The Good Sister (31 page)

My Mother’s Postpartum Depression

I was twelve when my sister, Margaret Ellen, was born, plenty old enough to know that since the coming of this baby girl,
our family—and by that I mean our mother, who was the heart and core of us all—had problems. My nine-year-old brother, Kip—a
worrier even then—was alert to the change too. I can still see the look he gave me over the cereal boxes at breakfast when
the atmosphere between our mother and father was so thick we could barely breathe.

Postpartum depression affects the whole family.

Then, as now, words like
adaptable
and
enthusiastic, curious
and
playful
, described our mother. True, she had her moods. Mom told me they were unavoidable. “The blues are part of being Irish and
there’s nothing you can do about it,” she said. “There’s nothing like a good boo-hoo.” She wept because my father was himself
and not the
man she’d dreamed he was, because plans fell through and dogs died and because she was separated by thousands of oceanic miles
from her parents and all but one of her sisters. She loved the old Victorian songs she and her sisters sang around the piano,
the maudlin ballads of diaspora and death at an early age. When I was little I’d ask her to sing “Lilac Trees” and we’d both
finish up in tears. It was a family thing.

Despite these floods, I remember my young mother as bright-hearted and, above all, resilient, which she had to be in a family
where we were often
stony
(one of several terms she had for being out of money), always struggling. Most of the mornings of my childhood I awoke to
the sound of her lovely soprano voice singing up from the foot of the stairs:
Patrick, Michael, Seamus O’Brien could never stop sighin’ for sweet Molly O / Every morning, up like a sparrow and out like
an arrow just leavin’ the bow.

The singing stopped when Margaret Ellen was born and a dreadful shadow fell over our home. I remember opening the front door
after school with a wariness that was completely new to me, an uncertainty about what lay on the other side. Mostly, everything
slowed down as my energetic mother was overcome by a debilitating lassitude that transformed her in my eyes. My father—never
one to pick up on the nuances of human behavior—was in way over his head; but I’m sure he never sought the help of a doctor
or priest. Seeking advice for so private and shameful a problem as a wife undergoing a
nervous breakdown
—the
all-purpose catchphrase for any emotional distress—was anathema to our family. In those days we—like almost everyone else—kept
quiet about personal problems.

It was the time of the cold war, and after Margaret Ellen was born my mother became obsessed with the threat of a nuclear
holocaust. She wrote a letter to the president, which doesn’t sound like much of anything today, but back then it was a big
deal, audacious even. Out of respect, the letter had to be typed, which meant taking our ancient typewriter out from its place
under the stairs, replacing the ribbon (a dirty, entangled job), finding the change to buy the right kind of stationery because
one could not write the president on any old piece of paper. And then getting the words right meant typing, tearing up, typing
over again and again until a perfect page was written.

My last memory of my mother’s postpartum depression is of being upstairs in my bed on a school night, hearing the sound but
not the words of an argument from downstairs: Mom crying, begging to be heard, to be understood; Daddy trying with all his
heart, but failing. I got up out of bed and opened my bedroom door. Across the landing, in pajamas and barefooted like me,
Kip stood in his doorway too, that worried look on his face. Without speaking we crept down the stairs and sat beside each
other. I remember being frightened for the first time ever, aware of fault lines running through the foundation of my life.
After a little while my father—wearing one of his much-washed
white undershirts, baggy-kneed corduroy trousers belted so they gathered a little at his slim waist—my sweet, overwhelmed,
intellectual father to whom the appearance of fracture lines must have come as a shock as well, stood by the stairs and spoke
to us. I remember exactly what he said, the precise words: “
Don’t worry, kids. Your mother and I aren’t getting a divorce.”

Until that moment, the possibility of divorce had never occurred to me, but hearing the word in my father’s Iowa voice put
it into my personal vocabulary, where it remained until many years later when I heard my mother say it.

