so…uninterested in your baby.”

I lifted my gaze to hers. “I want you to leave,” I said.

“I’m sorry.” She leaned back in the chair but made no move

to get up. “I didn’t mean to upset you, but I think you need

help. It’s not fair to Jamie to make him…” She made a clicking

sound with her tongue and let out a sigh. “It’s like he’s a
single

parent,
” she said. “He’s great with her, but that baby isn’t even

going to know who you are. Who her mother is.”

I heard the screen door creak open again and looked up to

see Marcus, home for lunch.