The Other Mother

by Carol Goodman

  “Yes,” Dr. Hancock says. “That’s one possibility.”

  “Then let’s try it,” Stan says, looking back at me. “Let’s hope it gets rid of Daphne Marist for good.”

  Laurel’s Journal, July 10, 20—

  We had dinner at Daphne’s tonight. I was surprised Stan went along with it, since he didn’t like any of my girlfriends in the city and he’d made all those mouse comments about Daphne. But he said he wanted to “encourage my bonding with other mothers in the support group.” Sheesh. Ever since he was named my conservator when I had that teensy postpartum breakdown he’s had this patronizing attitude toward me. I did a little research today on the Internet and found out that mental-health conservatorships usually expire after one year, but I also found out that I could apply to have it overturned if I can demonstrate that I’m doing better. And clearly I am doing better.

  I talked to Stan about ending the conservatorship on the drive over to Daphne and Peter’s. I told him it made me feel infantilized for him to have that power over me. At first he was very defensive. He asked me what choice had he had. He reminded me that I was raving, trying to harm myself and Chloë. I couldn’t really argue with that, because I don’t remember those couple of weeks after Chloë was born at all. When I was hospitalized they gave me shock treatment and it pretty much wiped out my memory for the whole first month of Chloë’s life. I told Stan how angry it made me that I couldn’t remember the first month of our daughter’s life and he told me I was lucky I couldn’t remember it. He said it was a nightmare.

  Which made me want to cry but I knew that if I cried he would just tell me I was acting hysterical so I stayed calm and said, “Well, that’s over. It was just a postpartum thing and now I’m better and I’d like to have the conservatorship dissolved.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He just looked straight ahead at the road. Finally he said, “Of course if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do. You do realize, though, that you’ll have to have a psychiatric evaluation. Are you sure you want to go through all that right now?”

  I told him I could handle it and he asked if I’d like him to call the lawyer to set things in motion or did I want to do it? I told him I’d call my parents’ old lawyer and Stan said that was fine and squeezed my hand. I felt so relieved!

  When we got to Daphne and Peter’s I felt like celebrating. Daphne had gotten all the ingredients for Expats because I told her I used to drink them in Edinburgh, which was really sweet of her. She’s really got a lot more to her than I thought at first. I saw all the books on her shelves and noticed that she’d read all the classics (the Brontës, Dickens, Hardy, all those nineteenth-century books I loved in college) and even though her decorating ideas were pretty plebeian (framed prints of museum posters, Pottery Barn furniture), her house was really cozy. After the Expats she opened a bottle of Prosecco and I made my “Better Prosecco than Prozac” toast, which maybe wasn’t the best choice after the conversation Stan and I had had in the car, but what the hell! I feel like I’ve been living in this prison since I got back from the hospital. No wonder I’ve had trouble bonding with Chloë when our first weeks together were fried out of my brain. Things are going to be different now. Motherhood is so much better when you’re not doing it alone. As Hillary Clinton said, “It takes a village.”

  I could tell that Stan was a little annoyed, though, by how he started looking at his phone. He said this bullshit about the Asia office when I know full well that he hasn’t had any consulting work for months. He says that’s because he’s had his hands full with taking care of me but I think that’s an excuse. I think this whole conservatorship thing has been more about giving him a sense of purpose than about my mental-health issues and that’s why he became defensive when we talked about it. He’s using it as an excuse not to find other work, which isn’t good for him either.

  Maybe he could get some deal going with Peter. They seemed to hit it off really well, which surprised me because Peter, quite frankly, has all the charm of a used-car salesman. He was so obviously trying to impress Stan with his financial acumen. The two of them vanished into Peter’s study for ages to “talk business.” Which I figured was Peter trying to get Stan to invest in his fund. Ha! I bet Peter was surprised to find out Stan doesn’t control the purse strings. When Stan came out he had on his Grinch face, which he gets when he remembers the money’s my money. He always compensates by getting bossy. So while Daphne was calling the taxi for Vanessa he went into the nursery and was fussing with Chloë in her portable crib. He said he wanted to make sure she was all right, like I wasn’t capable of putting her in her car seat. I got a little mad and he left in a huff.

