The Other Mother

by Carol Goodman

  “Because you’ve been feeding Laurel horror stories about harming our child.” Peter kept his voice low but the anger curdled my stomach. Chloe looked from his face to mine and began to howl. The sound clawed at my nerves. I wanted to howl with her.

  “I would never hurt Chloe!” I cried.

  “Then why did you tell Laurel you think about dropping her from the top of the stairs? Why did you tell her you picture drowning her every time you give her a bath?”

  Chloe was following every word as if she understood what they meant.

  “They’re intrusive thoughts,” I said, but I could hear how lame the term sounded, how weak in the face of Peter’s accusations. As if a bit of psychobabble could lessen the horror of picturing myself harming my own child. “I’d never act on them.”

  “I can’t take that chance,” he said. “You’re seeing a doctor tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m not leaving you alone with Chloe. Either Vanessa or I will be here at all times.”

  “All right,” I said, gulping back tears and reaching out my arms for Chloe. “Just let me hold her now.”

  “Not when you’re this upset,” he said, turning away from me. He took Chloe into the nursery and closed the door. I wanted to force myself in but then I thought of how much that would scare Chloe. I thought of calling someone, but who? Laurel was out of reach. Esta? She might side with Peter. There was no one. I was in this alone.

  I came up here and wrote this all down, trying to make sense of it and calm myself down, but I have this horrible feeling that Laurel is in danger. I’m going to try emailing her—

  I didn’t email Laurel. When I opened my mail I saw I had an email from Schuyler Bennett. I was practically too scared to open it, but when I did, I could hardly believe my eyes. She’d written one line.

  “When can you start?”

  Chapter Ten

  I stay up all night rereading all of Dr. Bennett’s notes on E.S., keeping a sharp eye on Chloe, and by morning I understand why I put Chloe in the bathtub. It’s the same reason Edith jumped from the tower. When she gave birth she was so traumatized she projected the experience onto her roommate, but because she still felt guilty for abandoning her baby she constructed a story that the child had been taken away from her. She had to find it and save it, which she did by leaping from the tower.

  I understand also why I ran away. I transferred Laurel’s fear that Stan was going to take her Chloë away from her to Peter. As Esta said, women with postpartum OCD “borrow” from other people’s intrusive thoughts. Laurel was afraid that she’d harmed her Chloë and that Stan was going to take her away from her. So I started to think that Peter was trying to take Chloe away from me and that’s why I made this crazy plan to run away. I even stole Laurel’s identity to do it! My behavior was classic PPOCD! But now that I understand what I did, I think I can get better. I can explain to Peter that I’m cured and go home. Postpartum disorders are temporary, after all. At least, they usually are.

  Edith Sharp wasn’t suffering from a postpartum disorder; she had borderline personality disorder, which caused her to “mirror” the experience of her Favorite Person, who was her roommate.

  I can see, also, how it fed into Sky’s story about the changeling. The changeling isn’t the baby at all; it’s the mother!

  I want to talk to Sky about my theory, but first I want to talk to Dr. Hancock and see if he agrees with my interpretation. After all, I’m not a psychologist, I’m just a librarian, although I think I have a special insight into this case because of my own experience.

  When I see that it’s almost morning I take Chloe up to the tower. I want to show her the sunrise. I put her in the baby Snugli carrier to make it easier to go up the spiral stairs with her. As I go up the stairs it’s hard not to think about the dream I had, to imagine that bathtub full of bloody water and the woman and child inside it—

  And for a moment on the second flight of stairs I think I am in that dream. My hands and Chloe’s face are stained red as if we’ve been caught in a flood of bloody water. But it’s only the light of the rising sun spilling down through the stairwell. When I get up to the top floor it’s full of crimson light. Chloe opens her eyes and stretches out her little hands in the light, gurgling at it as if it were something alive. Then she looks right up at me and smiles. As if I had made this happen! My heart squeezes in my chest and for a moment I feel so full I’m afraid I might fly apart. Instead, I squeeze Chloe tighter to me and step closer to the window to watch the sun rise over all those acres of woods we came through to get here. I feel like the woman in Sky’s story, only I’ve come through the woods with my real baby, not a lump of wood.

