I can't remember anything about the night Thomas was conceived.
Well, to say I "can't" remember implies that remembering is something I actively try to do, when in reality I do my best to avoid thinking about it. So let me say instead that I don't remember anything about that night after I arrived at the holiday party that our neighbors, the Dolans, were throwing at their home. Part of me wants to let myself believe that some set of facts exists that would excuse whoever did this to me. I can't imagine what those facts could possibly be, but as long as I don't remember that night, I don't have to imagine anything at all.
Owen once told me that's how he manages to think about anything else besides that night: by tricking himself into believing that maybe the hours I lost weren't so bad.
But if I'm being honest with myself, it's more likely that forgetting that night is the kindest thing my memory has ever done for me. I mean, people only block out traumatic experiences, right? It must have been pretty bad if my brain straight up refuses to let the memory of it live there among all the precious ones.
Whatever happened the night I got pregnant is the second "near-death experience" I mentioned, ten years after the car accident. I have to assume it counts as "near-death" because of the way my body felt for weeks afterward, and because of the way my heart still feels about cuddling and the sound of some men's voices.
When it comes to my memory's coping mechanisms, I'll take empty space over recurring nightmares about dying in a car accident any day.
*
The first twenty weeks of Thomas's life are one long, unsteady ride on a teetering carousel, the world spinning by in a ghastly blur of noisy confusion. Days are no longer divided by restful nights; they blend together into a fitful series of naps. Keeping Thomas alive absorbs all the energy in the house, and Owen ends up doing most of the work. At first I feel embarrassed that my husband is up during the nights feeding the new baby from a bottle while I sleep or wander around in a fog of dull pain. But I can't seem to do anything to change it, so I'm trying to focus on 1) bonding when I'm able to and 2) not wallowing in guilt.
The pediatrician explains that because Thomas was born so early, he needs to have his diet supplemented with formula. As it turns out, I can't produce enough milk to feed him anyway, so he only eats formula. For weeks, I mourn what I see as my failure to properly mother my baby. I hold him to my breast for hours at a time, my hot tears dropping onto his forehead as he wriggles in my arms and pitifully gums at my nipple, eternally disappointed.
But then, as gradually as the bright colors of early autumn in New England, that sadness fades and falls away. Now, nearly all the leaves have died below the feet of costumed children and the smell of their decay hangs in the otherwise empty air.
I watch Owen feeding Thomas in the front parlor as the warm, waning sunlight pierces the large bay window and illuminates the scene in its misty glow. Sometimes the baby looks up at Owen hungrily, wonderingly, cheeks and throat pulsing. It's a beautiful tableau, objectively, and if I were a painter I'd try to capture it before it passed.
But as my gaze moves up to Owen's face, my heart saddens. He doesn't notice the baby enthusiastically blinking up at him. Instead he stares straight ahead at the wall behind the davenport where I'm sitting, his eyes boring right through me as if I'm not right there in his line of sight, also trying to be worthy of his attention.
The swaddled little bundle in his arms suddenly gives a snort and startles Owen out of his daze.
"There you are." I tease him gently with the phrase he uses to welcome me back to the room when I've been zoning out like that. We haven't been speaking playfully with each other lately, and I'm hoping he'll notice the invitation in my voice.
His eyes focus on mine just long enough to register that I'm there. He seems startled by the discovery. "Julie..." he says just loudly enough for me to hear, his eyes suddenly desperate and lonely. I'm about to stand and go to him, rest against the bulk of his upper arm and kiss the top of Thomas's head, cradled there.
But before I can move, we hear the unintelligible conversation of two voices approaching across the front lawn, one deep and resonant, the other fragile-sounding. It's Marcus and Carmen Dolan, with whom we share a sprawling backyard. They've been giving our family space since Thomas's birth and I've appreciated the sensitivity, but it bothers Owen. He's never really trusted Marcus.
