Page 3 of The Other Mother
I should know my own baby.
The shower is still running. Adam's voice echoes off the bathroom tiles, something about California love and city streets. He's been happier since we moved here. Less stressed. His skin has that healthy glow people get when they finally trade the long Orange County commutes for wide open spaces and clean air.
I look different too, but not in a good way. The mirror in our bedroom shows a stranger with hollow eyes and skin that looks like it's been stretched too thin. My hair,which used to be thick and shiny, hangs limp around my face like dead grass.
Eva shifts in my arms and makes a sound that's almost like a sigh. When I look down at her, she's still staring at me with those dark, knowing eyes.
"What are you thinking about?" I whisper.
She doesn't answer, obviously. But something in her expression makes my skin prickle. Like she understands more than she should. Like she's cataloging my weaknesses, filing them away for later.
The thought is ridiculous. She's six weeks old. She can barely hold her head up, let alone plot against me. But the feeling persists, settling into my chest like a stone.
I close my eyes and try to remember the last clear moment I had. Before the birth, before the move, before everything became this hazy nightmare of feedings and diaper changes and Adam's concerned looks.
I was in our old apartment in Orange County, packing boxes for the move. Six months pregnant and miserable, but still myself. Still Claire Matthews, former assistant editor, current aspiring novelist, woman who knew her own mind.
That Claire wouldn't have questioned whether she changed her baby's clothes. That Claire would have remembered putting Eva down for a nap. That Claire would have known, beyond any doubt, whether her own child was in her crib.
But that Claire died in the delivery room somewherebetween the emergency c-section and the moment they placed this dark-eyed stranger on her chest.
The shower stops running. Adam will be out soon, hair damp and skin flushed, smelling like the expensive body wash he orders online because the drugstore brands aren't good enough anymore. He'll ask if I ordered dinner yet and I'll lie and say I forgot, and he'll sigh and order it himself while I sit here holding this baby who feels like a beautiful, terrible mistake.
Eva's eyes flutter closed. Her breathing evens out into the shallow rhythm of infant sleep. I should put her back in her crib, but I'm afraid to move. Afraid that if I stand up, the world will shift again and nothing will be where I left it.
Instead, I sit in the borrowed glider in the too-quiet house in the desert that never wanted us, holding a baby who might not be mine, and try to remember what it felt like to be certain about anything.
The wind picks up again, rattling the windows with its desert fingers. Somewhere in the distance a coyote calls to its pack. The sound is wild and lonely and exactly how I feel.
I look down at Eva one more time. Her face is peaceful in sleep, almost angelic. But even with her eyes closed, I can feel her watching me.
This doesn't feel like my baby.
2
THAT'S NOT YOUR BABY
The Desert Springs Wellness Center smells like industrial disinfectant and the kind of vanilla air freshener they use in dentist offices. Everything here is beige. Beige walls, beige carpet, beige chairs arranged in a perfect circle like we're about to perform some suburban ritual sacrifice.
Eva's car seat sits heavy on me, the handle cutting into my forearm despite the padded grip. She's been asleep since we left the house, which should be a relief but somehow makes me more anxious. What if she wakes up during the meeting? What if she cries and I can't console her in front of all these other mothers who seem to have figured out some secret I'm missing?
I'm early because I was terrified of being late. The drive only took fifteen minutes because there's no traffic here, everything is close and central, but I left the house over thirty minutes ago anyway. These desert streets alllook the same. Identical stucco houses, identical palm trees planted at regulation intervals, identical mailboxes shaped like little adobe missions.
When we lived in Orange County, it would take forty-five minutes to go anywhere, even off-peak hours. I knew every shortcut from our condo to my office in Newport Beach, but it still meant sitting in traffic, watching brake lights stretch endlessly ahead. Here I can drive across town in the time it used to take me to get out of our neighborhood, but I still can't find the grocery store without GPS.
The air conditioning is cranked so high my nipples are already sore through my nursing bra. I should have brought a sweater, but Eva spit up on the only cardigan that still fits and I didn't have time to change. Everything feels urgent these days, like I'm always running late for something I can't name.
I sit in a chair facing the door so I can watch the other women arrive. Habit from my old job, where I learned to read people in publishing meetings. The desperate writers, the overconfident editors, the agents who smiled while they planned to stab you in the back. I got good at spotting tells.
The first woman who walks in looks like she hasn't slept in months. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun that might have started neat this morning, and she's carrying a diaper bag that's seen better days. She gives me a tired smile and sits three chairs away.
"First time?" she asks.
I nod. "You?"
"Third week. It gets better." But she doesn't sound convinced.
More women trickle in. A blonde with perfect makeup who looks like she stepped out of a fancy yoga studio. A redhead in scrubs who must be coming straight from work. A woman about my age wearing a Cal State Fullerton sweatshirt that makes me homesick.
