By the eighth day postpartum, something inside me had begun to unravel. I felt it in the mornings when I stood up too fast and the room tilted, in the way my heart fluttered like a trapped bird, in the persistent, gnawing ache low in my belly that wasn’t just the normal cramping of a shrinking uterus. I told myself it was normal. I’d read the pamphlets—watch for heavy bleeding, fever, chills—but I didn’t have those. I had a quiet, creeping weakness that settled into my muscles and made every step feel like walking through wet cement.
On the tenth day, Ryan was due to leave at noon. He’d packed the night before, laying out his best sweaters, his ski goggles, his expensive cologne. That morning, I woke to Ethan’s hungry cry and tried to sit up. My arms buckled. I gripped the edge of the mattress and pulled myself upright, panting. The world swam in shades of gray. I looked down at my hands—they were pale, the nails bluish. Fear, real fear, pricked at the base of my skull.
I managed to feed Ethan in the nursery, slouched in the rocking chair because holding him upright took everything I had. He nursed fitfully, his tiny fists clenched, his eyes searching my face as if he sensed something was wrong. When I tried to put him back in the bassinet, my legs gave a warning tremble. I held onto the furniture, shuffled to the hallway, and called for my husband.
Ryan was in the bedroom, adjusting the collar of a navy cashmere sweater in the mirror. He turned at the sound of my voice, but he didn’t look at me—he looked at his reflection, then at his watch, then at the garment bag on the bed.
