The Perfect Mother(3)

And finally Nell: British, cool, eschewing the books and the expert advice. So trust-your-instincts. So I-really-shouldn’t. (I really shouldn’t have that chocolate-chip muffin. Those chips. That third gin and tonic.) But there was something else about Nell, something below the salty exterior I spotted from day one: she, like me, was a woman with a secret.

I was never going to be a regular, but I went as often as I could bear to, trudging first my pregnant body and then my stroller down the hill to the park. I’d sit on my blanket, the stroller parked near the others in the triangular patches of shade under the willow tree, feeling myself grow numb as I listened to their ideas on parenting, on the very specific way certain things needed to be done. Exclusive breastfeeding. Keen attention to sleep cues. Wearing the baby at every opportunity, like he was a statement piece splurged for at Bloomingdale’s.

It’s no wonder I eventually started loathing them. Really, who can stand to listen to that level of certainty? To sit through the judgment?

What if you can’t keep up with it all? What if you’re not breastfeeding? What if, for instance, your milk has practically dried up, no matter how many Chinese herbs you ingest, or all the hours you spend attached to a pump in the middle of the night? What if you’ve been worn down by the exhaustion, and all the time and money you’ve spent learning to decipher sleep cues? What if you simply don’t have the energy to bring a snack to share?

Colette brought the muffins. Every single time—twenty-four mini muffins from the expensive bakery that had recently opened where the tapas place had been. She’d unfasten the paper box and pass them around, over the bodies of the babies. “Winnie, Nell, Scarlett, help yourselves,” she’d say. “They’re out of this world.”

So many around the circle politely declined, citing the weight they still had to lose, pulling out their carrot sticks and apple slices, but not me. My own stomach was already as flat and taut as it had been before I got pregnant. I can thank my mother for that. Good genes—that’s what people have always said about me. They’re talking about the fact that I am tall and thin, that I have a nearly symmetrical face. What they are not talking about are the other genes I’ve inherited. The ones bestowed to me not by my equally symmetrical mother, but from my exceptionally bipolar dad.

Joshua’s genes are no better. I would talk to him about this sometimes, asking if it worried him, the DNA he has to work hard to outsmart. His own crazy father: the brilliant doctor, so warm and charming with patients. The violent alcoholic behind closed doors.

Joshua didn’t like it when I spoke about his dad, though, and I learned to keep quiet about him. Of course I didn’t mention any of this—my genes, Joshua, his dad—to the May Mothers. I didn’t tell them how hard everything was without Joshua. How much I loved him. How I would have given up everything—everything—to be with him again. Even for just one night.

I couldn’t tell them that. I couldn’t tell anyone that. Not even Dr. H, shrink extraordinaire, who’d shuttered his office just when I needed him most, heading to the West Coast with his wife and three kids. I didn’t have anyone else, and so yes, in the beginning I went to their meetings, hoping to find something in common with them; something in our shared experience of motherhood that might help lift the darkness of those first few months, which everyone always said were the hardest. It’ll get easier, the health experts wrote. Give it time.

Well, things didn’t get easier. I’ve been blamed for what happened that Fourth of July night. But not a day goes by that I don’t remind myself of the truth.

It’s not my fault. It’s theirs.

It’s because of them that Midas went missing, and I lost everything. Even now, a year later, I sit alone in this prison cell, fingering the hard, jagged scar at my abdomen, thinking how differently everything might have turned out if it weren’t for them.

If I hadn’t signed up for their group. If they’d chosen another date, or another bar, or someone other than Alma to babysit that night. If the thing with the phone hadn’t occurred.

If only the words Nell spoke that day—her head tilted toward the sky, her features swallowed by the sun—hadn’t been so prescient: Bad things happen in heat like this.





Chapter Two



One Year Earlier



To: May Mothers

From: Your friends at The Village

Date: June 30

Subject: Today’s advice

Your baby: Day 47

Most of you should have gotten into the swing of breastfeeding during the last six weeks, but for those still struggling—don’t give up! Breast milk is by far the best thing you can give your baby. If you’re experiencing any difficulty, pay attention to your diet. Dairy, gluten, and caffeine can decrease your supply. And if you have pain or discomfort, consider hiring a lactation consultant to help work through the issues. It could be the best money you’ll ever spend.





“What is that supposed to mean, bad things happen in heat like this?” Francie asks, her curls frizzy around her neck, her face troubled.

Nell swats away a fly with the newspaper she’s using to fan herself. “It’s eighty-seven degrees,” she says. “In Brooklyn. In June. At ten in the morning.”

“So?”

“So maybe that’s normal in Texas—”