Chapter 1 - the house where crying became a crime)
Three months before the courtroom heard the recording, I still believed exhaustion was the worst thing happening to me.
Leo was nineteen days old.
He slept in pieces.
Twenty minutes against my chest.
Forty minutes in the bassinet.
Sometimes an hour if I stayed perfectly still and barely breathed.
I had stopped measuring time in mornings and nights.
My life was feedings, diapers, bottles, laundry and the strange blue light that entered the bedroom just before dawn.
Ethan measured time differently.
He measured it in meetings.
Client calls.
Quarterly targets.
Messages from executives.
He worked from home three days a week for a technology consulting firm called Stonebridge Analytics, and before Leo was born he had promised that it would make everything easier.
"I'll be right here," he'd said.
Instead, his office door became a border inside our house.
When it was closed, I was expected to behave as if Ethan did not have a wife or a newborn son.
The first week home from the hospital, he taped a piece of paper to the outside of his office.
CALLS IN PROGRESS.
I laughed when I saw it.
He did not.
"The microphone picks up everything."
"He's a newborn."
"I'm aware."
"He cries."
"I'm also aware of that."
At first, he said it with a tired smile.
Then the smile disappeared.
By the second week, he started sending me messages from fifteen feet away.
Keep him downstairs.
I'm presenting.
Can you stop walking past the office?
Why is he crying again?
Again.
As if Leo were malfunctioning.
His mother arrived on a Tuesday morning carrying three casseroles and one suitcase.
Margaret had always treated motherhood like a military operation.
She believed babies could be trained.
Wives could be trained.
Husbands should not have to notice either process.
When she saw me holding Leo while eating toast over the sink, she frowned.
"You'll spoil him."
"He's two weeks old."
"That is when habits begin."
She put her suitcase in the guest room without asking how long she should stay.
That night, Ethan told me it would be easier with help.
I wanted help.
I was so tired that I cried in the shower because washing my hair felt like an accomplishment.
But Margaret's version of help did not involve taking the baby so I could sleep.
She reorganized the kitchen.
She criticized the way I folded Leo's clothes.
She told me my milk supply was probably low because I was emotional.
She stood outside the nursery while I rocked him and said, "You pick him up too quickly."
The first time Leo cried during one of Ethan's calls, Ethan came out of the office with his headset around his neck.
"What's wrong with him?"
"Gas, I think."
"Can you take him somewhere else?"
"I am somewhere else."
He looked around the living room as if noticing for the first time that the house had limits.
"I mean farther away."
Margaret appeared behind him.
"Take the baby upstairs."
So I did.
A week later, upstairs was not far enough.
The morning everything changed, Ethan had a call with his boss at ten.
He reminded me during breakfast.
"Important call."
I nodded.
At nine forty five, Leo fell asleep.
At nine fifty eight, he woke screaming.
Not fussing.
Screaming.
His face turned red and his little legs pulled toward his stomach.
I checked his diaper.
I fed him.
I burped him.
Nothing worked.
Ethan closed his office door.
At ten twelve, Margaret came upstairs.
"Can't you stop that?"
I stared at her.
"Do you think I'm making him cry?"
"Your anxiety makes him anxious."
"I'm not anxious. He's hurting."
"Then give him to me."
She reached for him.
I stepped back.
Margaret's mouth tightened.
"There. That attitude. Ethan has been telling me you're becoming difficult."
Something about the sentence made me pause.
"Ethan has been telling you what?"
"That you're not yourself."
I almost laughed.
I had given birth nineteen days earlier.
Of course I was not myself.
My body still hurt when I stood too quickly.
I slept in ninety minute stretches.
I cried when the dishwasher leaked.
I forgot words.
But Margaret said it like she was describing a diagnosis.
Like Ethan had been documenting something.
Leo screamed again.
From downstairs, something slammed.
Ethan.
Margaret looked toward the staircase.
"You have to control him."
I carried Leo into our bathroom because it was the farthest room from Ethan's office.
I closed the door and turned on the exhaust fan.
For several minutes, I paced between the sink and shower with Leo against my chest.
He finally began settling.
Then I heard footsteps.
Fast.
Heavy.
The bathroom door opened so hard it struck the wall.
Ethan stood there.
His face was red.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to calm him."
"My boss can hear him."
"I came upstairs."
"He can still hear him."
Leo startled and began crying again.
Ethan pointed toward the bedroom.
"Make him stop."
"I can't press a button and make a newborn stop crying."
"Then figure it out."
"Ethan, lower your voice."
He stepped closer.
"You just embarrassed me in front of Andrew."
"I didn't do anything."
"That screaming was going through my microphone."
"He's your son."
"Not during a call."
I looked at him.
"What does that even mean?"
His hand went into my hair.
At first, my brain did not understand what was happening.
Then he pulled.
Hard.
My head snapped backward.
Leo was against my chest.
I wrapped both arms around him.
"Ethan."
"Get out."
He pulled again.
I stumbled.
My shoulder struck the doorframe.
Then my foot slipped on the bathroom mat.
I went forward.
Because I was holding Leo, I twisted my body at the last second.
My knees hit first.
Then my face.
Pain exploded through my nose.
Leo screamed.
For one terrifying second, I thought I had dropped him.
I had not.
I was still holding him.
Blood began dripping onto my shirt.
Margaret appeared in the doorway.
She looked at my face.
She looked at Ethan.
And then she looked at the baby.
"The crying has to stop."
That was what she said.
Not are you hurt.
Not what did you do.
The crying has to stop.
She took Leo from my arms before I understood what she was doing.
"Give him back."
She carried him into the bedroom.
I pushed myself up.
My nose was bleeding onto my hands.
Margaret placed Leo on the center of the bed with a careless motion that made him bounce against the mattress.
"Margaret."
"He is fine."
I grabbed him immediately.
She pointed at me.
"You need to learn that Ethan works during the day. This house cannot revolve around a baby."
I stared at her.
Then at Ethan.
He stood in the hallway touching his headset.
His wedding ring had several strands of my hair wrapped around it.
He noticed me looking.
He pulled them off.
For some reason, that tiny movement frightened me more than the shouting.
It was practical.
Calm.
He was cleaning evidence from his hand.
I backed into the bedroom with Leo.
Ethan said, "Don't start acting dramatic."
I shut the door.
May you like
Then I locked it.
And thirty seconds later, his laptop chimed on the desk behind me.
