The Other Mother

by Carol Goodman

  Peter’s still on the phone so I think I’ll just take Chloe with me. I feel a little nervous but also good about it. It’s time I stopped thinking about just myself. For the first time since Chloe was born I feel like I’m really in control.

  LATER.

  Okay, that didn’t go so well and now I’m really scared.

  I got over there and Simone answered the door. When she saw me she stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

  “Did she call you?” she asked.

  I told her no and explained that I was worried about her. Simone shook her head and for an awful moment I thought she was going to send me away, but then she said how Laurel had been in an awful state and she was worried about her and Chloë. “I told Mr. Hobbes she should not be left on her own.”

  “Are you afraid she might hurt Chloë?” I asked.

  Her eyes got all glassy and she put her hand on my arm and nodded. I could see she was too upset to talk. And I also realized how young Simone is and how hard it must be for her, living in a foreign country. When I asked if she would keep an eye on Chloe when I went in to see Laurel she said yes, but she begged me not to tell Laurel that she had let me in, because she might yell at her later.

  I’m not sure what I expected but I never thought a person could change so much in a week. Laurel was wearing a pair of sweatpants that I thought must have belonged to Stan, because I was pretty sure she didn’t own anything so baggy. She was sitting on the couch flipping through the TV channels, only her eyes were so glazed I don’t think she was really seeing anything. Her hair was hanging around her face, lank and greasy like she hadn’t washed it in days. Her skin was so white I thought for a moment she must have a facial mask on, but then I saw the dark rings under her eyes and smudged eyeliner and realized she probably hadn’t even washed her face since I was here last. When she looked up at me, she barely seemed to register my existence. Like I was just another channel on the television. I sat down on the edge of the couch and noticed a smell. At first I thought it was the couch but then I realized it was Laurel.

  “Hey,” I said after a few minutes. “I came by to see if you were all right.”

  She made a sound, like a little croak, but then I realized it was a laugh. “And what do you think?” she asked, still staring at the television set. “Do I look all right to you?”

  “No,” I admitted. “You look like shit.”

  She laughed harder at that, so hard she started coughing. I offered her the half-filled water bottle on the coffee table but she waved it away. “Stan mixed that for me. It’s supposed to have electrolytes and stuff in it but it tastes like shit. I think he’s trying to poison me.”

  “Why would Stan do that?” I asked.

  “To get my inheritance,” she replied. Then she grinned, which looked all wrong on her face. “But he’s in for a surprise. I’ve changed my will so he’s no longer Chloë’s guardian, so he won’t have control of the money.”

  I was so shocked that I couldn’t say anything right away but then I remembered what I’d read about people with BPD. Once their Favorite Person fell from grace they were completely devalued. Maybe Stan had been her FP once and now she was devaluing him. “He must know that,” I said, trying to talk to her logically. “So why would he poison you?”

  “Good point,” she said, taking the bottle from me and taking a swig. “Maybe he’s just trying to drive me mad so he can take Chloë away from me and have me committed.”

  I started to argue with her but then I saw that’s what she wanted. Whatever I said she’d find some flaw in it. So instead I said, “So why are you helping him?”

  She stared at me for a minute. I thought she was going to get angry at me, but she just tilted her head and smiled. “You know, you’re smarter than you look.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be angry or flattered by that, so I just said, “I’ve been told I look a lot like you.”

  This time when she laughed it sounded like a real laugh and then she started crying. “Maybe not so much right now,” she said. She was right; we don’t look that much alike anymore. The funny thing is that with her roots grown out, the dark circles under her eyes, and the couple of pounds she’s put on, she looks like the old me—the me before I met Laurel. It’s like we’ve switched places.

  I moved closer to her on the couch and touched her arm. “Hey,” I said, “you’ve got so much going for you. You could go anywhere. You have enough money.”

  “It’s protected even from me,” she said. “If I tried to leave, Stan would have me declared incompetent.”

