Selena looked at me with disbelief. “And we’d be looking for what, exactly? Jenn, do you understand that for me to meddle in a missing persons case is not, like, some fun distraction? I’m just trying to take care of my baby and enjoy new motherhood, just like you. Look, I’m deeply disturbed that Isabel is missing, too, but honestly, would you really even consider her a friend?”
“What do you mean? We’re all friends—”
“If you think we’re all friends, then you must not have any real friends. This is mommy networking bullshit. Not friendship.”
I felt like I’d been slapped. “If that’s how you feel, why do you even do the group?”
“For my son, Jenn. I hang out with a bunch of whiny white women because, for better or worse, I live in this neighborhood and your kids are Miles’s peers. Good parents learn from other good parents. So I’m in this group, and then I’ll be in the PTA when he’s older, and whatever other freaking committees I need to participate in to make sure that I don’t slack on one single thing when it comes to raising my son. Because as a Black woman, I can’t mess up. You get that, right? Your biggest problem may be that your husband doesn’t help with laundry or whatever, but mine is that my son will be looked at as less than because of the color of his skin. Or that he’ll be arrested for something he didn’t do. Or worse. I have to be very, very careful as his mom, until the day I die, and God willing that’ll be long before he does. So yes. My due diligence as his mom entails spending a few hours a week drinking chardonnay with the sisterhood of the traveling BabyBj?rn. I have no choice but to make nice with the ‘nice white parents,’ and I’ll do it for him, gladly.” Her eyes stayed on mine the whole time she spoke. “But my real friends and I talk about things other than bottles and swaddles. They’re the ones I talk to about the fact that, you know, when people see me pushing a stroller in this neighborhood, they assume I’m the nanny. Stuff like that.” She shook her head with tightly controlled, mirthless frustration.
She continued before I could begin to recover or formulate a response. “But, Jenn, the main thing is—and please, hear me when I say this”—she slowed down, speaking to me as if I were a wayward child she was scolding—“the main thing is that I’m not interested in being involved in your little game of Nancy Drew. I have no idea what happened to Isabel. But it’s outside my lane. And whatever you’ve got going will not end well. So my advice for you is to drop it and find another way to occupy your time and mind. And if you aren’t going to do that, then at least leave me the hell out of it.”
I was speechless, and I’d never felt so stupid. I knew that she was right about every single thing she’d said. Why had it never occurred to me to think how she might feel being the only Black mother in our group? And that, because of pervasive and harmful stereotypes, she didn’t have the luxury of being a “hot mess mom” like me or Kira? She had to have her shit together. I felt embarrassed for my trivial problems and my utter selfishness.
“I’m sorry” was all I could say. Lamely. Miles and Clara lay on the floor looking at the mobile and reaching for toys, unaware that their mothers were having it out.
Selena shook her head sadly, like I was a lost cause. “I know. Thanks. We should go.” She reached down and started to gather Miles’s toys and paci.
“No, wait—I totally get it—I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. I know I’m obsessing, I just—”
“It’s okay, Jenn. I don’t think you do get it. But it’s not your fault.” She shrugged in a casual, unsurprised way that made me feel even worse. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
And with that, she scooped up Miles, who kicked excitedly, and her diaper bag and let herself out, leaving me with more questions than I’d had before and a rising, hot sense of shame in my chest.
June 15
Dear Baby,
This is going to be brief because I’m effing exhausted, but YOU’RE HERE, MY GIRL! And I thought I knew what love was but I didn’t. Because it’s this. It’s you. Ten fingers, ten toes, twenty-one inches of perfect.
Delivering you into this world is and will always be my proudest accomplishment. Holy Mother! I knew it would hurt, but man . . . those contractions take hold of your body and let go only when you’re writhing in pain, sure you can’t take any more . . . and then, just as you’ve tasted a sweet second of relief, they’re back with a vengeance. Then, my God, there’s the rectal pressure, the pushing and straining to get you out, the tearing, the blood. The postbirth shakes, the aftershock contractions. The sharp, raw first latches, made more painful by the fact that there’s no milk to drain yet, only gummy colostrum. The frightening showerhead spritz of bloody pee. And of course the diaper. Mine, not yours. Why aren’t more people talking about this stuff? I honestly had no idea.