But the frustrations I felt during our meetings were mild, for the most part. I liked these women. A lot. I admired them. I enjoyed and felt I was benefiting from seeing how other moms were managing the roller coaster of new motherhood. I valued their insight and advice. And I loved getting wine with them after.
Didn’t I?
Isabel doesn’t matter. Had she said something that hurt me? What had I meant by this?
I couldn’t have written this. And yet, here it was. On my phone. In my Docs. Undeniable.
And, truthfully, there were plenty of other things I couldn’t remember these days.
I could never remember how many feeds or soiled diapers Clara had in a day; when they asked me this question at our biweekly pediatrician appointments, I inevitably shrugged helplessly.
I never left the house with everything—whether it was diapers, a sweater, or my keys, I could be sure that I was forgetting something I would invariably need.
I forgot whole conversations with Tim, resulting in him looking at me incredulously, saying, “You really don’t remember us talking about this already?” before backtracking after he realized he was hurting my feelings.
I had forgotten Clara’s middle name while filling out a form at the doctor’s office. I actually had to text Tim so that he could remind me that it was Violet. It simply wasn’t in my brain. I knew it was a flower. I could not for the life of me remember which one.
I had neglected to upload Clara’s birth certificate to file my maternity leave with the Department of Education, resulting in some nightmarish calls with Human Resources to sort it out.
I watched the same episode of Sons of Anarchy three times because I didn’t remember having seen it. It was Tim who asked me, half paying attention to the show while he worked beside me on the couch one night, “You really like this episode, huh?”
Most concerningly, it was only about a week ago that Tim had woken me up from a sound sleep—while I was standing over Clara’s bassinet. “Babe, what are you doing?” he’d asked softly, putting a hand on my back.
“Checking on the baby. One of us has to,” I’d snapped. （Even in a total fog, I was good for some unwarranted passive aggression.） There was only one problem.
“The baby’s in the bed,” he’d said, pointing to where the baby was indeed fast asleep on her DockATot atop our comforter. I had been sleeping standing up, hovering over an empty bassinet.
Was there any way I could have written this about Isabel and forgotten about it? Or written it in my sleep?
And if so—could the apparent anger I felt toward Isabel have played a role in her disappearance? Could I have played a role?
I tried to claw my way out of this thought tunnel. I deleted the file hurriedly and then deleted it from my trash folder. I wouldn’t be able to forget it, but I needed to make sure no one else saw it. There had been detectives at my home to ask me about a missing woman, whom, according to my Google documents, I had some kind of issue with, and with whom I’d apparently had plans the night of her disappearance.
Suddenly, the water I was swimming in felt much, much too deep.
I looked at my tiny, perfect daughter, half dozing but still latched to my breast. The one thing I was sure of: I had too much to lose for anyone else to see what was written on that document. But I also needed to figure out why I’d written it, or how it had gotten there. Because if I had written it and had forgotten—and had forgotten what had caused me to write it—what else might I be forgetting?
May 1
Dear Baby,
Very soon now, you’ll be in my arms instead of in my belly. You and me against the world. We, us. A team. Will I be enough for you? I’m going to try my hardest, that’s for damn sure. And I’m going to make your world as beautiful as I possibly can.
In a way, I wonder if the strange mess that brought you to me will make us closer, right out of the gates. I hope it will.
And I hope you know that, whenever you read this, you can ask me anything you want to.
So here goes—the truth. Our truth: you were conceived during an ill-advised one-night stand.
If you can even call it that.
I stayed behind at a bar after my friends left one night. I wanted one more drink—it had been an exhausting week at work, and I was too wound up to go home yet.
And there was a guy, and he was alone, too, and he was suave and persistent and handsome. There were drinks, too many of them, and there was his hotel room, right upstairs.
I don’t remember that much, but what I do remember is not pretty.
I’m sorry I don’t have a better story for you. Mom and Dad met, fell in love, got married, baby makes three. This isn’t that, or anything close to it.