Moms are notoriously slow at texting back, so even though I read the text about thirty minutes after it came in, no one had responded yet when I saw it. Since it was a Saturday and Tim was home to help with Clara, I had been taking one of my weekly “real showers”—actually washing my hair, shaving, and, well, getting clean, instead of just standing under a stream of water for two minutes.
I heard Clara start crying a minute after I stepped out of the shower, and a minute after that, Tim came into the bathroom holding her while I was naked and generously applying desperately needed serum to my face. I picked up my towel off the floor and wrapped it around myself tightly. I knew I didn’t look disgusting per se, but I was definitely hyperaware of the stubborn stretch mark–streaked eight-pound tire around my midsection. Compounding my self-consciousness around my husband seeing me naked was the fact that, despite having been “cleared” for sex several weeks before, Tim and I hadn’t done it since before Clara was born. It was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do, and he hadn’t tried, either, which was both offensive and a total relief. I wasn’t sure if he hadn’t tried because he could tell I didn’t want to, or because he didn’t want to, either. I hoped the former, but talking it through would require me to muster energy I simply didn’t have. It would also force me to acknowledge that the baby wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want to have sex with him yet, that there was something else going on with me, something I hadn’t told anyone and vowed to myself that I never would. I was trying to avoid at all costs opening that particular locked box inside me, which I intended to keep locked forever and throw away its key.
“She wants you.” He sighed, sounding spent, as if his fifteen minutes alone with our baby had done him in.
“Okay, well, I need a few more minutes.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do with her? I have no idea how to make her stop crying. I really think she might hate me.”
This again. “She doesn’t hate you,” I assured him.
I was trying to be kind. I wanted us to have a good weekend together, and I genuinely did feel bad that Tim, like me, was not having the experience with new parenthood that he’d hoped for. I also knew that I was at least partially to blame for that; my anxiety around Clara had made me possessive and controlling, and my anger around my mom’s death pervaded every second of my day, including those spent with Tim.
“She’s just getting used to you still,” I told him. “It takes time.” I kept applying lotion. “What have you tried so far? Have you tried bouncing on the sports ball and giving her a paci? At the same time? You have to pretty much hold it in her mouth for her for at least ten minutes before she’ll take it herself. Have you tried reading her a book? She loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear.” I was using my “nice voice,” but I was also getting tired of always being the teacher. I was new to this, too, after all. I had no idea what I was doing, either.
“I didn’t think you’d want me to bounce her, because I didn’t think you’d want her to fall asleep yet.” This was a fair point. She’d only been awake for about forty-five minutes and needed to eat soon. I’d been reading all about “wake windows” online and had just given Tim a lecture about their importance. Apparently he’d been paying attention, and he was right: the ball did tend to put her to sleep right away.
“I’ll be there in literally two seconds. Can you just . . . ?” An exasperated wave of my hand replaced the end of my sentence.
He shut the door and the crying commenced with heightened intensity.
When I looked at my phone again, Selena and Kira had both responded to Vanessa’s text that they couldn’t make it today.
Hey hey—busy day with family in town, wrote Selena. I’ll likely pop over there sometime this week.
Brutal night with Caleb, read Kira’s reply. We don’t really have it together over here today. Trying to catch some naps. Please keep us posted, though. Haven’t stopped thinking about her.
I didn’t want to make Vanessa go over there on her own. Also, I had to admit to myself that, in addition to being genuinely and deeply worried about Isabel, and sickened by the thought of being separated from my baby, as Isabel was from hers, I was also curious—about Isabel’s house, her husband, and Naomi’s grandma, if that’s who Kira and I had seen the day before. When I was still actually able to read a page before falling asleep or succumbing to anxious thoughts about my daughter, I had been addicted to thrillers—I used to spend hours perusing the shelves at the Strand Book Store, picking out the perfect suspense novel to keep me up well into the night. Isabel’s disappearance had awakened whatever part of myself craved mystery. Or perhaps just distraction from my own insular little life. Either way, I wanted to scope things out a bit for myself. See what her life may have been like at home.