You fixated on having this baby, but it didn’t do no good.
No arguing with that one either. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
I read about newborn sleep in a dozen books, on Pinterest pages, and in three times as many articles. The sleep cycles, the need for feeding, how quickly breast milk calories are burned over formula calories. I’m still at a loss as to what’s going on with Ester.
This is the curse you deserve from the God you abandoned.
The tears burn my eyes, but I blink them back even as I fear the truth. That it is me. This child hates the look of me, my smell, the taste of my breast refused by her tiny, perfect mouth. I want to be a good mother more than anything. I do not accept this failure.
My whirling mind realizes it’s the only sound other than my bouncing. Ester is quiet; the voice is quiet. When my pulse is almost normal again, I breathe in the stillness of my bedroom.
The flashes of morning sun through the blinds remind me that our bedroom has too much white, like celebrity teeth. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
I glare at the white marble bedside tables, the mirrored white cabinets, and white upholstered headboard. I’m a coward. I was afraid of revealing that I don’t belong. Those colors, those patterns, those pieces of furniture aren’t worth a home like this.
Jack didn’t care. He only needed to say, You know, babe, let’s go kelly green or chartreuse. It didn’t cross his mind that I didn’t know what I was doing. That every bedroom I’d ever had was sparse and bare and ignorable. So the first time I really tried resulted in our bedroom having the charm and authenticity of veneers.
You don’t belong here.
He’ll realize you’re trash and dump you.
My gaze roams over the room again, seeking to anchor me to this idyllic New England life. But all I find is agreement that this room is Exhibit One that I am a fraud. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
After easing off the exercise ball, I place a sleeping Ester in the (white) bassinet on my side of the bed. I retreat down the hallway toward the room where I spend most of my time, the nursery.
I analyze everything, seeking to quell my uneasiness. First, the gray walls with pink accent stripes are adorable and not totally cliché. The white wood glider with a gray chevron pattern is derivative of every Pottery Barn Kids catalog, but Jack liked it (miracle!), and I couldn’t justify the cost of custom. A matching white wood changing table gives the room a finished look. My toes curl into the plush faux-sheep-wool rug that will be cozy for tummy time and a soft landing for early unsure steps.
Surely this is the kind of nursery a good mom would have.
No photos on your walls.
Changing pad isn’t secured to the table.
She’ll be needing three-month clothes soon.
Other moms, good moms, they’d have it done.
You don’t love her enough.
“You’re crying again, Dev,” Jack says from the door, in his soft way, the way that’s meant to make me feel connected. The tone works to pull me out of darkness and back into our lives. I can still hear his words that brought me back at the hospital: “Do you want to hold our daughter?”
Now in our home, returned to our life, his voice is strange. Like a language I used to speak but forgot.
I take the tissue he offers. “Just the blues.” I used to hate crying, but I’ve discovered its real cathartic pleasure.
“Is it the baby?” he asks. “Belina?”
At the mention of my dead friend’s name, I nod. It’s easier to blame my sadness on what I lost instead of what I gained.
We are quiet, assessing each other, and the contrast is a fresh wound. He’s showered and relaxed and standing in the doorway. I’m smelly and uneasy and slumped on the twin bed in Ester’s room.
“Will you rest today?” Jack asks. The subtext to the question is our home’s tidiness. Near spotlessness, actually.
“It needed to be done.” I hear my formal tone, a crutch. It’s not that I’m trying to avoid sounding like a Kansas hayseed. I’m not intimidated by his local private school education, which had roughly the same yearly tuition as our Georgetown undergrad and law school. But I don’t like to remind him of our differences unless it’s relevant.
“Ester needs a clean home,” I say with a weak smile. It’s not the first time I’ve used her as an excuse for my behavior. Not the last.
He raises his eyebrows, his large forehead punctuating the annoyance. He doesn’t want to argue. Ever, actually, which I’ve always appreciated. But I wish he’d say what he wants me to do. Ignore the laundry and the soap scum and pretend this house isn’t covered in germs waiting to infect our NICU baby.
Even before Ester, I cleaned. This is our home. You make time for what you care about. It’s easy for him to take it for granted because he’s always had love in his home.
I keep myself from saying any of that because I recognize the thread of crazy, and it’s daily work lately to keep it from unspooling in front of him. “I’ll take it easy today.”
But you still won’t be better.
Rest never healed the wicked.
He kisses my forehead as I reach over to feel the soft sleeve of his dark-navy suit. I lean back and note the red silk tie, his power combo.
“Big meeting?” I smile in the way I used to, which says I understand.
“We’ve got a new public relations consultant,” he says. “He’s going to tell us everything we’re doing wrong.”
“It’ll be a short meeting,” I say.
“Doubtful.”
“A come to Jesus before you’re all crucified?”
His laugh surprises me. It’s been a while since I made him laugh. “That’s about right,” he says. “It might be late. I’m sorry.”
I try to hide my disappointment that his work is shifting back to normal. I want to keep this real conversation going. But it’s not a surprise. I could feel him pulling away the past week. Watching his phone more than me. That’s who we were once. Who he still is.
I try to remember that person, how we’d fall into bed, exhausted but still buzzing from full days of difficult decisions, reaching for each other. I need him so much after a lifetime of not wanting to need anyone. “Lunch ordered in?” I ask with what feels like a smile.
He scratches at the short black hairs on the back of his neck. “And dinner.”
Here is the root of the root. I’ll be by myself all day and evening for the first time since we’ve been home with Ester. For the eight weeks I was in the hospital, much of it semiconscious, Jack was there as I drifted—hours, days passed. He was always curled in the uncomfortable pleather chair in the corner, watching, waiting, hardly moving himself. We’ve been home three weeks, and he’s continued to go into work late, leave early.
“You’ve been out of the office too much,” I say. “That’s the problem.”
Jack gives a big shrug. “What matters is us. If the ten other people working for the mayor can’t keep things running, that’s on them.”
I don’t agree, and in his heart, he can’t either. The mayor hired Jack as chief of staff to turn things around. It’s not easy to be a probusiness Democrat in a town that went Bernie over Hillary. He has a big job that needs a focused leader, first in and last out. The fact that they’re bringing in a consultant, certainly expensive, means it is more serious than he is letting on.