I feel a sting on my arm and then ice water floods my veins. Maybe Laurel did kill herself, I think as I feel myself sinking beneath cold water, a film of red washing over my eyes. Maybe Stan threatened to take Chloë from her and she chose to die with Chloë rather than live without her.
She was just trying to keep her safe, I want to say, but instead the words that slur out of my mouth are, “I was just trying to keep her safe . . .”
And then I drown. Again.
Laurel’s Journal, June 18, 20—
Another day at the support group for lactating loonies. Estrogena went on and on about how we shouldn’t feel guilty about not bonding with our babies like normal mothers when it was clear that what she was saying was that we’re not normal. I’d like to know what’s normal about any of this. What’s normal about an alien growing in your body for nine months and then spending nine hours pushing it out? What’s normal about being handed a shriveled sea monkey and being expected to love it immediately, especially when it proceeds to keep you awake 24/7 for the next three months? Who is supposed to be normal after that? Poor Doormat Daphne, though, was eating it up. Even after that ridiculous woman Estrogena mocked her last week as if it was a crime to worry about how things are supposed to be when everyone knows that’s all that really matters in this world.
So I’m supposed to look at little Sea Monkey and feel a tug in my uterus when all I feel is those goddamned episiotomy stitches.
But that’s how Doormat Daphne looks at her sea monkey. She trailed me out to the parking lot again. I could tell she wanted me to invite her home with me, but then that wouldn’t really be fair to Simone who’d have to watch both babies, so I gave Daphne the name of the babysitter I used before I got a proper live-in au pair. While I was writing down the number she was cooing to her Chloe like she was God’s gift, even though her Chloe isn’t half as attractive as mine. So if she can act like a mother’s supposed to, I don’t see why I can’t. Maybe I can learn it from her. And maybe I can teach her to grow a backbone.
She just texted me to say that skinflint hubby is willing to spring for a babysitter next week. I texted her back a few emojis. I think she may have wet herself. Just what I need. Another baby.
Chapter Thirteen
This is what it’s like to drown.
Each time I rise to the surface a room swims into view, painted the same sea green as my dreams, and I gasp for breath. I try to stay afloat by stroking my arms against the surface, but I can’t. My arms are held down. How can I stay afloat without my arms? Didn’t I learn that once in a swimming class? I try to hold on to the memory—the smell of chlorine, the tight elastic hug of a swimsuit, the rough concrete scrape against my legs—but I am sinking before I can find myself in the memory. Who am I? Daphne or Laurel? The question is like a weight, like rocks in my pockets. Maybe I’ll walk into the Hudson with rocks in my pockets like Virginia Woolf. Laurel said that. Or did I? Laurel’s voice has been in my head so long I can’t tell them apart. As Laurel said, All the voices sound sensible at the time.
SOMETIMES WHEN I surface I see a face hovering over me like a balloon. Women in bathing caps, men in white coats. Their mouths open and close like fish’s, the sounds they make as echoing and hollow as sonar bleeps heard underwater. I try to reach for them, to hold on to something that will keep me afloat, but my arms are pinned. I try to cry out but my lips are parched and cracked, my throat burning as if I have swallowed gallons of seawater. Chloe, I croak.
“Your baby’s fine, Mrs. Hobbes. Your husband, Stan, is taking care of her.”
Not that Chloë, I try to say, but I’ve swallowed too much water. You fool, a voice says—Laurel’s? Mine?—you’re supposed to put the rocks in your pockets, not swallow them!
THE DEAD-MAN’S FLOAT. That’s what they taught us in swim class. That’s what you do to conserve energy. Stop struggling. Let yourself go limp. Fill your lungs with air to keep afloat. A suitable exercise for someone who has already died. The next time I surface I try it. I relax my legs and arms, I take a deep breath, I open my eyes.
Laurel’s face is hovering over mine, bloated and distorted. I scream and scream until I’ve used up all the air and I sink to the bottom of the sea, where crabs pick at my flesh and gnaw my bones.
WITHOUT FLESH I am lighter. My bones have turned into coral, porous and buoyant. I can float longer at the surface. I listen to the nurses with the dispassion of the drowned.
“How are we doing today, Mrs. Hobbes?”
We? Is that the answer? Laurel and I are both here—or is it Daphne and I? What does it matter? Only Chloe matters. My Chloe.
Define “my,” Laurel’s voice challenges. It’s a sensible point. She always was more sensible than me. Laurel would know what to do here. Laurel would
