Carol Goodman - The Other Mother

S hes crying again.

I dont know why I say again. Sometimes it seems as if shes done nothing but cry since she was born. As if shed come into this world with a grudge.

Were almost there, sweetie, I call to her in the backseat, but she only cries louder, as if she can recognize my reassurance for the lie it is. The truth is I dont know where we are or how far we are from our destination. The last time I looked at the map app on the new (cheap, pay-as-you-go) phone, it showed our location as a blue dot in a sea of endless green. As if wed fallen off the map of the known world. When we crossed the river there was a sign that said WELCOME TO THE LAND OF RIP VAN WINKLE. I feel as if Ive fallen asleep and woken to an unrecognizable worldonly who sleeps with a crying six-month-old?

Do you want your ba-ba? I offer, even though she just finished a bottle half an hour ago. I root around in the diaper bag on the passenger seat but find only an empty bottle. Hadnt I made up two at the last gas station? Or had I been distracted by the woman in pressed corduroy trousers and Burberry jacket whod eyed me microwaving a bottle with that Why-arent-you-breastfeeding-dont-you-know-bottles-will-rot-your-babys-teeth-and-lower-her-IQ look. She was holding the hand of a toddler who had an iPhone in his other hand, his eyes glued to the screen.

At least it wont rot her brain, I had it in mind to say but instead out popped, Isnt it hard traveling with kids? Weve been driving for hours! My husbands away on business and Im relocating for a new job.

Burberry Jacket eyed me up and down as if she didnt think I looked very employable. In my ratty old sweatshirt, grimy jeans, greasy hair pulled back in a sloppy bun I suppose I didnt. I should have left it at that but I had to add, as an archivist at a private library.

Her eyes widened, either because she was impressed or thought I was crazy. The latter, most likely, from the way she clutched her electronics-besotted son closer to her. Archivist. How stupid could I get? Shed remember me. When she saw my picture in the paper

It wont be in the paper, I told myself for the hundred and seventh time (Id been counting) since wed left. Id made sure of that.

I drove away from the gas station repeating all the reasons I didnt have to worry: Id ditched my old phone and bought a new one with cash. I didnt tell anyone except Laurel about the job and Laurel wont tell. I havent passed a car in the last fifty miles. Im in the middle of nowhere, just me and a crying baby

Shes stopped screaming. Im not sure how long its been since she stopped. Since Chloe was born I sometimes lose little bits of time like that. Mommy brain, Esta, the leader of the mothers support group, called it. Its a hormonal thing. I angle the rearview mirror to see Chloes face but the car is so dark I cant see her at all. I dont know how to find the dome light and there are no streetlights on this country road to illuminate the interior. Its so dark and quiet in the car its almost as if she isnt there.

Of course shes there,dont be ridiculous, I tell myself, but already I can feel the thought taking root in my brain. Badthoughts, my mother would say, stick like burrs. You need something to make them go away. A couple or six shots of whiskey is what she used. Sometimes when she got home late from her job at the bar Id hear her muttering to herself, Leave it! like her brain was a dog whod picked up a piece of garbage on the street.

Leave it! Id tell myself on all the sleepless nights I lay awake imagining that Chloe had stopped breathing or that she had been stolen out of her crib. If you keep going into herroom, Daphne, Peter would say, shell never learn to sleep onher own.

Leave it! I say now. Shes in the car seat.Shes just sleeping. But I cant leave it. Instead I remember a Schuyler Bennett story that had been one of my favorites in college, the one called The Changeling. Like many of her stories it was borrowed from an old piece of folklore. In it a woman who believes her own baby has been stolen by fairies carries the changeling through the woods to leave it on the fairy hill. She waits all night, listening to the sickly wail of the child, until at last at dawn she sees the fairies come and leave a healthy baby in its place. She lifts the plump but strangely quiet baby into her arms and carries it home. The baby seems to grow heavier and heavier in her arms until at last when she comes out of the woods she looks down and sees that what she carries is a log of wood and she knows that she has given up her own baby to the fairies and brought home a changeling instead.

Maybe youd feel better, Peter had said, after skimming the story from the book on my night table, if you didnt read such morbid stories.

Now I cant shake the idea that when I reach the house Ill find an insensate lump of wood strapped into the car seator nothing at all. Maybe I left Chloe at the Quickie Mart. Maybethe thought makes my mouth go dryshe was never in the car at all. I try to reassure myself by going over the details of leaving the house, carrying her out to the car... but all I can see is me sitting in the car, writing in my journal, getting ready to go in to get Chloe. I can see myself getting out of the car, going up the front path, but then the picture goes blurry, like a film out of focus. Mommy brain, like Esta said, hormonesbut when the film comes back into focus I can see myself walking back down the path holding Chloes car seat. I can see myself putting her in the back of the car. So its ridiculous to think shes not in the car.

Still, I call her name. Theres no response.

Because shes asleep, I tell myself, not because shes stopped breathing.

Leave it! I tell myself.

Once I get an idea in my head, though, its very hard for me to let it go. Intrusive thoughts, Esta said, get worse with stress, and Ive certainly been under a lot of stress these last few weeks. Hiding what I was doing from Peter, applying for the job with Schuyler Bennett without him knowing, then worrying that she would call and tell me shed changed her mind, she didnt need an archivist after all. Hadnt it been too good to be true? The ad had appeared on the library job site as if it had been left there just for me.