  That didn’t sound at all like Stan, but I knew it was better not to argue with her. “Then get a job,” I said. “If I had your credentials I’d apply for one of those fancy archival positions. I saw these . . .” I handed her the folder of job ads. She paged through them listlessly then let the folder slide into the gap between the cushions. “Don’t you see? It would be a way out. You could start over. Find yourself again.”

  “What do you mean find myself?” she asked suspiciously.

  I realized I couldn’t say I’d been reading about people with BPD or she’d know that Stan had told me, and that would just make her more paranoid. “I’ve been reading . . . about women with postpartum depression. Like us. Sometimes we can feel like we’ve lost touch with who we are . . . it can feel like we’ve lost ourselves.”

  She turned her head and looked at me—really looked at me—for the first time since I’d come in, her eyes traveling up from my new Tod’s loafers to the New Religion jeans and boho Anthropologie top and Kate Spade diaper bag (with all the right pockets) to my artfully tousled and highlighted hair.

  “Look at you,” she said. “You’re the one who’s lost yourself. Why don’t you apply for one of these jobs if they sound so great?”

  “I don’t have the credentials,” I said, determined not to be hurt by her words. “You do.”

  “Then use mine,” Laurel said. “You’ve taken everything else that was mine. Why not take my name too?”

  I knew it was just her sickness talking, but still it stung to hear her put it like that. She’d encouraged me to go to her hairdresser and buy the diaper bag with all the right pockets and dress like her. But with her looking at me like that I saw how pathetic I was, how ridiculous it made me look. Like some kind of wannabe.

  “Okay,” I said, getting up. “Call me if you want to talk. If not for your own sake, then for Chloë’s.”

  She laughed again, but it was that strangled sound that really wasn’t a laugh at all. “Maybe she’d be better off without me. Maybe I should walk into the Hudson with rocks in my pockets like Virginia Woolf.”

  It sounded so much like my own voice—the one that had urged me to kill myself—that for a moment I was sure it was my bad voice talking, not Laurel. But then I looked down at Laurel and realized that her head must be full of those bad voices.

  “Laurel,” I said, “you wouldn’t . . . you’re not thinking of hurting yourself, are you?”

  She looked up at me, startled, her blurry eyes focusing for the first time since I’d come in. “What would make you say something like that?” she asked in a hoarse voice I didn’t recognize.

  “It’s just that Stan said . . .”

  “What?” she snapped when I hesitated. “What did Stan say?”

  I realized I’d made a mistake. If I told her that Stan told me about her suicide attempt she’d feel betrayed, but if I didn’t—and she does hurt herself—I’d never forgive myself. The second option seemed worse. “He said you tried to kill yourself. It’s nothing to feel ashamed about; I did it too, just after Chloe was born. I just felt so overwhelmed and tired. I just wanted to sleep. I don’t even think I meant to. Maybe you didn’t mean to either.” I could hear myself babbling and knew I was about to start crying, so I shut up.

  Laurel stared up at me, her mouth literally hanging open. “Did you tell anyone about this?” she asked finally. “About my so-called suicide attempt?”


  “Only Peter,” I said. “And he was so sympathetic. He urged me to come over—”

  “Get out,” she said, so quietly that at first I thought I must have misheard her. Then she got louder. “GET OUT!!!”

  I was so surprised I jumped. Then I grabbed the folder off the couch and ran to the door. I was crying so hard I couldn’t see. I had to put down my bag and the folder to wipe my eyes. Simone brought Chloe and held her out to me. For a moment I just couldn’t take her. Laurel’s words were ringing in my head. Maybe she’d be better off without me. Maybe she’d be better off without me. It felt like the words had gotten stuck in my head and I couldn’t hold Chloe until I had shaken them off.

  “Leave it!” I said out loud.

  Simone stared at me like I was crazy. Like I’d been talking about Chloe. I didn’t know how to explain so I just grabbed Chloe and my diaper bag and walked to my car. I cried all the way home, Laurel’s words going through my head over and over again. Maybe she’d be better off without me, maybe she’d be better off without me. I think for the first time I really understood what it meant to lose your mind and it made me scared. What if that happened to me? What would happen to Chloe? I knew I’d never hurt her in my right mind but what if I wasn’t in my right mind? What if those voices came back, like the ones that had told me to take the sleeping pills and drown myself in the tub? What if this time I took Chloe with me into the tub? It would be better, a voice said, to kill yourself first.

