The Couple Next Door

“I wish I could see Dr. Lumsden,” Anne says.

Marco pulls her close. He doesn’t know what to say. Dr. Lumsden is away in Europe somewhere, for the next couple of weeks. Anne’s appointments have been canceled. “I know,” Marco whispers.

Anne whispers back, “She said I could see the doctor who’s covering for her if I needed to. Maybe I should.”

Marco considers. He’s worried about her. He worries that if this goes on too long, it will truly damage her. She has always been fragile when stressed. “I don’t know, baby,” Marco says. “With all those reporters out there, how would you go to the doctor’s?”

“I don’t know,” Anne whispers bleakly. She doesn’t want the reporters following her to a psychiatrist’s office either. She is worried about the press learning of her postpartum depression. She saw what they were like about the mistake with the onesie. So far the only ones who know about her depression are Marco and her mother, her doctor and her pharmacist. And the police, of course, who went through their house right after the baby was taken and found her medication.

If she hadn’t been in treatment by a psychiatrist, would the police be circling them now like wolves? Maybe not. It’s her fault they’re under suspicion. The police have no reason to suspect them otherwise. Unless it’s because they left the baby in the house alone. That was Marco’s fault. So they’re both to blame.

Anne lies in bed remembering what it felt like to hold her baby against her own body, to feel the warmth of her pudgy little infant daughter in her arms, wearing only a diaper, her skin smelling of baby and bath time. She remembers Cora’s beautiful smile and the curl in the middle of her forehead—like the little girl in the nursery rhyme. She and Marco have often joked about it.

There was a little girl, and she had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good, she was very, very good,

And when she was bad, she was horrid.

As broken as she feels—what kind of mother feels depressed after the gift of a perfect baby?—Anne loves her daughter desperately.

But the exhaustion had been overwhelming. Cora was a fussy, colicky baby, more demanding than most. When Marco had gone back to work, the days had begun to feel unbearably long. Anne filled the hours as best she could, but it was lonely. All the days began to seem the same. She couldn’t imagine them ever being any different. In her fog of sleep deprivation, she couldn’t remember the woman she used to be when she worked at the art gallery—could hardly remember how it felt to help clients add pieces to their collections or the thrill of finding a promising new artist. In fact, she could hardly remember what she was like before she’d had the baby and stayed home to care for her.

Anne didn’t like to ask her mother to come and help—she was busy with her friends and the country club and her charities. None of Anne’s own friends were staying home with babies at the same time. Anne struggled. She felt ashamed that she wasn’t coping well. Marco suggested hiring someone to help, but that made her feel inadequate.

The only relief was her moms’ group, which met for three hours once a week, on Wednesday mornings. But she hadn’t really connected with any of the other moms sufficiently to share her feelings. They all seemed genuinely happy, and more competent at motherhood than she was, even though it was the first baby for each of them.

And there was the one session a week in the early evening with Dr. Lumsden, while Marco watched Cora.

All Anne wants now is to go back twenty-four hours. She looks at the digital clock on her bedside table—11:31. Twenty-four hours ago, she was just leaving Cora in her crib to return to the party. None of this had happened; everything was fine. If only she could turn the clock back. If she could have her baby back, she would be so grateful, she would be so happy, she didn’t think she would ever be depressed again. She would cherish every minute with her daughter. She would never complain about anything, ever again.

Lying in bed, Anne makes a private deal with God, even though she does not believe in God, and weeps into her pillow.

? ? ?

Eventually Anne falls asleep, but Marco lies awake beside her for a long time. He cannot stop the buzzing in his brain.

He looks over at his wife, sleeping restlessly on her side, her back to him. It is her first sleep in more than thirty-six hours. He knows she needs to sleep if she is to cope with this.

He stares at her back and thinks about how much she has changed since the baby was born. It was entirely unexpected. They’d looked forward to the baby so much together—decorating the nursery, shopping for baby things, attending the birth-preparation classes, feeling the baby kick in her tummy. They had been some of the happiest months of his life. It had never occurred to him that it would be hard afterward. He hadn’t seen it coming.

Her labor had been long and difficult; they hadn’t been prepared for that either. Nobody ever tells you about that in birthing classes—everything that can go wrong. In the end Cora had been born by emergency C-section, but she was fine. She was perfect. Mother and baby were both fine, and they came home from the hospital to a new life.

The recovery, too, had taken longer and been more difficult for Anne because of the C-section. She seemed disappointed that she hadn’t had a normal birth. Marco had tried to talk her out of it. It wasn’t what he’d imagined, either, but it hadn’t seemed like a big deal to him. Cora was perfect, Anne was healthy, and that was all that mattered.

Anne had trouble breast-feeding in the beginning, getting the baby to latch on. They’d had to get professional help. Anne’s own mother had been of no use—she’d bottle-fed her baby.

Marco wants to reach out and lightly stroke Anne’s back, but he’s afraid of waking her. She has always been emotional, sensitive. She is one of the most refined women he’s ever met. He used to love dropping in on her at the gallery. Sometimes he would surprise her there at lunchtime, or after work, just because he wanted to see her. He got a kick out of watching her with clients, the way she lit up when talking about a painting or a new artist. He’d think, I can’t believe she’s mine.

Whenever there was an opening for a new show, she would invite him; there would be champagne and hors d’oeuvres, women in smart dresses and men in well-cut suits. Anne would circulate around the room, stopping to talk with the people clustered in front of the paintings—wild, abstract splashes of color or more somber, tonal works. Marco didn’t understand any of it. The most beautiful, the most arresting thing in the room, for him, would always be Anne. He would stay out of her way, stand over by the bar eating cheese, or off to the side, and watch her do her thing. She had been trained for it, getting her degree in art history and modern art, but more than that, she had an instinct for it, a passion. Marco had not grown up with art, but it was part of her life, and he loved her for it.

For their wedding he’d bought her a painting in the gallery that she fervently desired but that she said they could never afford—a very large, moody abstract work by an up-and-coming painter she greatly admired. It hangs over their mantelpiece in the living room. But she no longer even looks at it.

Marco rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling, his eyes burning. He needs her to keep it together. He can’t have the police suspecting her, suspecting them, any more than they do already. What she said about Dr. Lumsden disturbed him. The fear in her eyes. Had she said something to the doctor about wishing to harm the baby? That’s what women with postpartum depression sometimes thought about.