So why didn’t I call the police? Why didn’t I tell them I’d shot Freya to protect Maggie? Because they wouldn’t have believed me. When the cops interviewed my parents, they would have told them about my “inappropriate” friendship, their sexual concerns. Thompson would have told them I was obsessed with Freya, distraught because she wouldn’t love me back. I had gone to her house drunk and with a loaded gun.

And who would believe that a woman would murder her own baby with a hammer?

Nobody.

Chapter 69

69

jamie

As I did every morning, I poured a cup of coffee, sat at the kitchen table. and looked at Freya’s Instagram. It was an exercise in torture: seeing my former best friend on her trip to wine country, looking gorgeous on her oceanside deck, playing patty-cake with her adorable daughter. It made me feel sick, sad, and jealous. But it was the only way I could catch a glimpse of Maggie, to ensure that she was safe and thriving. Our pricey lawyer had instructed us to stay away from the trio while our petition for a paternity test traveled through the courts. Low had not fed me any information for a few days, and I was still waiting for the results from the secret DNA test. Social media was my only connection to our child.

Freya’s post, that morning, was a photo of her with the baby. But this image was different than the rest. Maggie, wearing only a diaper, appeared to be screaming. Freya, dressed in a sexy white outfit, was struggling to breastfeed her. Her expression was overwhelmed, angry, and disappointed, all at once. The caption was long and cryptic.

You see my photos and you see a beautiful woman with a beautiful baby and a beautiful home. But you don’t see the loneliness and despair. You don’t see the hurt and sorrow. No one wants to hear about the dark side of motherhood. No one wants to talk about the difficulties of bonding with your child, of breastfeeding, of playing the role of mommy when you don’t feel it. I can’t tell anyone about the black thoughts where I want to hurt my own child, when I want to make her disappear. And when I say my baby would be better off without me, no one wants to listen. No one wants to hear it. But it’s the truth. And I will do what is best for my daughter. Goodbye.

#postpartumdepression #sacrifice #sorry

I took the phone to Brian’s office, where he was working on his latest novel.

He read it, his brow furrowed, then looked up at me. “What does it mean?”

“It’s a suicide note,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m sure of it.”

“No,” he said. “Who would leave a suicide note on Instagram?”

“Lots of people,” I said. “Freya.”