The Soulmate(25)

Admittedly, Freya was a pretty baby, petite and delicate with a heart-shaped face and piercing blue eyes. She was also a placid baby: content if she was being held, happy to observe. From day one I felt like she was watching me. Often, I wondered if I was meeting her expectations.

I was certainly prepared for motherhood. I’d read the books about the first three months, the ‘wonder weeks’, the eat–play–sleep routine. Gabe and I took a class in Baby First Aid. I’d set up a nursery with everything I might need. I’d purchased bottles and formula in case breastfeeding didn’t work out. I was ready for anything. I assumed I’d excel at it. Maybe that was the problem? Motherhood wasn’t really something you could excel at. You did the same thing, day in and day out: feed, sleep, change. Hold her while she cries. Visitors came and went, and I acted the part of loving mother for all of them. I even performed it for Gabe. Yes, I feel so much love. It’s mind-blowing. What did I ever do without her? But the truth was, I found it hard to feel much of anything. To me, Freya was a prop in a pointless show I had to perform in, over and over, to no audience.

We lived in a tiny inner-city townhouse at the time, near a strip of coffee shops and restaurants. Before long, Gabe and Freya were known by everyone. He was the sexy dad in the puffer vest, proudly striding the pavement with the adorable rosy-cheeked baby in her pram. He was the dad who chatted to other parents about sleep times and feeding schedules and came home to me with suggestions, like: ‘We should stop letting her sleep so much during the day.’ He was the dad who laughed out loud when she yawned or smiled or farted, because his daughter delighted him that much. It was almost enough to compensate for the fact that I felt nothing for her.

I tried to force a connection. I held her skin to skin and stared into her eyes. I breastfed. I recited affirmations. I sniffed her head. I tried to recall all the reasons I wanted her, but I came up blank. If I’d had any – and I was sure I must have – they were gone now.

Once, while Gabe was at work, I dressed her in one of her most adorable outfits and just stared at her for hours, willing myself to feel something. When nothing happened, I put her into her crib in the nursery and left her there for the afternoon. If looking at her didn’t work, maybe absence would.

Gabe’s new zeal for fatherhood only made me feel worse about my lack of attachment. He was always thinking up something to do with her, to get us out and about.

‘It’s beautiful outside!’ he said one day, when the weather was average at best. ‘Let’s go have an adventure.’

Freya was only a couple of months old, and I was about to take a nap. By that point, I’d developed an unhealthy attachment to my bed. I sat around the house in sweatpants, living from feed to feed.

I glanced out the window. ‘It looks like rain.’

‘A drive then,’ he said, unperturbed. ‘Down the coast.’

If I’d said I was too tired, or I just wasn’t up for it, Gabe wouldn’t have minded. He would have taken Freya alone and told me to stay home and rest. But I wouldn’t have been able to rest. I’d have spent the day chastising myself for not going, for not taking part in my life, for not being grateful. After all, what more could I ask for than a day at the beach with a good-looking man and a cute baby?

What was wrong with me?

I started to cry. And once I started, it was impossible to stop.

Gabe dropped to his knees in front of me and I told him everything I was feeling. Every little wretched thought. I told him how I hated him for being so happy. How I hated myself for being so sad. I even admitted to the most shameful thought: that sometimes I even hated Freya for what she’d done to me. I told him I was dead inside.

Gabe listened to me the way he always did, with undivided attention. He didn’t interrupt, or tell me I was just tired, or suggest something to cheer me up. When I finished talking, he put his arms around me and said, ‘I didn’t know. I’m so sorry I didn’t know.’

When I finished crying, he put me to bed, and looked after Freya around the clock, only bringing her to me for feeds. The next day, he took me to the doctor, and I was prescribed antidepressants. The doctor said it would be two weeks before I would feel an effect, and that until I did it would be advisable to always have someone with me.

Until then, I’d always been the organised one, but now Gabe did me proud. He set up a roster so that I was never alone. Usually, Mum, Dad or Kat or Mei came during the week, when Gabe was at work, but one Saturday Kat turned up when Gabe was home. He told me to get dressed and we got in the car. I didn’t ask why. I assumed we had another doctor’s appointment, but my mental state was such that I couldn’t even be bothered to ask the question.

When we pulled up at the beach, dread set in.

‘What are we doing?’

He handed me a wetsuit. There was a tent on the beach where you could rent a board. I thought he was joking. Surfing was the last thing I wanted to do. The weather wasn’t great. I had a bulge of baby weight around my middle. But Gabe had made up his mind.

We rented a board for an hour. Gabe helped me change into my wetsuit in the beach tent and led me into the surf. Then he stood there, waist deep in the water, while I lay on my stomach on the board. If I’d had an ounce more energy, I might have been able to protest. But I had nothing. It was easier just to go along with it.

The first time he pushed me onto a wave, I floated a couple of metres and then stopped. The same thing happened the second and third time. On the fourth, I caught a glimpse of Gabe looking back for the next wave as he held the board. There was something about his face. The determination of it.