The Other Mother

by Carol Goodman

  “Why does he want to talk to me?”

  “Something about an amendment to Laurel’s will. Do you want to talk to him?”

  I wait for Laurel to fill me in, but all she says is, Sheesh, you know I’m not the real Laurel, don’t you?

  “Yes,” I tell Ben, “I think I’d better.”

  LAUREL’S LAWYER IS like a parody of a John Cheever character. He has white hair, tan skin, and a lockjaw WASP accent that reminds me of Thurston Howell from Gilligan’s Island. I feel bad for Laurel that her welfare was entrusted to this man when her parents died. The thought that Chloë will be raised with him as her legal guardian turns me cold.

  I’m grateful that Ben suggested we meet in the solarium. I would not want this man to see my rumpled hospital bed. I’ve gotten dressed for the occasion, in clothes that Ben bought for me at Target. Pull-on sweatpants and a Jets T-shirt. I can see Ronald Jones-Barrett (or JB, as he tells me to call him) eyeing them as if he could read the Target labels. Good, I think. I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not.

  “First of all, Mrs. Marist,” he says in a deep baritone, “I would like to express my regret for not detecting the egregious fraud perpetrated on you and my client, Laurel Hobbes. If I’d known—”

  “All you had to do was visit her in the mental hospital,” I say, angry less on my own behalf than on Laurel’s. “You would have seen I’m not her.”

  “Yesss.” He draws out the word as if it contained multitudinous meanings and interpretations. “I meant to visit, but I was away and I had no reason to suspect foul play. Laurel was acting erratic and unstable when she came to see me the week before her disappearance.”

  “Before her death, you mean. What do you mean by erratic and unstable?”

  “She wanted to change the terms of her will, but she refused to tell me the basis for the change. She seemed unwell and . . . well, frankly, paranoid.”

  “Her husband was drugging her and plotting to put her away in a mental hospital to take control of her money. Did it occur to you that she might have grounds to be suspicious?”

  “Well, I did consult her husband . . .”

  “Great,” I say, “an impartial source.”

  “And who else would you have had me consult, Mrs. Marist?” He’s stern now, annoyed by my tone. “You have to remember that Laurel had a history of mental illness and had been unstable since the birth of her daughter. She was clearly suffering from some kind of postpartum mood disorder. And then her request . . . well, it was very unusual.”

  I swallow the remarks I’d like to make about Jones-Barrett’s diagnostic abilities and ask instead, “What was so unusual about it?”

  “She wanted to change the trustee in charge of Chloë’s trust. To remove Stan and place someone else in the position, someone I had no knowledge of . . . in short, she named you as Chloë’s guardian and executor of the trust.”

  “Me!” I am sure I have misheard him. Laurel hardly knew me, and from the journal entries I read she didn’t even think all that well of me.

  “Yes, well, you can see why I questioned her judgment. No offense. A woman she’d only known for a few months, whom she’d met in a support group, a woman with her own history of emotional problems—”

  “How did you know that?” I ask. I do not say that, in my opinion, the qualifier “no offense” is usually followed by offensive comments.

  “I spoke with Stan. He told me that your husband had mentioned that you’d tried to kill yourself after your daughter’s birth.”

  “I didn’t,” I say. “Peter just tried to make me believe I had.”

  Jones-Barrett shrugs. “How was I to know? At any rate, despite my reservations I complied with Laurel’s request.”

  “You did? But why? If you thought she was crazy and I was unfit . . .”

  “I thought . . . well, frankly, I didn’t think the issue would come up. I also assumed once Laurel had recovered her senses she would change her will again. But I’m also not in the business of going against my clients’ wishes. I see a lot of troubling behavior in my line of work . . . although perhaps none as troubling as the behavior of your husband . . . and if I started choosing whose orders to follow and whose not . . . well, I wouldn’t be in business very long. Laurel chose you as Chloë’s guardian. When I asked her why, she said it was because you were a good mother and she trusted you to take care of Chloë.” He pauses, as if expecting me to say something, but I find that I can’t. Not unless I want to blubber in front of this patrician man. After a moment he nods as if I had spoken. “In any event, she was proven correct. You took Chloë with you. You made sure she was safe.”

  Leaving my own child behind, I want to say, and then giving Chloë up when I wound up in a mental institution.

  “Where is she now?” I finally manage.

  “In a foster home. I will await your instructions for her care as soon as you are able to advise me.”

  “And if I don’t . . . if I don’t think I can take care of her?” My head is swimming. Before all this began, I could barely manage one baby, never mind two.

  “Then she will be made a ward of the state and appointed a guardian. There are funds to take care of her—plenty of money, actually . . . though as we can see by Laurel’s upbringing, money alone doesn’t guarantee a high level of care. Sometimes it’s just the thing to bring out the worst in people. But the decision is yours.” He picks up his briefcase and stands up. I struggle to stand too, but he puts out his hand to indicate I shouldn’t bother. “Save your strength,” he says. “You’ll need it. Good day, Mrs. Marist.”

  I sit in the solarium, frozen despite the warm sun coming in through the windows. How could you? I ask Laurel. How could you leave me with this decision? What made you think I could handle this?