  I stood for a few minutes to get my bearings and looked around the nursery. It’s really too frilly for my taste but I could see all the work Daphne had put into it. There’s a whole bookshelf of children’s books and all the pictures of Chloe in her first few weeks and a Baby’s First Year calendar on the wall. I flipped through the calendar and saw all the silly things Daphne had written down in it, like Baby’s First Bath! And Baby’s First Trip to the Park! And then I started to cry because I couldn’t remember any of that with Chloë. It made me want what Daphne had so badly!

  Which maybe explains what happened next.

  I took Chloë out of the portable crib that Daphne had set up and put her in the car seat. My eyes were all blurry from crying, so maybe I just couldn’t see very well. But you’d think a real mother would know her own baby just by touch and smell. But I didn’t. When we were ready to leave Daphne noticed that the baby I’d taken was her Chloe. I was mortified. I tried to make a joke of it but you could tell everyone was shocked. Stan just stared at me. When we got in the car he said, “Are you sure you’re ready to be evaluated by a psychiatrist right now?”

  I cried all the way home.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the days leading up to my evaluation I am given more freedom than I’ve had yet. I’m released to my own room and given permission to spend time in the recreation lounge. I’m even allowed to go outside with an escort. At first I don’t know what to make of the sudden change in treatment but then, as my meds are reduced and I can think clearly again, I realize that Dr. Hancock must be worried about how the outside evaluators will look at my treatment.

  Which tells me two things. One, my treatment so far—isolated, confined to the Green Room, and doped up to the gills—has not been standard. The question is, why has Dr. Hancock treated me differently than he would another patient? The answer must be that someone wants me kept here. Stan, no doubt. But how has he been able to influence Dr. Hancock? With money? Laurel’s money?

  It scares me to think of the power of Laurel’s money marshaled against me. But then I realize the second thing: if Dr. Hancock is worried about my evaluation, there is a chance I can convince the two other doctors that I’m not crazy. Maybe I can even convince them I’m not Laurel Hobbes.

  I work on my strategy while sitting in the recreation lounge, a large, sunny room on the ground floor with big windows and glass doors overlooking the lawn and gardens. It resembles the lobby of a resort hotel, complete with bucolic watercolor landscapes of the grounds and surrounding mountains. Anyone visiting Crantham would think it’s a model of humane treatment for the mentally ill, albeit one with a rather strange clientele. My fellow patients look harmless enough, lounging in wicker chairs, playing cards, doing jigsaw puzzles at folding tables, or strolling back and forth on the terrace. Only when I get closer do I see the flaws in the scene. At the card table a young unshaven man in his twenties keeps shouting, “Go fish!” to the complicated bridge bids of a gaunt old woman with owl-like eyes. The sullen teenager writing in a journal is writing the same line—I HATE EVERYBODY—over and over again. The professorial gentleman reading on the terrace never turns a page of his book. When I get close enough to overhear conversations I learn that the bridge player thinks she’s at her country club waiting for her husband to finish a round of
golf, her unshaven partner is telling an invisible companion that the train will arrive in Seattle soon, and the professor thinks he’s J.R.R. Tolkien.

  And then there’s Edith Sharp.

  I almost don’t recognize her, she’s so diminished since the day of her attempted escape. Shorn of her dandelion-puff hair, she sits listlessly on a sofa near the French doors, gazing longingly at the lawn. I only recognize her when I sit down next to her and she turns her haunted eyes toward me. “Is it teatime yet?” she asks in a wispy Southern drawl.

  “Oh,” I say, startled by those wide green eyes. “I don’t know. I’m new here.”

  “Are you a transfer?” she asks.

  “A transfer?” I repeat. Does she mean from another mental institute?

  “I transferred from Sweet Briar,” she tells me, “for the art history department. They have the best art history department here. You see these paintings?” She gestures at the landscapes on the walls. “They were done by a famous painter. The college’s art collection is one of the very best, only . . .” She looks around nervously and then leans toward me. Her breath smells like copper pipes. “Only some of these Northern girls aren’t the friendliest.”

