She’d tried to disassociate herself from the overwhelm of twins the second the doctor told her; they felt more like a concept than two additional children. And then, they offered a peculiar relief: she could be a naturally divided mother, understandably distracted from focusing on one or the other in the way she’d been expected to with Xavier.
It was midmorning after two sleepless nights when Whitney realized something was officially wrong, that the babies couldn’t suck from her without all three of them being in excruciating pain. Her breasts were engorged. Two throbbing, dripping taps. The twins were screaming for what had been hours, and Sebastian was slightly feverish. Jacob had taken Xavier to school and went straight back upstairs to sleep, his side of the bed soaked in sweat.
She called Louisa to beg, but it went to voice mail.
The exhaustion made her face hurt, her jaw ache. Three children were too many children. She wanted to give one away. She wanted to keep pushing the stroller to the farthest edge of the city, where the concrete met the deep dark lake. But she could barely walk without grimacing, her incision still oozy when it shouldn’t have been, but the outside air was the only thing that seemed to calm the twins for more than forty seconds at a time. She had counted those seconds. She managed to get the twins in their new double stroller and together they moved slowly up and down the same stretch of the block, from stop sign back to stop sign, her incision growing hot. She winced as her shirt rubbed against nipples that felt like newly exposed nerves.
She passed the agony of time by imaging how it would feel to sleep. To wake up in the morning and think of only herself. To be freed. She could leave the children. But they would still exist. They would haunt her like ghosts. Their burden would never go away, no matter how far she ran, no matter how many days or weeks or years it took for her to come back, if she came back at all.
She thought she might throw up right there on the sidewalk. Wipe her mouth with her sleeve and lie down on the road to close her eyes, leave the mess for a dog to lap up.
She didn’t notice the woman from across the street walking toward her until she heard her name, twice, three times.
“I’m sorry, have I got your name wrong?”
She couldn’t remember exchanging names before. The little girl held the woman’s hand and stood shyly behind her.
“Is their racket bothering you?” Whitney said. “I’m sorry.”
The woman laughed. “Not at all! I remember these days. Chloe, aren’t they cute? She’s been excited to meet them.” She lifted her daughter onto her hip and Whitney pulled Thea’s blanket lower so they could peek at her screaming face.
“Ah.” The woman looked closer. “The white on her tongue. Do they have thrush?”
Thrush? Whitney thought. Is that a word? Is her brain broken?
“Do you know what it is?” she said. “My daughter had it. You’ll need an antifungal prescription.”
They all watched as the babies’ faces grew redder. Whitney couldn’t fathom having the energy to get in a car and drive them to a doctor right now. She couldn’t fathom having the energy to walk back to her own front door.
“I’m Blair, by the way. May I?” Blair put her toddler down and took the receiving blanket from the bottom basket of the stroller and draped it over her shoulder. She lifted Thea and placed her on it gently. “Aw, there you go, sweetheart. Sometimes they do better when they can’t smell Mom. See, Chloe? Babies liked to be bounced a little, like this.”
Whitney was not a crier. But she held her hand over her face and hadn’t an ounce of energy left to stop the tears. She was mad at herself for feeling this desperate so quickly. She was incompetent. She was useless. She should be better, this was her second time around, she was a high-functioning, enormously privileged thirty-six-year-old woman with help at her fingertips. The problem wasn’t that she didn’t know what to do. It was that she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want them anymore.
“You know what?” Blair said lightly. “We’ve got no plans this morning. We’d love to help, if you’re comfortable with that.”
Blair got Thea to doze and insisted she walk with the babies for an hour while Whitney went inside to get some rest. It might have seemed foolish to trust a stranger with her newborns, to put a container of formula and two clean bottles in her hands and leave. She knew Jacob wouldn’t like it, but this woman was a mother, and lived across the street, and she seemed perfectly kind. Whitney didn’t have the capacity for worry. She didn’t care if this woman sent the babies on a shuttle to the moon. She’d had enough. She’d lain on the couch in her living room with her jacket and running shoes still on. She slept for four hours, until she heard Jacob’s voice asking where the twins were.
The next day she’d felt embarrassed. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. She sent Blair a two-hundred-dollar bouquet of flowers. Blair came over in the afternoon to thank her and see how she was feeling. The doctor had confirmed the next morning that it was thrush; Blair gave her tips on how to get the full dose of medication onto the babies’ squirming tongues. Whitney watched her studying the babies, her genuine interest, the kindheartedness in the squint of her eyes. There was something quietly cool about her, her bluntly cut bangs, her army-green jacket, her white canvas sneakers. She spoke to her toddler so patiently, asking her fully formed questions, crouched down to her eye level, waiting intently to hear how the child answered. Nothing was rhetorical or hurried. Whitney could try this with Xavier, she thought. She could pause, and listen, she could try to really care. Like this new friend did.
Whitney had never had mom friends the way other women did. She hadn’t had the time with Xavier. She’d felt the pang of missing out on these social connections when she’d go for business lunches and see a group of mothers at the next table over, enjoying their wine and salads while their babies, the size of Xavier, slept in car-seat buckets at their feet.
And now here was Blair, and she seemed eager for Whitney’s company. There was something appealing about being neighbors, how simple and wholesome that was. How simple and wholesome Blair was. A reminder, right there, across the street, of how motherhood could feel. Whitney was excited about the idea of being friends.
“Can I come by to help you tomorrow? I don’t mind at all. I’ve got nothing going on.”
But Jacob was starting to feel better, and Louisa would be back. “How about just for a glass of wine? Your daughter could play with my son after school?”
“We’d love that.” Blair took Sebastian from her arms and knelt so Chloe could let him grip her finger. “What a nice mommy you have, you lucky little boy,” she said.
Whitney had smiled, and then she had turned away.
There was nothing lucky about it at all.
20
Blair
Blair stands alone in the hospital atrium holding two lattes, waiting for Rebecca, who texted that she’d meet her around now. She’s nervous to see Whitney. She’ll need to be comforting and reassuring. She’ll need to put what she’s learned to the side for the sake of Xavier. She’ll be expected to help and they’ll both need her.
Rebecca rubs her hands briskly as she comes around the corner. She looks commanding in her crisp white coat, the badges around her neck. Seeing her outside of Harlow Street feels strange. Blair puts the coffees down and they hug.
“I should have brought you one, too, I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Rebecca puts her hand on Blair’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I know how close your families are. It sounds like things aren’t looking any better. They’ve just told me there’s some concern about his blood pressure now. Still no signs of responsiveness.”
“Do you know anything more about what happened?”
“Not yet, other than he fell sometime between eight p.m., when he went to bed, and midnight, when Whitney found him.”
“God, it’s unthinkable, an accident like this. Right at home,” Blair says, shaking her head. She wonders if that’s the word they’re all using—“accident.” She watches Rebecca for a reaction, but she only nods. And then she motions for Blair to follow. She’s quiet in the elevator and on the way to the ICU, glancing at her phone. And then, without looking up: “Blair, I know you’re close friends, so can I ask you—has Whitney been okay lately? I mean generally speaking. Nothing that would concern you, nothing out of the ordinary?”
Blair shakes her head, she scans the panels of lighting above them. An affair—an affair with her husband would be concerning. “Nothing I can think of.” She shakes her head again. “Why?”