  I wait for a response for so long that the sun moves across the room, climbs a wall, and vanishes. I wait long enough to know that Laurel isn’t going to answer, that she has said all she has to say to me. Of course I’ll take Chloë, I say to her, I’ll raise her like she’s my own. I don’t need to hear Laurel’s voice to know what she would say if she were here.

  Edith’s Journal, December 12, 1971

  Nurse Landry took me and the baby and Libby to the hospital, where Libby’s father Dr. Bennett has been taking care of us. He’s been very kind. When I told him I wanted to finish writing in my journal he asked Nurse Landry to go back to the dorm and bring it to me. He let me write down everything that happened and now he’s letting me write this last entry. Then he’s going to put my journal away for safekeeping. “You wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands,” he said to me. “You wouldn’t want the wrong people to find the baby, would you?”

  He told me that if anyone knew who the baby’s father was, it would be bad for him. I tried to tell him that the father was an artist, but he told me that wasn’t true. He was a patient in the mental hospital. A very serious case. He should never have let his daughter anywhere near him. When Elizabeth Schuyler went away to school he killed himself. Would you want the baby growing up to know that about his father?

  No, I wouldn’t.

  And if people knew the mother was Libby, she’d lose her opportunity to finish college and continue her career. Did I want that?

  No, I didn’t.

  It was easier, he told me, to say the baby was mine. Would that be okay?

  I told him it was. I already thought of the baby as mine. We were connected—Libby, the baby, and I—by that red thread. We’d always be connected. Dr. Bennett has given me a red ribbon to tie the journal closed when I am done writing. That way we will all be safe—Libby, the baby, and I. Dr. Bennett says I can have a red ribbon to tie around my wrist too, so I’ll always remember to keep quiet. So I’ll always remember why I have to be. I told him he could count on me. I’d do anything to keep Libby and our baby safe. Anything at all.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my always elegant and inexhaustible agent, Robin Rue, and her wonderful
assistant, Beth Miller, for their support and encouragement. Thanks to Margaux Weisman for acquiring this novel, and to Kate Nintzel for becoming its adoptive mother and guiding it into maturity with insight and grace. Thanks to all the nurturers of this book at William Morrow.

  Researching and writing about postpartum mood disorders has been challenging and at times daunting. I want to thank the women who have shared their stories with me, starting with my mother, who told me that when she experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after the birth of her second child she was unable to tell anyone what she was going through. I also want to acknowledge the women and their families who have experienced postpartum mood disorders. The story Daphne hears about the woman who jumped out of a window with her baby in a Snugli is loosely based on a real-life story. Postpartum mood disorders are a terrible, under-discussed mental illness that I hope we can begin discussing more honestly. There are ways to get help if you think you are struggling. I found Teresa Twomey’s book Understanding Postpartum Psychosis: A Temporary Madness informative and inspiring. Thank you, Teresa, for continuing the conversation with me in the P.S. Section of this book and for recommending www.postpartum.net as a resource for struggling mothers and their families and friends.

  In writing this book, I was transported back to the period when I first became a mother. While it was in some ways an isolating experience, I was fortunate to have a world of support in my parents, Marge and Walter Goodman; my husband, Lee Slonimsky; my step-daughter, Nora Slonimsky; my brothers, Larry and Bob Goodman; my sister-in-law, Nancy Goodman; and my friends Gary Feinberg, Connie Crawford, and Scott Silverman. As a wise woman once said, “It takes a village to raise a child.” I’ve been fortunate to have a village of wise women. Thank you to the other mothers who have shared the journey: Eileen MacDonald Amon, Roberta Andersen, Amy Avnet, Laurie Bower, Juliet Harrison, Alisa Kwitney, Lauren Lipton, Mindy Ohringer, Wendy Gold Rossi, Cathy Cole Seilhan, and Ethel Wesdorp.

  And thanks, finally, to my daughter, Maggie, who has made being a mother the best thing that ever happened to me.

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  * * *

  Meet Carol Goodman

  About the Book

  * * *

  An Interview with Teresa M. Twomey

  Reading Group Guide

  Read On

  * * *

  An Excerpt from The Widow’s House

  About the Author

  Meet Carol Goodman

  CAROL GOODMAN is the critically acclaimed author of twenty novels, including The Lake of Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water, which won the Hammett Prize. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family, and teaches creative writing at the New School and SUNY New Paltz.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  About the Book

  An Interview with Teresa M. Twomey

  In researching The Other Mother, I found Teresa M. Twomey’s book Understanding Postpartum Pyschosis: A Temporary Madness informative and inspiring. I spoke with Ms. Twomey so that she could shed more light on the experience of postpartum mood disorder.

  CG: What first inspired you to write a book on postpartum psychosis?