  Which made a certain kind of sense.

  I thought Peter would be out when I got home but he wasn’t. He was waiting for me on the porch.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked because he looked like he’d gotten bad news. He had his laptop in his lap so I thought it must be something in the stock market. He turned it around so I could see the screen. It took me a few minutes to realize what I was looking at—the screen was open to the job site where I had looked up the archivist jobs for Laurel. It was my laptop he was holding, not his.

  “What are you doing with my laptop?” I asked. It came out angrier-sounding than I’d meant it because I was still so on edge from seeing Laurel.

  “I was having trouble getting online so I was checking to see if the problem was with my computer or the modem—I didn’t think you’d mind. I was surprised to find that you were looking at jobs, especially ones so far away.”

  “I was looking for Laurel,” I said.

  “Why would she be looking for work,” Peter scoffed. “She’s loaded.”

  “I thought it would make her feel more independent. You know it can be dispiriting being home all day with a baby without any intellectual stimulation.”

  “Is that how you feel?”

  I started to deny it but then I realized that maybe it was how I felt. “Maybe,” I said. “A little. Would it be so bad if I went back to work? You’re always saying we’re tight for money—”

  “We’re doing fine right now,” he snapped. He hated when I put it that way. We’ve got some cash-flow issues was his preferred terminology, but I was damned if I was going to say that. “And how would it look if a hedge-fund manager’s wife was working at the local school’s library?”

  “Lots of rich women work.”

  “At prestigious jobs, not as school librarians.”

  I felt my cheeks burning as if he’d slapped me. When we met he’d seemed charmed that I was a school librarian. When had it become something to be embarrassed about? But he was right. It wasn’t the kind of job a rich woman would do.

  “I’ve been thinking of getting an archival degree.” As I said it I realized it was true. I wanted to do more than shelve Nancy Drews for the rest of my life.

  “So, you were looking at those jobs for yourself.”

  The way he said it, like he’d caught me out in a lie, lit something in me. A spark of anger that I hadn’t even known was smoldering. “And what if I had been? What if I’m tired of being lectured about money all the time? I could work, make my own money, be independent—”

  “You’d better think carefully about what you’re saying,” he said in a voice so low I could feel it rumble in my bowels.

  “Or what?” I asked, that spark flaring into flame. “I’m Chloe’s mother, mothers always get custody.”

  “Not mentally ill ones.”

  I felt like I’d been slapped. “I-I’ve just had some postpartum depression.”

  “You tried to kill yourself,” he said. “You’re on antidepressants. If you try to leave me, I’ll sue for full custody and I’ll make sure you never see Chloe again.”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I couldn’t say anything. Peter stared at me for another moment and then he got up and reached for Chloe’s car seat. I stepped back and nearly fell off the porch. He grabbed my arm to steady me.

  “I’ll take Chloe in and give her a bath,” he said. “You try to get a hold of yourself.”

  I hadn’t even realized I was crying. I ran upstairs and locked myself in the bedroom and cried and cried. And then I started writing all this down so I could figure out how things had gotten so out of hand. I hadn’t even been thinking of leaving Peter—

  Or had I?

  Those jobs in Vermont and New York do sound awfully appealing—

  Not that I would ever take Chloe away from Peter. I know how much he loves her, which is why he got upset when he thought I was trying to take Chloe from him—

  What if he takes her from me?

  Writing all this down isn’t helping. I think I need to talk to someone. I’m going to try calling Laurel.

  I’M REALLY SCARED now. I went to look for my phone in Chloe’s diaper bag but I couldn’t find it. I searched the bag again and found a wallet, only it wasn’t mine; it was Laurel’s. I just stared at it, trying to figure out how Laurel’s wallet had gotten into my diaper bag. Then it came to me. I’d taken Laurel’s bag. Hers had been sitting by the door. I must have picked up hers by mistake.

