I bite my tongue, feeling my heart pound in my chest. I’m so used to calculating my statements, trying so hard to please whoever is on the receiving end of them—saying only the right things, the good things—and how, still, it never seems to matter. Waylon appears to see through that, though. He somehow knows when I’m not being entirely truthful. When I have something more to say.
I look up at him again, at the kindness in his eyes, and wonder if this time really could be different.
“Honestly?” I say at last. “He was tough.” The admission feels like a sudden exhale after holding your breath for far too long.
“How so?” he asks.
“He was a colicky baby, always crying. I mean, nothing could soothe him. Nothing. I was home alone a lot, with Ben at work, and I remember there were times, during those first nights—”
I stop myself, deciding that it may not be in my best interest to be too honest. Not yet, at least. To describe the unusual way Mason came into this world or the panic of those early morning hours in too much detail. The desperation that started to creep into my chest when I found us alone in the dark, his writhing little body in my arms, limbs like twigs that could so easily snap. I can still remember those muddy, sleep-deprived musings; the kind that didn’t even feel real. The kind that no mother would ever admit to herself, let alone utter out loud. Mason would shriek in the night and they would flare up so suddenly, so violently: dark little fantasies of all the things I could do to finally make him stop. And I would let them in, if only for a second. I would let myself entertain them for a beat too long—but then, in the mornings, I would simply ignore them again, pretend they were never even there to begin with. I would feel my cheeks burn hot with shame as I lifted him out of his crib and smothered him in kisses, casting them back into the recesses of my mind where the other banished feelings lived: naughty and nocturnal, curled up in that dank cave of my subconscious, skulking around until the sun dipped below the horizon again and it was safe for them to crawl back out.
“It’s just hard,” I continue. “Being a mother. It’s not what you expect it to be.”
Nobody ever warns you about the spite that comes in the night when you’re operating on two hours of sleep. Nobody ever tells you about how resentful you begin to feel toward a person you created. A person who relies on you for everything.
A person who never asked for any of this.
Waylon shifts in his chair, uncomfortable, before taking a deep sip of wine and returning his attention to his plate. I’m sure he was imagining something different: one of those rosy memories mothers relay with stars in their eyes, making everyone else feel botched. I don’t really know what drove me to say it—the intimacy of this dinner, maybe, of sharing a meal with someone in my own home for the first time in months. Or maybe it’s because Waylon has been the first person in so long to really listen to me, to believe me, and we’ve been tiptoeing toward this type of raw honesty ever since that day on the plane when he placed his card on my knee.
Whatever it is, it feels good, the admission, even though I know it’s not what people want to hear. It feels honest.
Finally, something honest.
The fact is, I’ve never been able to be honest. Not to Ben, my parents, the other mothers at day care—especially the other mothers. Even before Mason was taken, before I met Ben, I always had secrets, swallowing them down every time the urge to repent came gargling up my throat like bile. I learned fairly quickly that when people asked how I was doing, how I was holding up, they didn’t actually want an answer—not a real one, anyway—so I simply ignored that little needle prick that stuck in my jaw, the threat of impending tears, and plastered on a smile, giving them the answer I knew they expected: that everything was good, everything was fine.
In fact, no. Everything was perfect.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Waylon and I are still in the dining room hours later, the table pushed to one side so we can sit on the floor and stare at the wall. Mason’s case file is between us, along with the two bottles of wine—both of them empty. We’ve since moved on to liquor: a whiskey on the rocks for him, and for me, a vodka soda, a single slice of lime bobbing on top.
“Did you ever leave a spare key outside?” he asks. It’s late, almost one in the morning, and there’s a little slur in his speech, barely there, like his tongue is numb. His eyelids are heavy, and although I’m sure the alcohol isn’t helping, mostly, I think he’s tired. He’s ready for sleep. “One that someone else might have known about?”