The Break(42)

NINETEEN


Rowan. Friday morning. November 11th.


After a particularly sleepless night, I’m outside the care facility waiting to introduce Lila to my mother.

June is still gone.

I know this because I called the detective last night around seven, right after I got Lila down for the first time. Just looking for an update, Mr. Patricks, I said to him in a voice chiller than I’d intended, and after he gave me a bit of a hard time about being uncooperative on our first phone call, he told me that June was now officially a missing person and her case had been turned over to the New York City Police Department.

The wind picks up, whistling over the silver metal railing along the ramp that zigzags toward the entrance of the gray cement building marked THORNDALE SENIOR LIVING. I’m so on edge my teeth hurt. And it’s brutally cold, so if they keep me out here waiting another minute I’m just going to have to brave the germs and head inside. On the phone yesterday I told the nurses my concerns about bringing in such a young baby, and they suggested I arrive during the residents’ rest period when everyone would be inside their rooms and Lila would be exposed to fewer people. They said they’d send a nurse out and she’d take me right to my mom.



When I told the pediatrician about my mother’s condition and asked about bringing Lila to the care facility to meet her, she said, If it were me, I’d visit my mother. You’ll never forgive yourself if something happened to your mom and she never met your little girl.

I didn’t tell the pediatrician about bringing Lila into a café to meet with June. Because that just feels stupid and na?ve the more I think about it. And I can’t seem to stop thinking about it: it’s like an insane loop of doubt and self-punishing thoughts ever since Lila’s been born. I can’t stop berating myself for all the mistakes I’ve made; I’m practically counting seventy-two hours since that café date, trying to listen carefully for any sounds of a sniffle, feeling for any elevated temp. And now after I take her inside to meet my mom I’ll just have to start the clock all over again.

The worry feels endless.

Finally a nurse comes out. “Can’t be careful enough!” she says in a cheerful Irish accent, pointing to her green surgical mask.

“Thank you,” I say. “I really appreciate it.”

“Come inside before you catch your death,” she says. The turn of phrase unsettles me. It sounds off-kilter coming from someone so young.

I hold Lila tightly as we head through the glass doors. I’ve got one of those breathable muslin blankets to drape lightly over her head as we walk down the halls—I figure it has to be better than nothing, and it’s not like I can put a mask on a newborn. But the halls are mostly empty. The linoleum is squeaky clean, and I’ve never been so grateful for the smell of Lysol. We pass a room with an elderly woman keening. She quiets down for a moment, and then asks, “Where is my brother? My brother, Jack? Where is he?”

“So how’s the baby?” the nurse asks as we walk toward my mother’s room. She’s all sunshine, seemingly unbothered by the crying woman, who looks to be in her nineties. Her brother is probably dead.



“Um,” I say, a lump rising in my throat. Thank God other people are tougher than me so they can do these types of caretaking jobs while I just make up useless stories from the safety of my apartment. “The baby is wonderful,” I say. I peek beneath the muslin and kiss the top of her dark head.

“And how’s your recovery going?” the nurse asks. “I had terrible postpartum depression.”

It startles me. Not that she’s so forthcoming (which I appreciate) but that she’s already had a baby. She looks early twenties. “Well, I’m not really sure what’s wrong with me,” I say, figuring I owe her honesty like she gave me. Wouldn’t the world be such a better place for parents if we all did this? “My therapist seems to think I’ve got PTSD from having such a traumatic birth, and I definitely have postpartum anxiety—I can feel it coursing through me like a dark, frantic river—but I wouldn’t call it depression.” I don’t feel hopeless—it’s the opposite, actually: the hope I feel for Lila and me and our future together is enough to crush me; it’s a blinding light, an expanding balloon, a palm opening to hold mine. It’s all the things that might be.

“Hmmm,” says the nurse as we pass an orderly pushing a cleaning cart packed with Windex, tissues, and tiny shampoo and conditioner bottles. “I’m sorry to hear that your birth was traumatic.”

“I almost bled out,” I say.

I can see her red eyebrows rise. “Really?” she asks. “Your mom didn’t tell me.”

“She doesn’t know,” I say, surprised she thinks that anyone would ever tell that to my mother in the state she’s in. “We didn’t want to upset her,” I add.

“Your mother can handle more than you think,” she says.

I remember the last time I came here; my stomach was so big I couldn’t get comfortable sitting beside my mom in the bed, so they brought in a recliner. “But she gets so agitated when she’s confused,” I say to the nurse, “and I guess I figured it could work the other way around, too, like if we upset her, it could make her worse.”