The Break(20)

“We’ll just need her undressed for her weigh-in,” the nurse is saying.

“Can I do it here?” I ask, unable to recall if it’s the right thing to lay her down on the paper. I’m assuming they change it for each new patient.

“Sure!” says the nurse, smiling at Lila. “She’s just gorgeous.”

“Thank you,” I say, relaxing into the normalcy of it all: a kind nurse, an appointment with a pediatrician, and my daughter alive and well. Just one normal day after the next—that’s my plan for getting back to myself. Whatever jigsaw puzzle piece came loose needs to stay permanently back in place.

“Rowan, your shirt,” Gabe huffs.

I look down in the middle of lowering Lila onto the table and I catch sight of what he’s talking about—the snap of my nursing top has come undone and my breast is almost entirely exposed. “Oh,” I say, but then I lose my balance a little and let go of Lila too soon. She falls only half an inch onto the exam table, but it’s enough to make me gasp. “Lila,” I say as she starts crying. “Oh no.” I feel the nurse’s gaze boring into my back.

“Is she all right?” the nurse asks, and I want to die.

“Yes, I think so,” I say, scooping her back up into my arms. “Who cares about my stupid shirt?” I hiss at Gabe, who’s standing there with his mouth agape.

“Take your time,” the nurse says, her kindness somehow making it worse. “When she’s settled down I’ll weigh her,” she adds, voice easy.

Lila does settle down; she even stays quiet as I lay her gently against the paper. Her eyes look up at me, studying me. “I’m so sorry, Lila,” I whisper, but there isn’t reproach in her little gaze. She looks at me very seriously, like she’s trying to tell me something. I love you, too, I try to say softly, but no sound comes out. I carefully take off her onesie and tell the nurse we’re ready.



“Diaper needs to come off, too,” the nurse says.

I take off Lila’s diaper and it’s dry, so my inclination is to save it and use it again, but then I second-guess myself and hand it to Gabe to throw into the trash. He does, avoiding my gaze. I force a smile at the nurse and pass Lila into her arms. On closer inspection, I see her scrubs are covered with a parade of Disney characters. Lila is happy until the nurse lowers her down onto the scale, and then she starts to cry, kicking her tiny legs.

I step forward. “Can I pick her up?” I ask.

The nurse writes down Lila’s weight on a pad of paper, and the seconds her pencil spends scrawling the numbers feel like an eternity with Lila crying louder on the scale. Finally, she says, “Of course,” while still writing numbers. Before she leaves she says, “Dr. Templeton will be right in.”

I sit down with Lila in an uncomfortable gray plastic chair. Gabe stays standing. When the nurse is gone, he asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Just nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?” Gabe asks. His hands go into the pockets of his jeans. His light blue button-down is a little wrinkled, and I wonder what the nurse thought of us. Maybe she just saw new parents trying to get it right, or maybe she saw something worse.

“I don’t know, exactly,” I say. “It feels nonspecific. I haven’t really stopped feeling a little nervous since Lila was born.”

Gabe looks at me, and I think he understands, but then he says, “But Lila’s fine. Are you nervous about something else?”

“No,” I say. “I’m nervous about Lila. That she isn’t really fine or that I’m going to do something wrong.”

“Something wrong?” he repeats.

“Do you seriously never worry you’ll do the wrong thing with our baby and something bad will happen?” I ask. “Is that just one of the gifts of being a man? Because I think every mother who ever lived has thought it.”



Red comes to his cheeks. “Do you seriously think men don’t worry about their children? How about how worried I was the night before last when you took Lila out for a stroll?”

I laugh—I can’t help it—and it comes out hard and bitter. “Oh, that’s rich,” I say. “I’m specifically asking if you’ve ever worried that you could do something to Lila by accident that would cause harm to come to her, and you give me an example of a time you were worried that I had our baby and something bad would happen to her. That’s typical.”

“What’s typical?” he growls.

I’m holding Lila across my chest, swaying faster and faster. “Me being the problem is typical for the undercurrent of our marriage,” I say.

We’re quiet, and maybe there it is: the truth, sharp edged and hard to swallow. I stare into his brown eyes, and I know I love him—I can feel it in every ounce of me—but what if Gabe and I don’t love each other deeply enough to get through all the things we need to? Surely there are gradations of love in marriages, and how would anyone ever know where their marriage stands with nothing else to compare it with?

In the periphery of my vision, the jungle animals on the wall seem to be coming nearer, closing in like Lila and I are their prey. I want Gabe to tell me that I’m a good mother. But he only shakes his head as if he can’t bear to be in the room with me, and then Dr. Templeton enters.