Chapter Twenty-Four
There are few things in life that are actually a silver bullet.
Rose had assumed therapy was one in a long list of services that overpromise and underdeliver.
But she knew Landon was right: She owed it to herself, to him, and to Cordelia to try.
And truth be told, after unraveling so publicly, she didn’t feel she had much of a choice.
Once a week, she sat in the corner of a modular sectional, kitty-corner from Lynette—a smart, empathetic woman with a blunt bob haircut.
Lynette had a way of bringing just the right light to even the darkest of Rose’s admissions.
She held Rose’s pain and did not judge her, challenged Rose’s most stubborn patterns and helped her to replace them with thoughts that were both compassionate and realistic.
She did not ever give Rose the answers but gave her space to find her own, if and when she could.
In Rose’s fourth session, a fog quite literally lifted.
That turned out to be a malfunctioning essential oil diffuser, but for one shining moment, it had been visual proof that Rose would not be shattered forever.
Of course, Rose still had nights where she woke in a cold sweat, muscles clenched and stomach aching.
Some nights she still raced from her bed to the toilet, intrusive memories clawing their way up and out.
But as the weeks passed, they became less frequent.
Weeks more, and they were the exception and not the rule.
By the time she agreed to try a low dose of antidepressants, she felt so much more herself that she worried they might knock her off kilter too far in the other direction.
Her therapist tried to reassure her: the drugs might influence her personality, but they couldn’t fundamentally change who she was.
Months later, Rose was not so sure. She felt like she’d been born all over again, she and Cordelia both.
Things had changed for her in the most profound and powerful of ways: Rose woke every morning and enjoyed her daughter.
There was nothing Cordelia could do that would not send her into fits of delight: Cordelia lifted her head to catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror Rose had propped up and Rose squealed; Cordelia rolled over from her back to her stomach and Rose flung her hands in the air as though her daughter had just finished a concerto at Symphony Hall; Cordelia ate all her pear oatmeal and Rose cried—thick, happy tears—overcome with the knowledge that soon her baby would be able to meet her basic needs without Rose’s constant vigilance and support.
When Cordelia napped, Rose counted fingers and toes over and over, not out of fear or anxiety, but because she couldn’t believe that her fallible body had grown such a perfect being.
Not even Cordelia’s cries could rattle her.
Just proof of life, she thought. Proof that I have ears to hear.
Things were better for Rose. Leagues better.
But she and Landon were stagnating.
The guilt was the problem. Rose could say that with some certainty, because she’d been bouncing the idea off Lynette like a tennis ball.
All that time she could not connect with her daughter had left a scar as bright and permanent as the stretch marks on her stomach.
If we humans have a finite amount of love to dole out each day, Rose gave it all to Cordelia.
She had withheld it for so long, how could she not overcorrect now?
Each week in therapy she vowed to be a little less prickly with Landon, let him truly be part of her blissful world.
But each time Landon came upon the two of them, it felt like an intrusion.
And if we humans have a finite amount of patience to dole out each day, Rose had already given it to Cordelia, too, sometimes long before sunrise.
In place of an invitation, Landon had taken to snapping a picture here and there of mother and daughter on the old film camera Rose got him several Christmases ago.
Behind the lens, Landon did not bother Rose so much.
He must have intuited that, because by the time Cordelia was six months old, they talked less than ever but had so much evidence of Rose’s love for her daughter they’d need a bigger house just to fit it all on the walls.
When he’d first asked, Rose told him she had no interest in the company holiday party.
Cordelia was still so young—not yet ready to be alone for the night with anyone but her.
Besides, Rose was barely sleeping. When Cordelia was first born, she and Landon had split night shifts, but now Rose was never off the clock, lest she miss a sweet moment she could never recover.
She didn’t want to have to conceal the bags under her eyes, do her hair, and put on real clothes.
She only knew who she was in the context of Cordelia, uncertain how this new Rose navigated the other parts of life—the parts where needs were less immediate and love more conditional.