And then, as suddenly as it had come, my mother’s postpartum depression was gone. I don’t remember that she sang to us in
the morning after that, but she probably did. I probably don’t remember because at the time I wished with all my twelve-year-old
heart that she wouldn’t sing
at all, ever
. In a seventh grader’s world, a mother’s songs were meant for babies. Afterward my mother bore no scars that I could see,
but I think they were there. Decades later she and I were standing in line at the supermarket, reading the tabloid headlines.
One caught her attention:
Mom throws self and baby out of seventh-story window.
My mother shook her head and said, “Poor woman. I know just how she felt.”

Postpartum depression is like standing on a window ledge over a black hole, frozen in place, unable to do anything but look
down into the swirling darkness. In the
pit, every mother sees something different. My mother saw nuclear annihilation, the world and all she loved destroyed. Though
we were spared her vision, my brother and I and our father, too, saw a reflection of that horror on her face and heard it
in her voice. We felt her fear, and a shudder ran through our world, rocking it to its foundation.

—Drusilla Campbell

1. Many themes run through
   The Good Sister.
   One of these is codependency, the kind of unhealthy relationship that can tie friends and family together in knots of emotional
   misery. In large part
   The Good Sister
   is about Roxanne’s attempts to establish an independent life apart from her sister. Why is this so difficult for her? What
   obstacles real and imagined stand between her and this goal?
   

2. Roxanne loves her sister and feels responsible for her, and Simone is excessively dependent upon Roxanne. Is Roxanne also
   dependent upon Simone? In what ways? What events from each of their childhoods led to this enmeshed relationship? When and
   by what means might it have been terminated much earlier in their lives? Why didn’t that happen?
   

3. Although she feels her mother abandoned her by leaving her with Gran, Roxanne has many happy
   memories around the three years she spent at the ranch. It has been said that our memories both sustain and burden us. How
   is this true in Roxanne’s case?
   

4. The Good Sister
   is the story of four generations of women, each of whom has been abandoned in some way. How does the theme of abandonment
   run through the story and influence the lives of the characters?
   

5. Merell slips into and out of rooms like a little ghost, unseen by the adults around her who are too much involved in their
   own lives. Roxanne was unseen by her mother except in her role of caretaker. Simone is slipping from depression into psychosis
   and Merell believes she is the only one who sees her mother’s pain. Is it true that we often do not see clearly the people
   closest and most important to us? Why is that?
   

6. There are two “good sisters” in this book: Roxanne and Merell. How does Merell’s development mirror Roxanne’s? How do we see
   the pattern of behavior playing out in Merell in contrast to Roxanne?
   

7. Do you think there is often one sibling who does everything possible to make the family happy and peaceful? If you were in
   Roxanne’s shoes, would you have stopped your life to help your sister in need?
   

8. Elizabeth believes that we sometimes serve as “angels” to the people who need us. Have you ever known this to be true?
   

9. Roxanne knows that without Elizabeth’s friendship she might never have found the courage to move away from home and take the
   first steps toward an independent life. Was it Elizabeth’s example that enabled Roxanne or something else? Is it possible
   that we look for in friends those qualities we know or sense are lacking in ourselves?
   

10. While postpartum depression is quite common, postpartum psychosis is—blessedly—rare and does not occur in women who are not
    psychologically damaged in some way. Dr. Balch says in her testimony that in Simone’s case, a “perfect storm” of factors was
    involved. What were those? And does knowing
    why
    Simone tried to kill her children help you to feel sympathetically toward her?
    

11. Did reading
    The Good Sister
    make you think of real mothers in the news who endangered or killed their children because of postpartum depression, such
    as Andrea Yates? Do you feel sympathy toward them, or do you see them as monsters? Do you think the media treats these women
    fairly? Do you think there is still a stigma against women suffering from postpartum depression in society?
    

12. Simone is torn between her fear of life and her longing to regain the feeling she had when she sailed aboard the
    Oriole.
    How do these conflicting desires play out on the day she decides to take her daughters to the marina on Shelter Island?
    