  Now that I’ve made the journey once, I think I can go back. Peter wasn’t the culprit—although I think he could have been a little more patient with me. I needed to get away to understand what had happened to me. I hope that he’ll understand now and that I can finish my six-month commitment to Sky. At the end of it I think I’ll be ready to go back to my old life, but not as the old me. I’ll never be that woman again. Becoming a mother has changed me. I feel like an entirely new person.

  Daphne’s Journal, August 8, 20—

  Peter took me to see the new doctor today, Dr. Gruener. If he really is a doctor. I’m not sure of anything anymore.

  For one thing, his office didn’t look anything like a psychiatrist’s office. It was in one of those medical buildings by the hospital but it looked like he’d just moved in. All the furniture looked like it had been rented from one of those office-supply companies. The carpet still smelled new—like cleaning fluid—and when I touched the front door I got an electric shock. I know none of that should be important—Peter says it’s snooty—but I’m very sensitive to my surroundings. Besides, I didn’t like Dr. Gruener very much.

  For one thing, I could tell right away that he’d talked to Peter before I came and that he’d already made up his mind about me. He asked me a lot of questions about the “intrusive thoughts” I had about harming Chloe—how many times I thought about dropping her over the banister or drowning her in the bathtub. Had I ever acted on those thoughts? Say, held Chloe over the banister? Or dunked her under the water just for a second?

  I told him of course not! I told him I’d do anything to keep Chloe safe, anything at all. He’d looked at me funny then, as if that were an admission of some kind of guilt. As if wanting to keep my baby safe was somehow suspect.

  Then he asked me about my suicide attempt. Did I still hear voices telling me to hurt myself and Chloe?

  “No!” I told him, but then I had to admit I did hear a voice saying, What if she’s better off without me? but then I explained that was Laurel’s voice and it wasn’t talking to me; it was talking to Laurel. It was Laurel who was suicidal and I was trying to help her.

  “Help her how?”

  I almost told him about my plan, but even with doctor/patient confidentiality I didn’t really think I could trust him so I just said, “I’m trying to help her see her options.”

  “So you feel responsible for Laurel?” he asked.

  “Well, yes,” I told him, “because she’s my friend.”

  “And are you afraid that Laurel might hurt herself? Or her baby?”

  I didn’t answer that right away because I was afraid suddenly of getting Laurel in trouble, so I asked him if what I told him was confidential.

  He put down his pen and looked at me hard, like he was really seeing me for the first time. Then he said, “Yes, unless you give me information that involves you or someone else planning bodily harm to another person or self.”

  I had to process that for a few minutes. If I told him that I was afraid that Laurel would hurt herself or her baby, Dr. Gruener might call up Social Services and have Chloë taken away from Laurel. But if I didn’t tell him and Laurel did hurt herself or Chloë, I would never forgive myself.

  So I told him yes, I was afraid that Laurel might hurt Chloë and herself, but only because she was so sick. She would never mean
to.

  Dr. Gruener pushed a box of Kleenex across the table because I was crying. “Tell me this . . .” He had to look down to see my name. “. . . Daphne, if you were Laurel, what would you like to happen now?”

  “I’d want someone to make sure that I didn’t hurt myself or my baby,” I said.

  “Even if you didn’t know you were sick?”

  And suddenly I understood what was going on. I got up and grabbed my bag, but my hands were shaking so hard I dropped it. Laurel’s wallet dropped out, open to the flap where she kept her driver’s license. Dr. Gruener picked it up. I saw him glance at the license, but he must not have read the name because he didn’t bat an eyelash.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked. “You seem upset.”

  “I see what you’re trying to do and no one is going to take my baby. Is Peter doing it now?” I demanded. “Is that why I’m here? So he can take Chloe away while I’m out of the house?”

