The Other MotherÂ
Chapter 1 ExcerptÂ
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The silence wakes me.
Not the crying. Not the soft grunts and shuffles that usually leak through the baby monitor like static from another world. Complete, suffocating silence.
I'm curled on the living room couch, still wearing yesterday's nursing tank that smells like sour milk and desperation. The throw pillow beneath my cheek is damp with drool. My phone screen shows 6:47 PM, which means I've been unconscious for three hours. Three hours without hearing from Eva.
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My C-section scar pulls tight as I sit up too fast, sending a sharp reminder through my abdomen. The pain grounds me for half a second before panic floods in.
The monitor on the coffee table stares back at me with its blank green eye. No sound. No movement indicator. Nothing.
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I stumble toward the hallway, my bare feet slapping against the cold tile Adam insisted we install because it's "easy to clean." Everything in this house is easy to clean, easy to maintain, easy to control. Unlike me.
The nursery door is cracked open exactly how I left it. The desert sunset bleeds orange light through the blackout curtains I never quite close all the way because I need to see her breathing.
But the crib is empty.
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The yellow giraffe mobile hangs motionless above rumpled sheets. The white noise machine hums its mechanical ocean sounds. My breast milk bags are still lined up in military precision on the changing table, but Eva is gone.
My throat closes. The sound that comes out isn't quite a scream, more like air being let out of something punctured.
"She's fine, Claire."
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I spin around so fast my vision blurs. Adam stands in the doorway holding Eva against his chest, still in his work clothes. Navy polo, khakis, that stupid vest he thinks makes him look outdoorsy instead of like every other Southern California transplant who moved to the desert for the golf.
My heart hammers against my ribs. "I didn't hear you come in."
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He gives me that look. The one that's become so familiar over the past six weeks. Half smile, half concerned, completely patronizing. "I said your name. Twice."
Eva makes a soft sound against his shoulder, and I realize she's awake. Alert. Staring at me with those dark eyes that look nothing like mine or Adam's.
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"Where was she?" My voice comes out smaller than I intended.
"Right where you left her. In her crib." He bounces her gently, automatically. He's always been good with babies. His sister had three kids before Eva was born, and Adam was the uncle who could make them stop crying at family barbecues. I used to find it attractive. Now it makes me feel defective.
I look back at the empty crib, then at Eva in his arms. "But she wasn't there. The crib was empty."
"Claire." His voice has that careful quality it gets when he thinks I'm being irrational. "She was sleeping. Maybe you just couldn't see her from the doorway."
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I want to argue, but doubt creeps in. I've been so tired lately. So confused. Yesterday I put the milk in the pantry and the cereal in the refrigerator. Last week I got on the freeway to drive to my old job (in Newport Beach) before remembering about twenty minutes into it that I don't work there anymore. I don't work anywhere anymore.
Maybe he's right. Maybe she was there and I just couldn't see her properly in the dim light.
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But then I notice her outfit.
"Did you change her?"
Eva is wearing a yellow onesie with tiny bumblebees scattered across the fabric. The kind of precious thing people give you at baby showers that you never actually use because it's too nice for spit-up and diaper blowouts.
I put her down for her nap in a pink cotton sleeper. The soft one with the footies that has a small stain on the shoulder from when she spit up this morning. I remember because I almost changed her out of it, then decided it didn't matter since she was just sleeping.
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Adam shrugs, already losing interest in the conversation. "You must've. Probably forgot. You've barely slept."
He hands Eva to me and I take her automatically, settling her weight against my chest. She feels heavier than she did this morning. Denser somehow. Her hair smells like that hospital shampoo they use on newborns, even though we've been home for six weeks.
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"I'm going to shower," Adam says, already walking toward our bedroom. "Order something for dinner. Something spicy. You like that Pad Thai place.”
I do like that place. I already inhaled half a leftover burrito not long ago, standing over the sink. It doesn’t matter. I can eat again. Food keeps my hands busy and my mouth quiet. I nod because it’s easier than explaining that lately I don’t stop when I’m full. I keep going until the noise in my head softens.
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The shower starts running. Adam will be in there for twenty minutes, using up all the hot water while he stands under the rainfall showerhead he installed himself, singing off-key bits of whatever playlist he's been obsessing over this month.