  I remember Dr. Hancock saying that Edith had her breakdown her sophomore year at Vassar. She’s even fit the paintings on the walls into her fantasy. That’s where she is now. Vassar circa 1971.

  I realize that everyone here thinks they’re someone—or somewhere—else. If I try to tell my evaluators that I’m really Daphne Marist, they’ll chalk it up to delusion and certify that I’m incompetent. But if I pretend to be Laurel Hobbes I’ll be saddled with Laurel’s history of mental illness—and successful ECT therapy. I’m caught in a Catch-22.

  On my third day in the recreation lounge I’m sitting on the sofa next to Edith. She’s flipping through a stack of homemade cards—color copies of famous paintings pasted on cardboard. Edith keeps them together with a piece of red ribbon that she ties around her wrist when she’s flipping through them.

  “Would you help me study for the final?” she asks when I sit down near her.

  I hold up each card and she recites the name of the artwork, the artist, the date it was made, and a few comments. She does surprisingly well. We’ve gotten to the Baroque when Ben Marcus walks past the terrace. Seeing him startles me, and my first instinct is to hide. The distance I’ve fallen since we met—from professional archivist, dressed in nice clothes, to bedraggled mental patient in pajamas—is too great. I’m embarrassed for him to see me like this.

  Then I feel Edith’s hand in mine. “Is that a boy you like?” she asks in her girlish voice.

  I start to object but when I look into her green eyes I’m startled by how keen they are. For all her delusions, Edith is surprisingly observant. “You should talk to him,” she says. She’s right, I realize. He may be my best way out of here.

  I get up and walk quickly out the French doors. I can hear an orderly calling me, but I ignore him. He catches up with me quickly, though. “Where are you going so fast, Laurie?” he asks, his meaty hand gripping my elbow.

  “It’s Laurel, not Laurie,” I say in exactly the same imperious tone Laurel would use when someone got her name wrong. For a moment my—Laurel’s?—reaction stops me cold. How am I going to convince anyone I’m Daphne Marist when even I have stopped believing it?

  The orderly turns me around as Ben Marcus vanishes over the hill behind the golf course. I allow myself to be meekly led back into the lounge. Edith is waiting for me on the sofa, a sad look on her face. She pats my hand when I sit down beside her. “Don’t you fret,” she says, kindly. “I see that boy walking by the golf course all the time. He must be on the golf team. You’ll get another chance. Now, here, help me with these Madonna-and-child paintings. I never can tell my Fra Angelicos from my Fra Filippo Lippis.”

  The next day I abandon Edith and find a seat on the terrace. I can see she’s hurt—I’ve become another unfriendly Northern girl—but I need to watch for Ben Marcus.

  It’s colder than I expected outside, which makes me realize how long I’ve been at Crantham. It was summer when I arrived at Sky Bennett’s house but now the leaves are turning. I’d like to go inside and get a sweater, but I don’t want to risk missing Ben Marcus, so I sit shivering on a lawn chair, my arms wrapped around my chest. I’m watching so intensely that I don’t know anyone’s behind me until I feel hands on my shoulders.

  I flinch, but then I see it’s just Edith draping a crocheted afghan around my shoulders. She sits down beside me and takes out a piece of paper and pencil. “Why didn’t you tell me it was time for sketching class?” she says, sweeping her pencil across the paper. “I love drawing landscapes, don’t you? And I love our new drawing teacher. Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

  I agree that our drawing teacher is handsome and to keep Edith happy I accept a piece of paper and one of the cardboard-backed art photographs to lean on, and begin sketching the line of trees and the house and tower rising above them. It’s the perfect excuse for being out here, and once again I marvel at Edith’s canniness. It’s also oddly soothing to draw the rough outlines of the landscape, even though I’ve never had much artistic talent. And this time I see Ben Marcus as soon as he appears on the rise.

  I stand up and call his name in as clear and loud a voice as I can muster. It comes out sounding like a hysterical plea, but at least it captures his attention. He stops and shields his eyes to look at me as if I’m too bright to look at. I imagine a crazy aura around me, like the picture I saw once in an Intro to Psychology textbook of a drawing of a cat made by a schizophrenic.