  “Perhaps you should sit down, Laurel. I don’t think you should be driving while you’re so upset.”

  “It’s Daphne, not Laurel,” I said. “You can’t even remember my name. Where did Peter find you anyway? Rent-a-Shrink?”

  I got out of there as fast as I could. I could see it all now. Peter had gotten this shrink to certify that I was crazy, that I was a suicide and infanticide risk. I was afraid he might already have a social worker at the house and that he was planning to take Chloe from me and have me put away. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let him take Chloe away from me.

  I drove home as fast as I could without breaking the speed limit. That would be all I needed now, to get a speeding ticket. But as anxious as I was to get home, somehow I found myself driving to Laurel’s house. Force of habit, I guess, or guilt that I should make sure that she was all right. But when I looked up at her dark and shuttered house I couldn’t imagine that there was anyone home or that even if she was there I’d know what to say to make things better. To calm myself down I took out my laptop and wrote for a while in this diary, trying to put it all together. And it helps! It’s in writing it down that I figured out what I have to do. I called Schuyler Bennett and asked if we could move up my start date. When I asked if I could come today she didn’t answer right away and I was afraid that I’d ruined everything. She must think I’m crazy. But then she said, “Of course. That would be perfect. Come right away.”

  I felt such a wave of relief I thought I might faint! I had to sit with my head down for a little while and I even fell asleep for a bit, which just shows how exhausted I was. When I woke up I didn’t know where I was at first, which was scary, but then I remembered. I drove home as if in a dream. Now I’m in front of my own house. It’s all clear to me now. I see that it’s what I’ve been planning all these weeks. Maybe Peter and the shrink are right—I’ve been pretending the plans I was making were for Laurel when all along they’ve been for me. I’m the one in danger. I’m the one who needs to escape. I know what it will look like to everyone else, but what does that matter? After all these months of feeling like there was something wrong with me, that I didn’t love Chloe enough, that I wasn’t a good mother, I finally know for sure that I love her more than anyone in the world. And that I’d do anything to keep her with me. Anything at all.

  Chapter Eleven

  The guard at the gate is the same one who met me the first time. Ben Marcus, I recall. He’s acquired a black eye since I last saw him. “Did Edith Sharp give you that?” I ask as he unlocks the gate.

  “How do you know her name?”

  “Sky Bennett told me,” I say, omitting the fact that I’d looked in her file. “I’ve been reading about her in Dr. Bennett’s journals. I thought you told me the wards were secure.”

  “I never said no one ever did a runner. Edith’s been here so long she’s learned all the tricks. She’s crafty. When she decides she’s had enough of the place she stops taking her meds, hides them in her cheek, and spits them out. Then she watches the nurses use the combination locks until she’s memorized the combination. We change those once a week so she knows she doesn’t have much time. She has to steal two keys—one to get out of C Ward, one to work the back gate.” He cocks his thumb at the gate we’ve just come through.

  “And then how do you find her?”

  “We don’t,” he says. “If she makes it out, she usually comes back in a week or so. She always tells the same story—that she’s been to check on her baby.”

  “Oh, then she really is . . . sick.”

  He glances at me, one eyebrow—the scarred one—raised. “Did you think she was here on vacation?”

  “No . . . it’s just that she sounded very intelligent in Dr. Bennett’s journal.”

  “Do you think smart people don’t go crazy? We’ve had Nobel Prize winners in here.”

  “I’ve seen A Beautiful Mind,” I snap, tired of his condescending tone. “But it’s different, hearing her voice . . . and besides . . .” I hesitate, unsure I should reveal what Billie said to me.

  “Besides what?”

  “Oh, it was just a rumor I heard—that she jumped from the tower and then was cured.”

  He barks a harsh laugh. “If jumping from a high window was a cure for madness the doctors would have tried it. The story the nurses tell about Edith is that she killed her own baby and she’s always looking for it. That’s why she tries to get out; so she can find her baby.”