I look down at Eva. She's staring at me with that intense focus newborns sometimes have, like she's trying to solve a puzzle. Her eyes are so dark they're almost black. The pediatrician said most babies are born with dark eyes that change color as they get older, but hers seem to be getting darker instead of lighter.
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"It's okay," I whisper to her. "You're home."
Then, more quietly, "Aren't you?"
The question hangs in the air between us. Eva doesn't cry. Doesn't make any sound at all. Just watches me with those alien eyes while the desert wind picks up outside, rattling the windows that are supposedly "hurricane grade" even though we're hundreds of miles from any ocean.
I carry her to the glider Adam bought secondhand from Facebook Marketplace. The woman who sold it to us said her daughter outgrew it, but I could tell she just wanted it gone. There was something desperate in the way she helped Adam load it into his truck, like she couldn't get rid of it fast enough.
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The cushions still smell faintly like someone else's baby.
I settle into the chair and try to find the rhythm that usually soothes us both. Back and forth, back and forth, like the ocean I grew up near and haven't seen since we moved to this landlocked valley where everything is beige and sharp-edged and efficient.
Eva's weight feels wrong in my arms. Too heavy and too light at the same time. Because of the emergency c-section, Adam held her first. I never got the movie moment where a nurse lays the baby on your chest and everything clicks. No rush of recognition. Instead, I felt like I was holding someone else's child.
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The doctors said it was normal. Postpartum depression, they called it, and handed me pamphlets with smiling mothers and reassuring statistics. They said it would pass. That bonding takes time sometimes, especially after a difficult birth.
But this isn't about bonding. This is about recognition.
I know every inch of my own body, even after pregnancy changed it almost entirely. I know the scar on my knee from falling off my bike when I was seven. I know the way my left shoulder sits slightly higher than my right from years of carrying heavy bags. I know the mole on my collarbone that Mom always said looked like a tiny heart.
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I should know my own baby.
The shower is still running. Adam's voice echoes off the bathroom tiles, something about California love and city streets. He's been happier since we moved here. Less stressed. His skin has that healthy glow people get when they finally trade the long Orange County commutes for wide open spaces and clean air.
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I look different too, but not in a good way. The mirror in our bedroom shows a stranger with hollow eyes and skin that looks like it's been stretched too thin. My hair, which used to be thick and shiny, hangs limp around my face like dead grass.
Eva shifts in my arms and makes a sound that's almost like a sigh. When I look down at her, she's still staring at me with those dark, knowing eyes.
"What are you thinking about?" I whisper.
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She doesn't answer, obviously. But something in her expression makes my skin prickle. Like she understands more than she should. Like she's cataloging my weaknesses, filing them away for later.
The thought is ridiculous. She's six weeks old. She can barely hold her head up, let alone plot against me. But the feeling persists, settling into my chest like a stone.
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I close my eyes and try to remember the last clear moment I had. Before the birth, before the move, before everything became this hazy nightmare of feedings and diaper changes and Adam's concerned looks.
I was in our old apartment in Orange County, packing boxes for the move. Six months pregnant and miserable, but still myself. Still Claire Matthews, former assistant editor, current aspiring novelist, woman who knew her own mind.
That Claire wouldn't have questioned whether she changed her baby's clothes. That Claire would have remembered putting Eva down for a nap. That Claire would have known, beyond any doubt, whether her own child was in her crib.
But that Claire died in the delivery room somewhere between the emergency c-section and the moment they placed this dark-eyed stranger on her chest.
The shower stops running. Adam will be out soon, hair damp and skin flushed, smelling like the expensive body wash he orders online because the drugstore brands aren't good enough anymore. He'll ask if I ordered dinner yet and I'll lie and say I forgot, and he'll sigh and order it himself while I sit here holding this baby who feels like a beautiful, terrible mistake.
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Eva's eyes flutter closed. Her breathing evens out into the shallow rhythm of infant sleep. I should put her back in her crib, but I'm afraid to move. Afraid that if I stand up, the world will shift again and nothing will be where I left it.
Instead, I sit in the borrowed glider in the too-quiet house in the desert that never wanted us, holding a baby who might not be mine, and try to remember what it felt like to be certain about anything.
The wind picks up again, rattling the windows with its desert fingers. Somewhere in the distance a coyote calls to its pack. The sound is wild and lonely and exactly how I feel.
I look down at Eva one more time. Her face is peaceful in sleep, almost angelic. But even with her eyes closed, I can feel her watching me.
This doesn't feel like my baby.
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