We lived in a tiny inner-city townhouse at the time, near a strip of coffee shops and restaurants. Before long, Gabe and Freya were known by everyone. He was the sexy dad in the puffer vest, proudly striding the pavement with the adorable rosy-cheeked baby in her pram. He was the dad who chatted to other parents about sleep times and feeding schedules and came home to me with suggestions, like: ‘We should stop letting her sleep so much during the day.’ He was the dad who laughed out loud when she yawned or smiled or farted, because his daughter delighted him that much. It was almost enough to compensate for the fact that I felt nothing for her.
I tried to force a connection. I held her skin to skin and stared into her eyes. I breastfed. I recited affirmations. I sniffed her head. I tried to recall all the reasons I wanted her, but I came up blank. If I’d had any – and I was sure I must have – they were gone now.
Once, while Gabe was at work, I dressed her in one of her most adorable outfits and just stared at her for hours, willing myself to feel something. When nothing happened, I put her into her crib in the nursery and left her there for the afternoon. If looking at her didn’t work, maybe absence would.
Gabe’s new zeal for fatherhood only made me feel worse about my lack of attachment. He was always thinking up something to do with her, to get us out and about.
‘It’s beautiful outside!’ he said one day, when the weather was average at best. ‘Let’s go have an adventure.’
Freya was only a couple of months old, and I was about to take a nap. By that point, I’d developed an unhealthy attachment to my bed. I sat around the house in sweatpants, living from feed to feed.
I glanced out the window. ‘It looks like rain.’
‘A drive then,’ he said, unperturbed. ‘Down the coast.’
If I’d said I was too tired, or I just wasn’t up for it, Gabe wouldn’t have minded. He would have taken Freya alone and told me to stay home and rest. But I wouldn’t have been able to rest. I’d have spent the day chastising myself for not going, for not taking part in my life, for not being grateful. After all, what more could I ask for than a day at the beach with a good-looking man and a cute baby?
What was wrong with me?
I started to cry. And once I started, it was impossible to stop.
Gabe dropped to his knees in front of me and I told him everything I was feeling. Every little wretched thought. I told him how I hated him for being so happy. How I hated myself for being so sad. I even admitted to the most shameful thought: that sometimes I even hated Freya for what she’d done to me. I told him I was dead inside.
Gabe listened to me the way he always did, with undivided attention. He didn’t interrupt, or tell me I was just tired, or suggest something to cheer me up. When I finished talking, he put his arms around me and said, ‘I didn’t know. I’m so sorry I didn’t know.’
When I finished crying, he put me to bed, and looked after Freya around the clock, only bringing her to me for feeds. The next day, he took me to the doctor, and I was prescribed antidepressants. The doctor said it would be two weeks before I would feel an effect, and that until I did it would be advisable to always have someone with me.
Until then, I’d always been the organised one, but now Gabe did me proud. He set up a roster so that I was never alone. Usually, Mum, Dad or Kat or Mei came during the week, when Gabe was at work, but one Saturday Kat turned up when Gabe was home. He told me to get dressed and we got in the car. I didn’t ask why. I assumed we had another doctor’s appointment, but my mental state was such that I couldn’t even be bothered to ask the question.
When we pulled up at the beach, dread set in.
‘What are we doing?’
He handed me a wetsuit. There was a tent on the beach where you could rent a board. I thought he was joking. Surfing was the last thing I wanted to do. The weather wasn’t great. I had a bulge of baby weight around my middle. But Gabe had made up his mind.
We rented a board for an hour. Gabe helped me change into my wetsuit in the beach tent and led me into the surf. Then he stood there, waist deep in the water, while I lay on my stomach on the board. If I’d had an ounce more energy, I might have been able to protest. But I had nothing. It was easier just to go along with it.
The first time he pushed me onto a wave, I floated a couple of metres and then stopped. The same thing happened the second and third time. On the fourth, I caught a glimpse of Gabe looking back for the next wave as he held the board. There was something about his face. The determination of it.
The fourth time I used my arms to paddle, like he’d showed me. Given the effort he was making, the least I could do was go through the motions, I reasoned.
The fifth time, the wave was more powerful, and I rode it all the way to the shore. Gabe cheered so hard I felt something come undone inside.
He put me on the board again and again, until his lips were blue and his teeth were chattering. After forty-five minutes he suggested I try to stand and, more for his sake than mine, I did. And as the wave propelled the board forward, I found my footing – a lucky accident – and I rode that wave all the way to the shore. The feeling was visceral. Sensual. It was flying.
Gabe lost his mind. He cheered so hard people on the beach all looked to see what the commotion was about. For the first time in a very long while, I smiled.
‘Again?’ he said.
I nodded. That was the thing about Gabe. Yes, he could hurt me. But he was the only one who could make me fly.
23
PIPPA
NOW
I spot my parents from the end of our driveway. They are sitting side by side on the bench on our front porch, next to the boot rack where the girls’ tiny pink gumboots sit beside Gabe’s and my larger ones. I don’t remember them saying they were coming for a visit, but it’s not unusual for them to show up unannounced. They’re at our house a lot, even when we’re not having a crisis. Part of it, I think, is guilt, because last time they’d failed to realise the extent of what had been going on with Gabe until it was too late. Now, I think they are determined to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Unfortunately, it’s too late.
Mum waves wildly at the sight of us, but Dad continues looking at his folded newspaper; he is almost certainly completing the crossword. His glasses are perched on his nose, and he holds the newspaper in an outstretched arm, both for more effective pondering and to see it better. Mum jabs him with her elbow, presumably to tell him that we’re approaching, but he ignores her.
‘Nana!’ Asha cries, dropping her scooter to launch herself at Mum.
I feel an overwhelming urge to do the same, to feel the soft warm comfort of her, for my problem to be of a size and shape that my mother can fix with a hug. I killed a woman, Mum. Not directly, but indirectly. Do you still love me?
Freya takes the time to return her scooter to the shed before greeting her grandmother.
By the time Gabe and I reach the house, both girls are sitting in Mum’s lap, interrupting each other as they talk about preschool, about how it was their friend Liam’s birthday today, about how their friend Isla burned her hand on the stove at home and you should never touch things that are hot. Mum appears riveted by each new subject as she toggles back and forth between the girls.