They're our only friends in the neighborhood, which is really too sprawling to be called a neighborhood. It's more of a smattering of houses among the birch and maple forest, crisscrossed by low, crumbling stone walls that ramble along long-abandoned property lines. A vast lawn extends between our back porches, interrupted by a thick patch of forest. When weather permits, one couple or the other usually walks across it rather than drive down the hill and around the block to visit.
It's a dangerous walk to make at night, when the boundaries between individual trees merge into an impenetrable blackness and the small, unassuming structure hidden among them – the Dolan's old, rarely used storage shed – seems to loom suddenly sinister. But Carmen and Marcus have made it to our front yard just in time, before darkness settles in for the night. The little lanterns that line our front walk glow dimly through the window, triggered by the motion sensor and just barely visible in the deepening gray of evening.
Owen carefully stands, holding the baby out unnecessarily far away from his body, as if that space will protect it somehow. I watch him carefully place the bundle, heavy and still now, in its crib. He leaves the room to greet the Dolans and the sun finishes its descent. Our moment of connection has disappeared with the day.
I'm anxious to see our visitors, especially Carmen, but maybe I'll wait a moment before I follow Owen. Thomas and I are rarely alone together when he's not sleeping or wailing, so I feel compelled to try to bond with him now. I place my fingertips gingerly on the edge of the crib and gaze down at its contents. Tiny fingers flutter around little fists that curl and uncurl, grasping sleepily at nothing but air. I'm disappointed to see that he's immediately fallen asleep, his belly happily swollen with formula.
"Hi, Baby," I say without meaning to. The voice that emerges from my mouth startles me; it's not the rich, warm strain of comfort that I had intended. Instead, the words sound so shrill and unsure that I'm immediately relieved Thomas is deep in slumber and hasn't stirred.
I'm supposed to know how to do that, to speak like a mother, because this is my baby.
I try again. "You're my baby," I tell his eyelids, which are sealed in a shapeless dream.
Suddenly they snap open.
I'm startled to find myself confronted by his consciousness. His eyes are two dark, curious wells in the parlor's gauzy dimness.
I can't bring myself to touch him. His skin looks too good, too pure, and my hands are chapped and clumsy. Instead, I imagine my voice as a blanket, wrapping its warmth around his snug little body.
"You're my baby," I say again, as if repeating it will make it feel right. This time I'm able to infuse my voice with what I hope is a maternal timbre.
Thomas narrows his eyes and blinks rapidly, maybe by chance, but I choose to believe he recognizes me. I want him to feel this kindness from me while I have it for him, to swaddle him in the way being cared for sounds and smells and feels so that he'll have some memory to fortify his heart in the times when I am gripped by the sucking darkness and can't muster any love for him, no matter how hard I try.
It started when I found out I was pregnant so the simple diagnosis is "perinatal depression," and maybe that's really what it is. Maybe it has nothing to do with the night I've forgotten; maybe I'd be feeling this way even if Thomas were a wanted child.
Whatever its cause, it happens in stages.
First, a fuzziness starts nibbling at the edges of my consciousness and I know that it's coming. I feel my mind compress, then start to sink back into a waiting, familiar darkness that is not any less horrifying for its familiarity. The darkness is heavy and dense and it surrounds me, telling me with a solid certainty that nothing is worth all this, that life has turned out to be just as disappointing as I'd expected, that it's all right to let go. As I flail, I know for sure that there's no one out there to hear me screaming, that I am just suffering for the sake of suffering and not for anyone's benefit or any idea of glory.
And when that happens I believe it. I feel ready to give up and that readiness alarms the part of me that still cares about what my life looks like from the outside. That's the second stage, and sometimes that's all there is to it. I climb in bed and fall asleep, still inside the darkness.
But it doesn't always end there. At least with the darkness, I have a little hint that things are about to get bad. I usually see it coming. The panic is much worse. The panic just happens – suddenly everything wants to destroy me, including my own brain, which flashes and vibrates inside my skull. My skin sizzles on my bones and I want to squirm out of it, leave this skeleton and this body and this self behind and just float away. It hurts and I want out.
It hasn't always been like that.