“Maybe,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “All your clients are getting divorced,” she says. “It’s always the same old story. People cheating and lying to each other. Fighting. I don’t know how you handle it. It’s depressing.” She reaches for the bread basket and frowns, finding it empty. “Maybe that’s why you’re still single.”
Seeing my face, she looks contrite. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.” She sighs, her pretty face crumpling. “Oh god, Toby. I really am sorry. There’s nothing wrong with being single. I mean, maybe it’s for the best. Lots of people are happy being single. Happier. The statistics back that up . . .” She stops talking and rubs her eyes. “I’ll shut up now. I’m just so tired and . . .” She hangs her head. “Snappy.”
“It’s okay,” I say. I lay a hand on her arm. Quinn’s always been there for me: when I was a scrawny kid, growing up without a dad and getting bullied for being small and Asian. And as an adult, the stresses of law school and the bar exam, career troughs and triumphs, dud romances, my mom’s breast cancer . . .
While I lurched from drama to drama, her life seemed charmed: the child of happily married and successful parents, blessed with the lithe blonde beauty of Venus rising from the sea, her single-minded determination to be a marine biologist, and her love-at-first-bear-hug romance with her big cop husband, Bruce, who could not be prouder of her.
She’s never, ever faltered. Until now. It breaks my heart to see her so vulnerable, especially now she’s got everything she ever wanted. A secure tenure-track position at the university. A devoted husband. A perfect baby girl. I squeeze her hand. Why this sudden praise for the joys of singlehood? “Are you okay, Quinn?” Is she struggling with her marriage?
“I . . .” She swallows hard. “Yeah, I think so. I’m just exhausted.” Her chin quivers. “This is harder than I thought it’d be. I’m not sure if Abby’s happy. If she’s comfortable. She cries and I just want to scream. I get so . . .” She hangs her head, voice low with guilt. “I get angry. I miss going to work. I resent Bruce because his life hasn’t really changed. He’s still working. His body isn’t a stretched-out mess.” She swipes at the tears on her cheeks. “I mean, how awful is that? Our baby is barely two months old and I . . . I resent her. I don’t even deserve to be her mother.”
“Of course you do,” I say. “It’s normal to miss work. To be tired and scared and frustrated. And you’re right. Bruce’s life hasn’t changed as much as yours. That’s not fair, but right now, that’s how it is. Things will get better. You’re a great mom, Quinn. Abby’s so lucky.”
Blinking back tears, my friend smiles. “Thanks, Tob.” She squares her shoulders. “Sorry to be so silly.”
“You’re not silly,” I say. “All of this is true. Everyone knows the first few months are brutal.”
She nods. “I just thought I’d sail through it. I mean, how hard can it be? Women have been having babies forever, right? They used to have dozens of them. Like they gave birth in the morning and hoed the fields after lunch.”
I snort. “You ever hoed a field?”
This warrants a tight laugh. “No, but I have spent weeks diving with Greenland sharks in dark, freezing water. I have a PhD. That takes stamina!” She rubs her eyes, which are full of tears. “I thought I’d be good at this.”
“You are good at this,” I say. “Have you talked to your mother?”
Quinn’s mom, Jackie, is one of my favorite people. Elegant, gracious, and utterly sensible, Jackie is a successful criminal lawyer and the main reason I studied law. If Jackie knew Quinn was struggling, I’m sure she’d find some way to help.
Quinn takes a deep breath. “My mom means well,” she says. “But her efforts to help just stress me out. She makes everything sound so simple, which makes me feel like a failure. She was in law school when she had me and still graduated at the top of her class. I’m home all day and look at me—a total basket case.”
“You are not,” I say. “But that could be the problem. Maybe you need to get out more. You should call me.” I give her a lopsided grin. “I can babysit anytime you want. Then you and Bruce can get out together, have some fun.”
Quinn blinks. “Thank you.”
“She’s my goddaughter, Quinn. I want to get to know her.”
“I know,” says Quinn. “Okay, I’ll ask you to babysit sometimes.” From the way her eyes slide back to her silent phone, I suspect she doesn’t really mean it.
Looking at her anxious frown, I wonder if Quinn needs to see a doctor. Is she clinically depressed? How do I ask? I think back to the months before Abby’s birth, Quinn so full of sparkle and excitement. Compared to that, she’s a shadow of herself, a nervous wreck. If having a kid has done this to Quinn, imagine what it’d do to me. I’m already a hopeless worrywart, my mind perpetually palm-smacking my forehead. Maybe I’m better off staying single and childless. What if I pass this anxiety to the next generation?
Since I can’t think of a good way to broach it, I just blurt it out. “Quinn, d’you think you might have postpartum depression?”
She blinks. Her big blue eyes fill with fresh tears. “Oh my god,” she whispers. “Do I really look that bad?”
“No, of course not,” I say, scared I’ve made her feel even worse. “I’m just worried, that’s all. I mean, I know you. I’ve known you forever. And you just seem . . .” I bite my lip. “Sad,” I say.
She nods. “I know,” she says. Her voice sounds raw. “And I should be so happy, right?”
I hold my breath. Isn’t that what I was thinking, earlier tonight? She has it all. She should be ecstatic. But is that true? Her hormones are bound to be a hot mess. She’s getting next to no sleep. She’s stuck at home, day after day, with a small creature who’s insatiable and ungrateful. All babies do is take. They never say thanks. And all the while, Quinn’s big, beautiful brain is spinning its wheels while she repeats the most mundane, crappy tasks.
The more I think about it, the worse it sounds. Why do people have children?
“I don’t know. I think you’re handling it way better than I would,” I say. “I can’t even keep my goldfish going. Remember when we were kids and I got given that hamster?”
This elicits a crack of laughter. “You meant well,” says Quinn. “Building it that fancy house with all those toilet-roll tunnels.”
“Too bad it chewed its way out and escaped,” I say. “And lived in the vents for years, waging a campaign of guerrilla warfare.”
“I remember when it chewed through your dad’s cellphone cable.” Her eyes crease with mirth. “Back when cellphones were total bricks. And crazy expensive.”
I nod, recalling my dad’s ire. “Maybe that was why he left,” I say. I mean it as a joke, but it falls flat. What kind of person abandons their only child, there one day, then vanished? Or was my dad going through something like Quinn, crushed beneath some pressure he couldn’t express? Surely not. My mom took care of all the grunt work.