2

When we got home, my mother-in-law was on the living room sofa holding our daughter, her face like thunder. After the baby came, Julian had moved his mother and sister into the house, saying that being a full-time mom was too hard and I needed family to help. That was when my nightmare began.

Julian said he still had work to finish and went straight upstairs to his study.

My mother-in-law watched his back disappear, then spoke.

“Claire, you’re a mother now, and Lucy won’t go to anyone but you. Stop running around! Don’t you ever think that your daughter needs to nurse? How could you come home as late as Julian?”

Melissa was lying on the chaise, playing a game on her phone.

“Wow, that outfit is way too tight. It makes you look so fat!” She prided herself on being blunt, which in practice meant she never missed a chance to say something awful.

When my daughter saw me, her little mouth crumpled. She flailed her arms and legs and burst into tears.

“Mama, milk! Milk!”

I didn’t stop for anything else. I scooped her up, took her upstairs to my room, unbuttoned my blouse, and nursed her.

Once the little one had slowly drifted off, our live-in housekeeper, Doreen, came in with a bowl of concentrated organic herbal bone broth, an oily sheen on top, reeking of fenugreek and fennel.

The grease and bitterness went straight to my head, and my stomach turned.

“Take it away. I don’t want it today.”

Doreen’s face was blank.

“Mrs. Lowell’s orders. She says this all-natural, no-salt lactation recipe is best for the baby’s brain development. If you don’t drink it and I pour it out, I’ll have to tell her exactly what happened.”

I didn’t say another word.

My mother-in-law was a fanatic about natural parenting. She insisted I exclusively breastfeed until Lucy turned two. To keep my milk up, she forced me to choke down all kinds of so-called natural, high-fat broths every single day, without a grain of salt.

I’d refused a few times. Each time, she lectured me for ages in that icy, superior tone of hers, until eventually I’d get a migraine the moment she opened her mouth.

The migraines were worse.

I pinched my nose and drank it down, then forced down a few chunks of plain boiled meat, and only then did Doreen grudgingly carry off the tray.

That night, stomach pain woke me. I wanted Julian to get me some medicine, but his side of the bed was empty.

I looked up and saw him standing on the balcony, smoking, looking lost in the haze.

He was staring at the night sky far away.

As if he’d gone somewhere else entirely.

After that, my life went on, one day the same as the next.

Most of the time, I stayed upstairs with the baby, trying to avoid my mother-in-law’s cold nitpicking and Melissa’s sarcasm.

Every little detail of the baby’s care filled all my time and energy. Monotonous, repetitive, but safe.

It meant I didn’t have to face anything. Didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to change.

What made me happy was watching my daughter grow, day by day.

In two more months, she’d be two.

One night before bed, Julian said something offhand, as if it had just occurred to him.

“The museum’s putting together an exhibition for Sloane. I might be a bit busy for a while.”

It took me a long moment to understand what he was really saying.

That was how I’d been these past two years. Slow in the head. Clumsy with words.

If they were putting it together, that meant they’d already gone through the whole process—first contact, curatorial meetings, sponsorship, finalizing the plan. As the museum’s director, Julian must have met with Sloane at least ten times already.

I was quiet for a moment, and then everything I’d been holding in for weeks finally spilled out.

“Why does it have to be her show? You know she wants something from you. She keeps sending personal gifts to the house. Shouldn’t you be keeping your dis—”

“Enough!”

Julian cut me off roughly.

“What are you talking about? Sloane won a major international award. Every museum in Boston is falling over itself to work with her. This is work. Claire, when did you turn into one of those paranoid, unreasonable, bitter wives on TV?”

He looked unbelievably disappointed. As he said the last part, his eyes swept coldly over me.

I froze.

Without thinking, I looked at the full-length mirror beside me.

A heavy body. A tired face.

A yellow stain on my baggy pajama pants, where my daughter had accidentally smeared me earlier. I hadn’t had time to change.

Shame and humiliation washed over me. All the fight went out of me. I just wanted to crawl under the covers and wrap myself up completely.

But I didn’t move. And I didn’t argue with what he’d said. I asked something else instead.

“You promised me that once she turned two, we’d move out on our own. Does that still stand?”

Julian frowned, his face full of irritation, and answered impatiently.

“I really don’t understand you. Why can’t you just live a normal life? My mother, my sister, and Doreen are all right here helping you with the baby. What’s wrong with that?”

I shook my head and said slowly:

“Doreen only cooks and cleans. Your mother holds her for ten minutes when you walk in the door after work. And your sister rolls her eyes the second the baby cries.”

Julian’s voice went low.

“Claire, are you complaining about my family to my face? You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to work. All you have to do is nurse her and play with her. For a stay-at-home mom, getting to be with her child every day in a house like this—isn’t that the greatest happiness there is?”

I looked at the floor and said nothing.

After a long while, I said softly:

“Comfortable. But not happy.”

Julian didn’t hear. He’d gone into the walk-in closet to change.

When the lights were off and we’d lain down, he spoke coldly into the dark.

“You know exactly how things stand with Sloane. If there were ever going to be anything between us, it would have happened already, and you’d never have gotten a look in.

“And another thing. I don’t want to hear you criticize my family to my face again. They’ve done more than enough for you. They don’t owe you anything.”