be a serious brain injury. But if anyone knew how to deal with a concussion, it was Max. He’d call paramedics if he needed them. He’d summon me to look after Maggie, if he couldn’t cope. And he would wonder where his wife went.
But he would never know the truth. No one would.
• • •
So why didn’t I call the police? Why didn’t I tell them I’d shot Freya to protect Maggie? Because they wouldn’t have believed me. When the cops interviewed my parents, they would have told them about my “inappropriate” friendship, their sexual concerns. Thompson would have told them I was obsessed with Freya, distraught because she wouldn’t love me back. I had gone to her house drunk and with a loaded gun.
And who would believe that a woman would murder her own baby with a hammer?
Nobody.
69
jamie
As I did every morning, I poured a cup of coffee, sat at the kitchen table. and looked at Freya’s Instagram. It was an exercise in torture: seeing my former best friend on her trip to wine country, looking gorgeous on her oceanside deck, playing patty-cake with her adorable daughter. It made me feel sick, sad, and jealous. But it was the only way I could catch a glimpse of Maggie, to ensure that she was safe and thriving. Our pricey lawyer had instructed us to stay away from the trio while our petition for a paternity test traveled through the courts. Low had not fed me any information for a few days, and I was still waiting for the results from the secret DNA test. Social media was my only connection to our child.
Freya’s post, that morning, was a photo of her with the baby. But this image was different than the rest. Maggie, wearing only a diaper, appeared to be screaming. Freya, dressed in a sexy white outfit, was struggling to breastfeed her. Her expression was overwhelmed, angry, and disappointed, all at once. The caption was long and cryptic.
You see my photos and you see a beautiful woman with a beautiful baby and a beautiful home. But you don’t see the loneliness and despair. You don’t see the hurt and sorrow. No one wants to hear about the dark side of motherhood. No one wants to talk about the difficulties of bonding with your child, of breastfeeding, of playing the role of mommy when you don’t feel it. I can’t tell anyone about the black thoughts where I want to hurt my own child, when I want to make her disappear. And when I say my baby would be better off without me, no one wants to listen. No one wants to hear it. But it’s the truth. And I will do what is best for my daughter. Goodbye.
#postpartumdepression #sacrifice #sorry
I took the phone to Brian’s office, where he was working on his latest novel.
He read it, his brow furrowed, then looked up at me. “What does it mean?”
“It’s a suicide note,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m sure of it.”
“No,” he said. “Who would leave a suicide note on Instagram?”
“Lots of people,” I said. “Freya.”
He knew I was right. I could see it in his eyes.
“I have to call Max,” I said. “I have to go over there.”
“You can’t. Any contact could be seen as harassment. It could be used against us in court.”
“But if Freya is dead . . .”
“But if she’s not . . .”
Neither of us spoke for a few moments, the weight of what Freya may have done settling on us. Finally, I said, “Low might know something.”
Brian nodded. “It’s worth a try.”
But Low had been banished, she said, when I phoned her. “I don’t know what’s going on with her. She wasn’t coping. She was freaking out. But when I tried to help her, she sent me away.”
“Do you think she would . . . kill herself?”
“She talked about it. A lot. I didn’t think she really meant it. . . .” I heard Low sigh. “I’ll try to talk to Max. I’ll keep you posted.”
And so, we waited.
“We’ll know the truth, soon enough,” Brian said. “Small towns like to talk.”
But that day passed, with no answers and no whispers. And then another. Low didn’t respond to my texts. I didn’t reach out to Max. I convinced myself that Freya was fine. Her Instagram post was just a cry for attention. She was being overly dramatic, as was her habit, manipulating people into worrying about her. I screenshotted the post to use