  TT: I had a mood disorder crisis after my first pregnancy, but I didn’t hear the term postpartum psychosis until I was on bed rest during my second pregnancy. I knew something was wrong, but in spite of having problems and telling people I could not cope, I didn’t get professional help. I had to piece it together on my own. My initial reaction after I’d recovered was that I wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened. But then when I read about Andrea Yates, the Texas mother who drowned her five children while suffering from postpartum psychosis, I knew someone had to write a book about the subject. It took me some time to decide that that person would be me. I thought that the book should come from someone who had nothing to gain and everything to lose—unlike a woman in prison who might be accused of being self-serving. While I realized that going public with my own experience with postpartum psychosis would be opening myself up to professional and personal stigma, I knew it would be an important book. When I learned how serious this illness was and that I was fortunate to get out alive with a child alive and marriage intact, I saw writing this book as an act of gratitude.

  CG: You include first-person stories from women who have experienced postpartum mood disorders in your book. Without giving away any confidentiality, how did you make contact with these women? What common threads did you find in their stories? What was most surprising to you? Do you think that the process of telling their stories was helpful to them?

  TT: At first, having been told that a book specifically on postpartum psychosis did not have a good chance of being published, I embarked on a book that covered the spectrum of postpartum mood disorders. I created a website, gave talks, and reached out to family and friends for stories from women who had experienced postpartum mood disorders. I was surprised at many of the women whom I knew who related having had PPMD, some of whom were older women who had never shared their stories with anyone. Although I had been told that women with PPP would be reluctant to tell their stories, I heard from so many of them that I realized I had enough for a book. When I saw that another book had been published on the full spectrum of PPMDs my friends and family reacted with dismay that someone else had written the book I was working on. I took this however as an opportunity to write the book I really wanted to write—one that focused on PPP.

  I corresponded with the women who volunteered to share their stories by mail and email, going back and forth with them to “polish” their stories, not in a literary sense, but in order to gain clarity. Many of these women related that sharing their stories was healing for them. The process of reading the stories was healing for me. The overwhelming feeling was of not being alone; this had happened to other women. The willingness of other women to share their stories bolstered my own courage to share my experience.

  CG: Having written a book on postpartum psychosis, what kinds of responses have you gotten from the public? Have any of these surprised or disconcerted you?

  TT: Often people ask if I am a mental health professional. When I say I am not, they usually seem puzzled and ask why I wrote it. When I say that I had PPP it seems people do not know what to say. Or sometimes the reactions are startling. One woman loudly exclaimed, “You mean you were crazy?” Another confided that her husband didn’t believe in “things like that.” I realized that he was fortunate not to have had experiences in his life where he had to learn otherwise.

  Although usually my talks have drawn larger than expected crowds, at one library talk, shortly after my book was published, I was initially disappointed to see that only three people had come. Before any event I say a silent prayer putting it in God’s hands that my talk will help someone, even if it is just one person. At the end of the talk, a woman shared that she had had postpartum psychosis decades earlier but had never told anyone besides her family and doctors. If there’d been a bigger audience, she might not have felt free to share that.

  CG: What do you think is most “misunderstood” about postpartum mood disorders? What preconceptions would you like to correct?

  TT: There are three main misconceptions I encounter:

  1. Once crazy, always crazy: Once a person has a psychotic break, they are forever tainted by the experience. In fact, psychotic breaks are more common than we think, and can be caused by a variety of factors.

  2. The mind is “gone”—that the person is “absent” during a psychotic break. We treat people roughly when they’re having a psychotic break, as if they don’t register what they’re experiencing. Whereas these women are often traumatized by how they are treated during PPP.

  3. “It cannot happen to me.” There is a misconception that this illness only happens to “other” people—women who already have problems like drug addiction, poverty, ab
use, and existing mental illness. People do not understand, or perhaps believe, that it really can be random and happen to any pregnant or postpartum woman.

  CG: One of the most intriguing parts of your book to me was the warning to women who might have postpartum OCD; in fact, I use that warning to begin this novel. As a writer with a very overactive imagination (and one who experienced “intrusive” thoughts postpartum) it occurred to me that this might leave a woman very vulnerable to influences. Can you tell me any more of what you’ve learned about this element of postpartum mood disorder?

  TT: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” As PMADs become better known, women—and even professionals—may assume that if a woman has OCD symptoms she cannot have PPP. That is incorrect, they can co-occur. Conversely, a woman with OCD may fear she has PPP when she does not—this could increase her risk of suicide. And then, of course, there is the tendency of women with OCD to “borrow” images. That is, they can be highly suggestible so when they are told or read of another woman’s intrusive thoughts about “X” they start having intrusive thoughts about “X” as well.

  CG: What advice would you give to a woman who suspects she might be suffering from a postpartum mood disorder? What advice would you give to her family and friends?

  TT: Get help. There is no virtue in suffering. You deserve and your family deserves the best possible start to a life together—that cannot happen with a mood disorder in the way. ALL perinatal mood disorders are identifiable, diagnosable, and treatable, and with proper care you will be yourself again.

  To family and friends: Care for those you love. Help her get help. Help her help herself. If she cannot help herself, act for her. Do not wait for her to ask. Do not wait for a crisis to occur. If something seems wrong, it probably is. Whatever she does, keep in mind that she is suffering from an illness. Don’t take things personally. Be her ally. She is not to blame. She did not choose to be ill. And with proper care, in time she will be herself again.