I could not sleep. I was in pain, torn apart and stitched back together. I mourned my mother, who surely would’ve flown in to help me, but who’d never had the chance to hold her first grandson.

The baby woke every three hours whether or not he was wet or soiled or hungry; I walked the floor for hours with him. Singing, soothing, praying my milk would come in. When it did, my nipples blistered, but he was fed, which meant that I wasn’t totally failing as a mother.

Somehow during all of that, I turned from someone who’d never wanted a child into a mom.

Not a good one, though. Motherhood stressed me out. Reading the backs of food packaging, monitoring television time, dressing for the weather, eat your veggies, brush your teeth … it drained me. I never lived up to the image I had in my head of what a good mother should be and do. Maybe because I knew if it had been up to me, I’d never have had a kid at all. Maybe guilt for the child I’d chosen not to have. Maybe something deep-seated inside me that I would always lack.

I love my son, but I’ve always felt as though I was failing him. Now he’s almost grown, and my heart breaks for the sunny little boy who’d say “Hi” to everyone as we walked through the neighborhood. The Mayor was what Mrs. Boonshoft called him, the elderly woman who’d lived across the street from my parents, and then us, until she’d passed away.

“A tragedy,” she’d said. “Those poor parents, never knowing what happened. How’s our little Mayor doing, then? It must be hard for him to understand. And for you, too, my dear. It’s hard for a mother to watch her child suffer with grief. You’ll want to protect him from it, of course. But if you don’t mind an old lady’s advice, I’ll tell you not to hide the truth from him. Children always know when an adult is trying to hide something from them.”

I’d never hidden the truth from him about his little friend Billy. I did the right thing, but the right thing and the worst thing turned out to be the same. That terror and sorrow had changed us both.

CHAPTER
17

KEN’S PAYCHECK WAS supposed to hit the direct deposit yesterday, but because I was observing Yom Kippur, I didn’t look for it until this morning. It wasn’t there. Courtesy of the restructuring bonus he got, the balance in the account is higher than it’s been in a long time, but it’s been whittled away for the new hot water heater I had delivered and installed a few days ago. The new dishwasher is on back-order.

“Hon,” I say when he comes upstairs from his office. “Is something changing with your paycheck?”

“I told you, I got that big bonus.” He says this without concern, careless. “What’s for lunch?”

Right. Lunch. Since he’s been home during the day, that’s one of the things he expects me to take care of.