“If you’re good, I’ll bring ye back something from America,” he said. “But not if there’s tears.”

Surely God would forgive a mother for that sort of tender brutality?

Leo has been encouraging me to pick up a writing job or two, to start freelancing again. He thinks I can do research during the days and the evenings while Emma sleeps, and then write during the mornings when he’s home, before he goes in to the restaurant. Before Emma, I had more work than I could manage. But Leo doesn’t seem to understand what’s

Ginny caught herself recoiling in horror, but she forced herself to stay, to draw closer, even. She squeezed the poor woman’s fingers.

“It is,” he agrees, “and I have no problem babysitting while you—” “Babysitting?” I interrupt. “Yeah, I have no problem babysitting while you go and do this, however long it takes.” Leo is smiling warmly at me. His face is completely without guile, and I wonder if mine is reflecting the degree of enraged disgust that suddenly engulfs me. I close my

When he’s home I don’t even remember the deserted panic of these empty afternoons. It’s like I have revolving brains, each one amnesiac of the other.

After all, it’s hard enough in therapy, being honest with the woman I’m paying to be the receptacle of my deepest fears; how am I supposed to be honest with the woman who’s the harbinger of them?

And mostly, I still feel like that doctor just sliced me open yesterday, like I might physically split in half with one wrong twist or a significant hiccup.

It slipped out of me, exactly in the precise way that my reluctant daughter did not.