Chapter 10

10

You’re anxious. She can sense it,” you said. She’d cried for five and a half hours. I cried for four of those. I made you look up the definition of colic in one of the baby books.

“More than three hours, for three days a week, for three weeks straight.”

“She’s been crying longer than that.”

“She’s only been here for five days, Blythe.”

“I mean hours. Longer than three hours.”

“She’s just gassy, I think.”

“I need you to cancel your parents’ trip here.” I couldn’t deal with your perfect mother being there for Christmas in a couple of weeks. She called constantly, and every conversation started with I know things are different these days, but trust me. . . . Gripe water. Tighter swaddles. Rice cereal in the bottle.

“They’ll be a big help for you, honey. For all of us.” You wanted your perfect mother there.

“I’m still bleeding through my pad. I smell like rotting flesh. I can’t put my shirt on, my boobs are too sore. Look at me, Fox.”

“I’ll call them tonight.”

“Can you take her?”

“Give her here. Go get some sleep.”

“I think the baby hates me.”

“Shhh.”

I’d been warned about those hard, early days. I’d been warned about breasts like cement boulders. Cluster feeds. The squirt bottle. I’d read all the books. I’d done the research. Nobody talked about the feeling of being woken up after forty minutes of sleep, on bloodstained sheets, with the dread of knowing what had to happen next. I felt like the only mother in the world who wouldn’t survive it. The only mother who couldn’t recover from having her perineum stitched from her anus to her vagina. The only mother who couldn’t fight through the pain of newborn gums cutting like razor blades on her nipples. The only mother who couldn’t pretend to function with her brain in the vise of sleeplessness. The only mother who looked down at her daughter and thought, Please. Go away.

Violet cried only when she was with me; it felt like a betrayal.

We were supposed to want each other.