It had been uncharacteristically pushy of Landon to insist. So pushy, she’d brought it up with Lynette.
When Rose pressed him on it one afternoon after therapy, he let her in, a little, to the ways his life had continued moving forward while she’d been snug in her bubble: His company was floundering.
Layoffs were coming. He’d been working long nights and early mornings trying to prove his use.
“Please come,” he begged. “They need to see that I’m the whole package, Rose.
You make me the whole package. You, and Cordelia, and our life together. ”
On its face, it was a nice enough statement—flattering, even—but Rose couldn’t ignore the subtext.
Had it only taken six months for her to become set dressing?
Was she not still her own fully realized person?
But she didn’t have the energy for the conversation and worried it would only make the subtext truer for saying it aloud, so she’d shoved the pesky feelings down and agreed to come.
She’d initially been grateful that the party was at his boss’s home rather than a restaurant, thinking it might be cozy and comfortable, until they pulled around the curve.
The house could not have been further from what she’d imagined.
It was all glass and steel, perched at the top of a steep hill as if flipping gravity the middle finger.
Landon sensed her discomfort. “Dean is a really nice guy,” he said, reaching for her hand across the console. “And they all love you already. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“How on earth would they love me already?” She fiddled with the chunky bracelet she’d grabbed at the last second, no longer sure if such pieces felt true to the woman she’d become.
“I talk about you all the time.”
“I don’t think that’s the same as loving someone, Landon.”
He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. “It’s just kind of an expression, Rose. ‘They love you already,’ as in, they feel like they know you through all the stories I tell.”
“It’s a dumb expression.”
Landon clenched his jaw. “Should I take you home? We’ve already paid the babysitter, and I don’t think she’d mind the early night.”
“No,” said Rose, even though that was exactly what she wanted.
“We could go somewhere,” he said quietly. “Just the two of us. We could talk.”
“Let’s go in.” His face dropped as she slammed the car door. She told herself she was just looking to get this over with, even as she knew the truth was much darker: If they started talking, she worried they might find something that could splinter their already tenuous coexistence.
“You came!” a man boomed from the front steps of the steel palace.
“Told you I would!” Landon sounded so unlike himself, like an actor in a play. It was unsettling.
“And this must be Rose,” the man said. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, Rose thought, and impeccably dressed. That makes one of us.
“Thanks so much for having us,” Rose managed.
“Just glad you could get a sitter. I’ve got three girls of my own, so I know how tough it can be.
” Rose hated when anyone implied they could even remotely understand her experience of motherhood.
The man held out a glass of red wine with a long stem and Rose took it, gratefully.
“We’re all a bunch of bores here, Rose. You’ll have to forgive us in advance for any shop talk. ”
Rose did her best impression of Woman Who Is Happy to Be Here, then winced when she felt Landon’s hand on her back, ushering her into the house.
Rose wedged herself up against the kitchen island and sipped her wine slowly as Landon worked the room, clearly dejected she’d come all this way only to be a sullen party guest. His colleagues had found her, one by one, and introduced themselves, then flitted off to talk shop.
A woman Rose hadn’t met yet caught her eye from the other side of the island, hand deep in a bowl of chips.
“You’re Landon’s wife, right?” she asked. “Rose?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Rose said through a large gulp of the red that was going down smoother by the minute. She hadn’t had much to drink since the birth. Tonight, it felt like an anesthetic.
“How’s parenthood treating you?”
She hated that question. “Oh, you know,” she said.
“It’s good. I mean, I’m not really sleeping, but she’s wonderful.
The baby’s wonderful.” Rose always had to remind herself to tone it down when talking to anyone about Cordelia.
Because she was everything: her moon, her stars, her reason for waking.
“Well, you look amazing,” she said. “I would never know you just had a baby.”
It was a toxic compliment. It was also objectively untrue. For the first time since they’d started speaking, she gave the woman her full attention. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”