  “That’s awful,” I say. “The poor woman.”

  He gives me an assessing look. “Most people aren’t so sympathetic when they hear that she abandoned her baby in a dumpster. Some of the nurses call her Baby Killer.”

  I shudder. “But you don’t. I saw how careful you were with her.”

  He shrugs and rubs the bruised skin around his eye. “A woman who abandoned her own child—I figure she’s in hell every day of her life. That seems punishment enough to me.”

  THIS TIME AS we go up the elevator I pay more attention to the keys that he uses. He has five or six on a heavy ring clipped to his belt. How does Edith steal one off the guards? I imagine the careful watching and planning she must do—all to find a baby that is long gone.

  Ben Marcus leaves me again in the reception office and tells the secretary to buzz him when it’s time for “Mrs. Hobbes” to leave. When he turns to go I find the painting of the disembodied eye staring at me reproachfully. I find I dislike hearing my false name on Ben Marcus’s tongue. He’s been forthcoming with me; I don’t like that I’ve lied to him. When I go home—when I stop being Laurel Hobbes—maybe I’ll tell him who I really am.

  Dr. Hancock seems a little distracted as he greets me, and a trifle cool. Perhaps he’s not happy that Sky has instructed him to show me Edith’s file. Instead of perching on the edge of the desk as he did last time he sits back down in his desk chair and folds his hands over the pale green folder, asserting his control over my access to it. “Before I show you Edith’s file I’d like to know why you’re so interested in her case.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, taken aback by his blunt approach. “I’ve already explained that I’m researching the connections between Sky’s writing and her biography.”

  “But that’s not all there is to it, is there?” He smiles and I have the strange conviction that he is smiling at my discomfort. I see what this is about. Dr. Hancock likes to be in control and I have challenged his rule by going around him to get access to his patient’s file. He doesn’t like it. So to punish me he is going to make me uncomfortable about the request by imputing an ulterior motive. I remember that this is something I’ve always disliked about psychiatrists, always reading an ulterior motive into your behavior. I could, I suppose, demand that he just hand over the file as per Schuyler Bennett’s order. I am not, after all, Dr. Hancock’s patient. But I don’t want to seem difficult.

  “I only wonder,” he goes on when I don’t answer, “if you identified with Edith in some way. Sky tells me you have a baby yourself. I wondered if perhaps you had experie
nced any postpartum mood disorders.”

  I try to remind myself that even if he has looked me up, it’s Laurel he’s looked up. What could he have found out? Has he called Stan? The thought of him talking to Stan Hobbes makes me go cold all over. But even if Dr. Hancock has discovered my deception, what of it? It will be embarrassing, but I’m nearly ready to leave anyway. I’d like to finish out the job, but maybe Sky would let me continue it as Daphne Marist. But if Sky is angry at me for pretending to be Laurel then this might be my last chance to see Edith Sharp’s file, so I may as well humor Dr. Hancock.

  “You’ve caught me,” I say. “I did suffer from postpartum depression for a few months after Chloë was born. But I went to a support group and I feel much better. I suppose that did make me identify with Edith Sharp. Maybe if she had had help earlier she wouldn’t have ended up here.”

  “And is that why you want to see her file? So you’ll understand how a woman might survive the experience of postpartum psychosis and come out whole?”

  That strikes me as a strange way of putting it, but all I want to do now is put an end to this . . . whatever this is. “If you say so,” I say impatiently. “Speaking of babies, I’d like to get back to mine sometime today. If I could just have the file—”

  “I thought I’d give you something more,” he says, rising to his feet. “Since understanding Edith is so important to you, I thought you might want to meet her.”

  “Meet her? But isn’t she . . .” I can’t hide my shock, which Dr. Hancock seems to be enjoying. “Isn’t she . . . dangerous? I just saw the black eye she gave Ben Marcus.”

  “Oh, she’s been sedated since then. She’s placid as a lamb right now and twice as contrite. I thought it might interest you to talk to her, but if you think it will upset you . . .”