  Ben Marcus lifts his hand and waves back at me. Then he turns to go on his way.

  I break into a run, screaming his name, and flailing my arms over my head. I hear the thud of feet behind me and guess that the guards are in pursuit, but I’ve gotten enough of a head start to reach Ben Marcus before they do. I skid to a stop a few feet before him and hold up my hands. “I just want to talk to you,” I plead. “Please.”

  His eyes narrow and his brow furrows as if he’s angry, but I can see a slight quirk of his mouth that might be a sign of indulgence. He looks past me as one of the guards roughly grabs my arm. “Easy, Connor, Mrs. Hobbes just wants a chat. I’ve got it from here.”

  “But she doesn’t have grounds privileges,” Connor says, his hand still gripping my arm.

  Marcus fixes his eyes on Connor’s hand. “Then I’ll walk her back to the lounge,” he says slowly, as if speaking to a child. “You’d better get back to your post, Connor, the professor is heading for the trees again.”

  We all turn to watch the professor shambling across the lawn, waving his arms at the trees as if he were hailing an army of Ents. Connor swears and takes off running. “Go easy!” Marcus calls after him. “He’s an old man.” Then he turns to me. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Hobbes? I hope you don’t expect me to escort you off the grounds. You know I can’t do that.”

  The reference to our former relationship stings, but at least it gets right to the point. “You know I didn’t seem crazy when you met me,” I say. “I’m not. I’m being kept here under false pretenses and I need your help.”

  Instead of looking surprised at my statement he looks weary, as if he’s heard this sort of thing before.

  “So you didn’t claim to be someone else when your husband showed up?”

  I know my safest path out of here is to convince everyone I know that I’m Laurel, but looking into Ben Marcus’s eyes I remember how I’d disliked lying to him the first day I met him. “I did,” I tell him. “But that’s because I’m not Laurel Hobbes. I’m Daphne Marist.”

  “The Westchester woman who killed herself in the bathtub?”

  “Yes. That’s me. The woman they found in the bathtub was Laurel Hobbes, my friend, and she didn’t kill herself. She was murdered. That’s why they need to keep me here, because I know something . . . or would if I could just stop taking these drugs and remember.”
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br />   It all sounds so crazy when I say it out loud. I expect Ben Marcus to escort me straight back to the hospital and remand me into the care of the doctors, but instead he leads me to a bench beneath an oak tree. “Okay,” he says, sitting down beside me. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

  THE SPOT HE’S chosen is peaceful. We’re facing an unmowed meadow of gold and purple grasses. The leaves above us cast deep violet shadows. I have the feeling Ben Marcus has chosen this spot for its calming effect, but the signs of autumn are alarming. Time is slipping away from me, summer gone, and autumn tipping into winter. I have the feeling that once winter comes I will be trapped here, snowbound in Laurel’s body and name.

  Start from the beginning, he said, but what was the beginning? When Chloe was born? When Peter found me drowning in the bathtub? When he sent me to the support group? When I met Laurel—

  That’s where I begin. I tell him about making friends with Laurel, how good it was to find someone who understood what it was like to be all alone with a baby.

  “What about your husband?” he interrupts. “Wasn’t he around to help?”

  “Yes,” I say, “actually Peter was really helpful. He adores Chloe. Only that sometimes made me feel even more alone. . . .” I falter, unsure how to explain. Instead I ask him if he has children.

  “A six-year-old daughter,” he says, looking away. “She lives with her mother. Tell me what happened after you met Laurel.”

  So I’m not the only one who has things she doesn’t want to talk about. But I am the one confined to a mental institution and about to get her brain fried so I tell him about Laurel. “She is—was—one of those people who draws people to her. You know? Like all the light in the room gravitates toward her. It’s so crazy anyone thinking I’m her. I’m nothing like her.”

  “You were pretty lit up when I met you.”

  I blush at the compliment—if it is a compliment. “Maybe because I was pretending to be Laurel,” I say. “I bet I don’t look very ‘lit up’ right now.”