13. We apply the adjective
    good
    to being a mother and sister. What does it mean to be a good mother, a good sister?
    

14. Johnny thought Simone would be a
    good
    wife. What caused him to make this egregious misjudgment? Is it possible that with no children or perhaps only with Merell,
    Simone might have lived up to his expectation?
    

15. Throughout the book Roxanne represses her anger, but in the final chapter Simone’s psychiatrist tells her it is time for her
    to be brave. What does he mean? What does he want Roxanne to do, why is this difficult, and why does he believe it will help
    Simone?
    

16. Will this family ever be whole again? What forces work in its favor and what pulls against it?
    

To her country, she’s a hero.
To her family, she’s the stranger they want to love again.

See the next page for a preview of

WHEN SHE CAME HOME

October 1990—Washington, DC

I
t rained for three days.

This was not the soft, slow soak that twelve-year-old Frankie Byrne knew. Rain in Washington, DC, was a wall of cold liquid steel flooding the streets with rushing litter-filled water that could sweep a pedestrian off her feet if she didn’t hang on to her father’s hand. It swamped the Mall and ruined shoes bought especially for the meeting with President and Mrs. George Herbert Walker Bush.

Frankie loved it.

Her brother, Harry, was still in a wheelchair then, and the part of his trousers where his legs should have been was soaked. Frankie would have been in a terrible mood if she were the one who’d had her legs amputated at the knee, but Harry never complained about anything.

The limo heater blew hot air, and before they’d driven a block Frankie wanted to shed her coat—pale blue wool and, like her shoes, bought for the special occasion. She would feel more comfortable in soccer shorts or sweats and athletic shoes, but she was Brigadier General Harlan Byrne’s daughter and knew what was required of her. Every night since they checked into the Hilton Hotel, she had practiced balancing a book on her head while walking across the room she and Harry shared. She wobbled on the kitten heels as if they were three-inch stilettos. He said it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen, better than
Seinfeld
.

She began to unbutton her coat. Her mother shook her head.

“We could cook a chicken in here.”

“That’s enough, Francine.” When her father used his command voice, there was no point arguing.

She was too excited to sit still, but her parents and Harry were solemn as pallbearers. The General’s back was so straight it hurt her own to look at him, but when she did she automatically tucked in her stomach and dropped her shoulders down and back an inch or two. She composed her face into an expression that she hoped matched her father’s in sobriety.

More than anything she wanted the General to be proud of her, and if that meant she couldn’t crack a smile from now until taps, she would manage somehow. Sitting straight and strong, her father looked magnificent in his Marine Corps dress uniform with the stars and bars polished and the Purple Heart ribbons lined up perfectly. He’d been shot twice in Vietnam, once in the leg and once in the shoulder. He rescued three of his Marines from the VC and kept them all alive in a hole in the ground until a helo found them. Another time he was hit with shrapnel; he had a five-inch scar under his shoulder blade. He’d been bitten by some kind of snake too, a death-on-speed adder, and almost died, but no one gave out medals or ribbons for a snakebite.

The General had put his life on the line for his Marines and for America and that’s why he and his family had been invited to Washington. The president had declared a special day to honor the country’s heroes.

Frankie had been revved up and practically manic (her mother’s word) since they landed at Dulles International two days earlier. She had worn herself out enjoying all the things there were to see and do in the capital, and at night there had been adult parties where she was on her best behavior. Being Harlan Byrne’s daughter, she was accustomed to meeting important people in the government and military. The year before General Powell and his wife had come to dinner. Without knowing any details, Frankie knew that her father’s opinion on military matters was valued although he had long been retired.

“I’m sweating.”

“Stop complaining. It’s only a few more blocks.”

“I can smell you,” Harry taunted. “Chicken fricassee.”

She aimed a kick at him and hit car upholstery where his shins used to be. Her cheeks blazed, but he only smiled and shrugged and that made her even more ashamed.