  And then a really scary thing happened. I heard Laurel’s voice in my head saying You’ve taken everything that was mine. It was like she was right there in the room with me. It made me think that Peter might be right. I am mentally unfit to take care of Chloe. I’m the one who has lost myself. I’m the one who’s hearing strange voices in my head.

  Then I heard Laurel’s voice say He’s going to take her from you and You have to get away before he does.

  The scariest thing is that I think the voice might be right, but I can’t help also remembering what Laurel said about hearing voices: They all sound sensible at the time.

  Chapter Nine

  I leave Dr. Hancock’s office feeling shaken. I don’t know what I’d been expecting. To find Edith Sharp had lived a happy, productive life, raised five children, written a memoir about her brush with madness and her miraculous recovery? I’m beginning to see that no one who is brushed with madness is left unscathed. Just hearing Edith Sharp’s story has left me with blurry vision and a splitting headache that feels like an alarm going off in my head. An insistent wailing cry—

  There is an alarm going off—a deafening siren. When I step out of Dr. Hancock’s office the receptionist is standing at the window fingering her pearls. Ben Marcus is nowhere in sight. “What’s going on?” I ask. “Where’s Officer Marcus?”

  The secretary gives me a startled look. “An alarm’s gone off in C Ward. It’s—”

  Before she can finish, Dr. Hancock comes rushing out of his office. “Code Red!” he barks to his secretary. She turns as white as her pearls.

  “What does that mean?” I ask, but Dr. Hancock and his secretary are already walking away. Dr. Hancock turns back to snap, “Stay put!”

  Two more doors open in the hall and two doctors in white coats come out and join them in their hurried flight to the elevators. Then I am alone in the reception room staring at the painting of the disembodied eye.

  Which isn’t very comforting at all.

  I go to the window to see what the secretary had been lookin
g at. The retired Lehman Brothers golfer is waving his golf club over his head while two orderlies in white scrubs try to placate him. Is that the Code Red? But the secretary said the alarm had gone off in C Ward. Isn’t that one of the wings in this building? Ben Marcus said that the doors between the wards and the central part of the building are locked and guarded. So I have nothing to worry about.

  So why had Dr. Hancock and his secretary looked so worried?

  And how long am I supposed to wait here like a sitting duck? At the very least Dr. Hancock should have suggested I sit in his office. If he’d had the time I’m sure he would have thought of it. He left the door open. . . .

  I let myself in, close the door behind me, and lock it. The snick of metal makes me feel instantly better. I pour myself a glass of water and sit down in the plush comfortable chair. I look again at the bookshelves, at the framed diplomas, at the file cabinet . . .

  The drawer from which Dr. Hancock had taken out Edith Sharp’s file is slightly ajar. Would it really do any harm to look at it? After all, Sky had given her permission. And I need something to keep my mind off that infernal siren.

  I open the drawer. The file is still sticking up so I’m able to pluck it out quickly, upending the file behind it so I’ll know where to put it back. I flip it open, being careful that nothing falls out. The first thing I notice is a photograph of a young woman stapled to the inside of the folder. She’s wearing a neat hairdo—bangs, shoulder-length hair curled under, a headband—that looks like it might have been popular in the sixties—or the early seventies if you were a conservative proper girl.

  A scream rends the air and I nearly drop the folder. It sounds impossibly near, practically in the room. But that’s only because it’s coming from the open window. Still holding the folder, I cross to the window. Outside I can see a woman running from the building, a uniformed guard chasing after her. She is wearing loose gray pajamas. Her hair is a white nimbus floating over her head like a cloud, and as she runs up the slope of the golf course I have the impression that the cloud will bear her aloft into the air. I watch, willing it to happen, but then the guard—Ben Marcus, I realize—catches up with her and grabs her around the waist. She spins around and for a moment they look like they’re dancing. But then I see her face. She’s looking up into the air as if she were expecting help to come from above. Her gaze falls on me at the window and our eyes meet for a second before Ben Marcus tackles her to the ground. I flinch, but whether in sympathy for the impact of her hitting the ground or the impact of those wide green eyes I’m not sure.