Chapter 19

19

For the next few months I decided not to write. I decided to focus on Violet.

My doctor didn’t think I was suffering from postpartum depression, and so neither did I. I’d done a quiz on the clipboard in her waiting room:

Have you been stressed or worried for no good reason? No

Have you been dreading things you used to look forward to? No

Have you been so unhappy that you can’t sleep? No

Do you have thoughts of harming yourself? No

Do you have thoughts of harming your baby? No

She recommended I make more time for myself and get back to the things I used to enjoy before I had the baby. Like writing. This, I knew, wouldn’t go over well with you. Instead I told you she suggested some exercise and more time outside and a follow-up in six weeks. I began walking with Violet in the morning as soon as you left the house. We’d go for hours. I’d take her all the way downtown to your office, and you’d meet us for coffee. You loved the way Violet squealed when she saw you step off the elevator, and you loved to see me with a rosy-fresh face, looking like I was enjoying myself. She was almost a year by then and seemed lit up by the world around her, and so I signed us up for Mommy and Me music classes and a swim program. You warmed to me again—you liked this version of me and it felt good. And by then I had a lot to prove. We kept busy and I kept quiet.

Were there good moments? Of course there were. One night I put music on while I cleaned the kitchen. Food was everywhere—all over my clothes and her face and the floor. She laughed in her chair as I danced with the whisk in my hand. Her arms reached out for me. I swooped her up and twirled across the kitchen and she threw her head back and squealed. I realized we had never had these experiences together—we had never found the comfort, the silly, the fun. Mrs. Ellington and her puppet. Maybe we could have that, too. Instead I was always looking for what was wrong with us. I smothered her in kisses and she pulled away to stare at me—she was used to this kind of affection only from you. She leaned into my face with her wet open lips and made an ahhhh sound.

“Yeah. We’re trying, aren’t we?” I whispered.

You cleared your throat. You had been watching us there in the doorway. You smiled. I could see the relief as your shoulders relaxed. We were picture-perfect in that kitchen.

When you came back from changing, you poured two glasses of wine and kissed me on the head and then you said, “I was thinking. You should get back to writing again.”

I’d passed whatever test you were putting me through. We desperately wanted life to feel good; we both had hope that it could. I put my nose in Violet’s sticky neck and took the glass of wine from you.