“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
