The Mother-in-Law(50)

I’d written to Mother after arriving at Meredith’s to tell her the decision I had made, and where I was living. For days after sending it I’d been on guard, half-expecting her to turn up on Meredith’s doorstep and physically drag me back to Orchard House . . . but she’d never even written back, let alone showed up. I knew what the silence meant. I remember seeing the letters from Meredith in the garbage at home, unopened and unanswered. “There’s no point keeping up correspondence with someone who isn’t in our lives anymore,” she’d say crisply if anyone referred to them.

Now, clearly, I was no longer in her life.

Two weeks after arriving at Meredith’s, I woke to the feeling of something popping deep inside. It was a cold night, and moonlight streamed in the crack of the shed door, illuminating my single bed. Between my legs was wet. I gripped the cold wall to help me push myself upright. More water came when I stood, and when I walked, more still. I stuffed my feet into slippers and pulled my robe around me and made my way to the toilet that abutted the house. There was no pain yet, and I didn’t see the point in waking Meredith if it was a false alarm.

I dropped my knickers and sat down. There was blood, a little of it, and a lot of clear odorless “water.” As I stared at it, my abdomen pulled tight and firm. This was it.

To my extraordinary surprise, I wasn’t scared.

When I returned to Meredith’s house ten days later, there was a secondhand bassinette set up in the shed. Next to it, neatly folded on my single cot, was a pile of cloth diapers, two knitted jackets, knitted pants and a woolen hat. It was about as far from the scene I’d always expected to bring my first baby home to as I could possibly have imagined, and yet, it brought a tear to my eye.

“It’s the bare minimum,” Meredith said, “which will have to do.”

Meredith didn’t engage much with Ollie in the first few weeks, which surprised me as she was obviously taken with him. I often caught her peeking into his bassinette and smiling (and it was rare that Meredith smiled).

“You can hold him,” I’d said to her once, but she’d immediately shook her head.

“It’s not my job to hold him.”

Meredith was quite particular about my jobs. Looking after Ollie was one of them, obviously, but there were others too. When the tire on her car went flat, it was me using the jack. When the lightbulbs needed changing, or errands needed running, I did it. I cleaned the house, took care of the laundry. I did the grocery shopping, carrying Ollie down to the store in my arms, because we didn’t have money for a carriage.

Meredith never thanked me for anything I did, but there was something about the way she asked me to do things. I started to look forward to the requests. (“You can fix that leaky sink, you’re good at figuring things out.” “Come on up to the roof and see if you can’t do anything about the broken tile.” “Find the cheapest place you can to repair these shoes, I know you won’t let anyone rip us off.”) I came to realize she was right—I was good at figuring things out, I could repair most things, and I didn’t let people rip us off. A couple of months into our living arrangements, I found she hardly had to tell me what to do at all.

One morning when Ollie was about two months old, I fell asleep in the armchair when I should have been going to the grocery store. The store closed at noon on a Saturday and I’d told Meredith I’d make roast chicken for dinner. But Ollie had been awake for hours during the night, and I decided I could catch a few minutes’ sleep while he napped on my chest.

When I woke, it was with a start, just before noon. “Oh no, is that the time? The grocery store is about to close.”

I’d leaped out of my seat, transferring Ollie to my other shoulder, searching around for my purse. That’s when I’d noticed Meredith sitting at the kitchen table. She’d gestured to the whole, raw chicken in front of her.

“You looked like you could use the sleep,” she’d said.

Sometimes, in the evenings, Meredith and I chatted a little. I asked her what it was like, to lose her husband and her life.

“It was the worst time of my life,” she’d said introspectively. “My friends wouldn’t speak to me, my parents disowned me. Richard married Cindy within the year and moved her into our home while I was working in a factory six days a week.”

“It’s not fair,” I told her.

“You haven’t even gotten me started on the fact that I was only paid two-thirds of a man’s wage for the very same job. And do you know why? Because they assume a wife has a husband at home to take care of her!” She laughed—a rare, wonderful treat. “But there were silver linings. I had so much to lose, back then. Now everything I have belongs to me. That’s worth more than you’d think.”

I was beginning to understand what she meant.

When Ollie was three months old, Meredith told me to get a job.

“But what job could I do with a baby?” I’d asked.

“If there’s anyone who can figure it out, it’s you, Diana.”

“Maybe I could work at night,” I said, after tossing and turning for three nights, trying to come up with something. I had become fond of Meredith’s comments about my ingenuity and I was determined not to let her down. “Or the weekends?”

“But . . . what will you do with Ollie?” she’d asked, looking perplexed.