Labor starts so mildly during a team lunch that you think it’s the falafel disagreeing with you. By nightfall, you’re under relentless attack by the savage clenching of muscles you didn’t even know you had. When you’re finally at the hospital and dilated enough for an epidural, the nurse reports that the anesthesiologist is delayed with an emergency, so you must wait. Rage floods your brain. “This is an emergency!” Drew places a clammy hand on your shoulder in a misguided attempt to calm you. “Do something!” You scream this at him. He’s fucking useless. You scream this too.
You get through it because there is no choice, and when sweet relief is finally pumped into your spine, a merciful sleep takes you away. You wake later to a persistent pressure below your bladder.
By the time Caroline is outside of your body, you’re shaking and sobbing in a way you can’t manage or direct. The nurse tries to place her on your chest, but you’re not fully in control of your muscles and fear you’ll squeeze her too tight or let her fall, so Drew takes off his shirt to hold her skin-to-skin while you howl and convulse.
At the end of your second day in the hospital, a psychiatrist named Dr. Schroeder comes into your room to ask what she describes as some routine questions. She asks about your mental and emotional states during pregnancy. She asks if you’ve ever thought about harming yourself.
“Ever?” you ask. “Or during my pregnancy?”
“Well, both,” she says, “or either.”
You tell her it must be in your file somewhere that you were once hospitalized for taking too many pills. You look down at Caroline in your arms and touch her soft baby skin. Her tongue pushes on her lips from the inside; she’s drooling and gooey and looking cross-eyed in the general direction of your face. She is the happy ending to that story.
Dr. Schroeder flips through the papers on her clipboard. “When was that?” she asks.
You’re slow to do the math. “It was just before my divorce,” you finally say, “so about five years ago.”
“Was that the only attempt?” she asks.
You don’t like the word attempt or the way she says it, but you confirm it was the only one. She goes through the remaining questions on her checklist and announces that you fall into the at-risk category and should keep your doctor informed about how you’re feeling.
At first, none of the things the psychiatrist told you to watch out for happen. You don’t feel overwhelmed or isolated. You don’t cry for no reason. You’re loose and achy and don’t eat or sleep much, but you don’t feel sad. What you feel is a warm glowing orb in the center of your chest, throwing off heat and love. And when you breastfeed Caroline, you feel tingling up through your chest to the top of your head. Sometimes the joy builds so hot you have to laugh just to let it out. What you feel for your baby is nothing you’ve ever felt for anyone before, not Anthony, not Drew, certainly not your parents. Life has narrowed its focus to this little pearl of vulnerability that depends on you alone for every single thing in every single moment. She is all you’d hoped for.
But as the weeks pass, your thoughts start getting stuck. There’s a jagged edge in your brain, behind your eyeballs, where the same snag keeps catching. Madison Relihan. You have, of course, heard many horrific things in your life. Dead women and girls everywhere, all the time. Some of their stories have briefly haunted you. But none like this. Because until very recently, the worst thing you could imagine was being a victim yourself. You still don’t want to be murdered. But so what if you were? It’s a horror that contains its own end. Now you understand there is something worse. Because somewhere, right now, is Madison Relihan’s mother. Existing. Your throat fills with grief just thinking about it. You clutch Caroline. Your daughter is alive and well, you tell yourself. There is no danger here. But you won’t always be able to hold her when you’re scared. Someday, Caroline will go to school, friends’ houses, camp. Away from you. Your pulse speeds up. How will you protect her? That’s not happening now, you think. We are safe at home. It’s not rational to think so far into the future. But the next thought you have is completely rational and not that far away—you’re supposed to go back to work in less than two months. In fact, you’re supposed to be interviewing nannies right now. You’re meant to pluck a stranger from the internet to trust with the only thing that matters to you.
You share a diluted version of your fears with Drew. “It’ll all be okay,” he says. You used to admire his optimism. Now you think he’s an idiot.