his face scrunched up and his fists bunched by his chin waving furiously, and I fell in love.
I’d thought I loved my baby before, with the swelling of my bump and every precious kick, but I didn’t even know the half of it then. When I looked into Dylan’s deep blue eyes, his little reddened, wizened face, it was like my heart tipped right over and fell into his. I knew I’d never know what it was to be separate again.
I try to remember now how those first few weeks and months of Dylan’s life were—a blur of sleepless nights and endless feeds, and Marco stomping around, annoyed that life wasn’t as easy as it had once been. Looking back, I know I was a bit too indifferent to him; I was entirely wrapped up in Dylan; I couldn’t have cared less about his father. But now, as the bus takes the exit for Wethersfield, I do my best to recall when Dylan started having challenges. When was his first tantrum? When did I realize he wasn’t speaking, that he was scared of so much?
I’m not sure I can pinpoint a time or even a year. I suppose I thought all babies needed to be held all the time, and fed almost as much. I thought all mothers watched their babies sleep and made sure they were breathing. I didn’t think I was different, because I didn’t know what same looked like. If normal has a definition, I never knew what it was.
And in any case, I didn’t mind any of it. I wasn’t looking for a break from Dylan; I was never annoyed that he took so much of my time. I remember standing in a checkout line at the supermarket behind a woman who had a baby the same age as Dylan—about a year old, then. Her little boy was plopped in the front seat of the shopping cart, sticky hands reaching for everything, bright button eyes alight with interest.
“What a cutie,” the checkout lady said, and the woman rolled her eyes.
“He never sleeps. Never stops moving. I can’t get a second’s peace, honestly.” She let out a heavy sigh and shook her head, as if in regret.
I remember watching her with a sort of repulsed curiosity. What kind of mother talked that way about her baby? Of course, I knew what kind of mother did something like that. What kind of mother chose her own comfort over her child’s. Mine.
But I was never, ever going to be like my mother. And in any case, I was happy. Sometimes I think that was the happiest I’ve ever been, when Dylan was small and utterly dependent on me, when every young mother was stuck at home, attached to her child, and neither my son nor I felt like a freak.
The bus rumbles down Wethersfield’s main street, which is as quaint as a postcard, all painted wooden buildings and the typical New England white spire. The Positive Parenting Program (Triple P, as Susan called it) meets in the town’s community center, which is only a few minutes’ walk from the bus stop.
It’s a huge building, as big as a school, with a fitness center, a banqueting room, and several other spacious meeting rooms. A woman at the front desk raises her eyebrows inquiringly and I tell her I’m here for the Triple P course, because I don’t want to say out loud that I need to take a parenting course, but it doesn’t matter because she knows exactly what I’m talking about.
When I approach the function room at the end of a long, carpeted hallway, I see there are two women already there, sitting at a conference table, looking uncertain and out of place.
The first one looks about fourteen—she’s chewing gum and is heavily pregnant, her dyed blond hair pulled back into a high ponytail. The second is a type similar to Ally—mid-forties, trim, highlighted hair, a lot of nervous energy. As I step into the room, I can’t help but think what a trio of misfits we are, but I suppose that is to be expected, considering the circumstances.
They both nod a greeting as I take a seat, but none of us speaks or makes eye contact. The young one takes out her phone and starts swiping with the sort of vigorous boredom that suggests Instagram or TikTok—not that I have either, but I know about them.
I take a seat two down from the teen, glancing around the nondescript