Chapter 61

61

Our brains are always watching. Looking for danger—a threat could come at any time. Information comes in and it does two things: it hits our consciousness, where we can observe and remember it. And it hits our subconscious, where a little almond-shaped section of the brain called the amygdala filters it for signs of danger. We can sense fear in less time than it takes for us to be aware of what we are seeing or hearing or smelling—just twelve-thousandths of a second. We respond so fast that it can happen before we’re consciously aware that something is wrong. Like if we see a car coming. Like if we see someone about to get hit.

Reflexes. They tell you about the most natural reflex in the world when you give birth to your baby—the oxytocin reflex. The mothering hormone. It makes the milk flow, fill ducts, stream into the baby’s mouth. It starts to work when the mother expects she needs to feed. When she smells or touches or sees her baby. But it also affects a mother’s behavior. It makes her calm, it reduces her stress. And it makes her like her baby. It makes her look at her baby and want to keep him alive.

There was a viral video circulating online of a famous woman, a young British aristocrat the tabloids loved, and her rambunctious young son. Three different times she’s catching him in perilous moments—swooping in to grab his hand as he falls down the wet steps of an airplane, yanking the neck of his shirt on the slippery bow of a yacht, pulling him back from a polo pony’s path in the nick of time. Like a viper snapping a mouse in the clutches of her jaw. The instincts of a mother. Even that mother—flanked with nannies, brooched and heeled, with a fascinator pinned to her curls.

Violet picked up my phone one Sunday morning not long after you moved out and found the video on YouTube. She took the seat right next to me on the couch, in the beam of warm weekend sun. I’d been reading. She held the phone up.

“Have you seen this?”

I watched it. She stared at me intently for the entire sixty seconds.

“The mom saves her kid every time,” she said.

“So she does.” I put my book down and reached for my tea. My hand trembled holding the cup. I wanted to smack her. I wanted to knock her head back into the couch and make her mouth bleed.

You stupid fucking little girl. You killer.

Instead I left the room and cried quietly over the kitchen sink as the water ran. I was so sad. I missed him desperately. It was almost his fourth birthday.