Mother of All Secrets(32)

“Oh. Okay, thanks.” He reached for it, giving me a funny look. “Would you want to try to take C to the diner so we can get a quick drink before we put her to bed? Think she’ll allow it?” This was one of our favorite things to do together—a very quick happy hour with Clara at the diner around the corner. I needed to get to the bottom of this, though, before I could imagine enjoying a beer and some mozzarella sticks with Tim.

“I think it’s a little too late. Maybe tomorrow. Can I ask you a question? Why is Isabel’s number in your phone? And why are there calls?”

He paused. Sighed. Rubbed his head. Was he buying time? Deciding which version of the truth to tell me?

“Have a seat. I should have told you about this before. It’s nothing bad.”

“So tell me.” I reluctantly sat on the bed, scared of what I was about to hear.

Tim took another deep breath. “I was worried about you, Jenn. I am worried about you. You’ve barely smiled since Clara was born. You’re a shadow of who you were. You just seem so . . . worn out.”

A shadow of who I’d been? “I am worn out, Tim. I sleep for like, two and a half hours a night. It’s pretty tiring, caring for a newborn with almost no help.”

“I know, I know.” Tim kept touching his glasses. Was he nervous? Was my husband afraid of me? “And I know I haven’t been as hands-on as I could have been, or in the ways that you’ve really needed. But I also have no idea what I’m doing. I am trying. I love you both so much. I just feel like nothing that I do is right.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t answer my question. Why were you calling Isabel?”

Tim looked down with dread, or shame, before answering. “I called her to ask if she thought you were okay.” A ringing sensation started in my ears. “You’d been doing the moms’ group thing for a couple of weeks and you’d mentioned that she was the moderator. To be honest, I had no idea what a moms’ group was. I thought it was like therapy, so I thought she was, like, the counselor or something. That’s why I was so enthusiastic about you joining a moms’ group to begin with. I thought she was a professional who helped moms and families. I didn’t realize it was just like a friendly, social thing. I mean, what do guys know about moms’ groups?”

I was suddenly and eerily reminded of Isabel’s husband. He certainly didn’t know anything about our moms’ group, either. Maybe Connor’s apparent disinterest wasn’t so incriminating after all.

“Anyway,” he continued when I said nothing, “I just wanted to talk to someone about . . . whether what you’re going through is normal. If you’d come back to yourself soon. And what I could do to support you. Most of my friends don’t have kids yet, plus it’s weird for me to talk to other guys about this kind of stuff anyway—and I so wish your mom was here, so that I could talk to her, and so that you could talk to her, but—”

“Yeah, me too.”

“I know—I know. I’m so sorry. I know you’re hurting so badly, and without her here, I’m the one that’s responsible for you. Not in a bad way—I’m your family and that’s my job. It’s a job I want to do. But I feel a bit in over my head right now, because I’m worried about you, and I don’t know how to help.”

His frantic backpedaling only made me feel even more like a burdensome child. My cheeks burned with angry humiliation. I already knew I was a failure as a wife and a mother, but I hadn’t realized how obvious it was to Tim and probably everyone else who saw me that I was unraveling. I knew I seemed tired, but I thought that only I knew the depths of my mental and physical exhaustion, the dark thoughts that sometimes laid claim to my brain and being. Not to mention—the other thing. God, I really was awful. Awful, awful.

When I said nothing, he continued, hesitantly. “So I got Isabel’s number from your phone and called her to get her two cents, or just to check in, or whatever. Again, Jenn, I thought she was some kind of a therapist. She didn’t answer, but she called me back the next day. It was a super awkward conversation, because obviously, I’d misunderstood her role; she’s just a mom in the neighborhood who had been trying to make friends, like you. She thought it was very strange that I was calling her and had no idea what to say. I mean, you guys had only met a couple of times when I called. She barely knew you. And it wasn’t her place to, like, assess you. I’m an idiot. I know that.”

I was silent. Clara was still in my arms, her body digesting her milk as I took in not only what Tim thought of me but that he had shared that information with Isabel. I wondered why she hadn’t said anything to me; she probably didn’t want to embarrass me. So she knew for weeks that my own husband thought I was crazy, but concealed it from me. Or perhaps, protected me from it.

“Anyway, I should have told you, but honestly, I was mortified for being so incorrect about what the moms’ group entailed and for meddling in a way that was totally disrespectful of your privacy, not to mention unproductive. I asked her not to say anything to you, and I guess she didn’t.”

“But how could you not say anything to me even after she went missing? You acted like you’d never heard of her when I told you, but you’d talked to her yourself.”

Tim nodded, looking at me intently through his glasses. “I mean, of course I am completely weirded out by her disappearance, as I know you are. But she’s still a stranger to me, despite having had one very ill-advised conversation with her. I never even met her.”