Always the Last to Know by Kristan Higgins Page 0,46

to feed her. I had to have a pillow over my stomach to protect my incision.

She didn’t want to nurse. She screamed and screamed, her body shaking with rage as I tried to offer my breast again and again. They brought in a special nurse who was an expert, and she wrestled the baby close to me. When she latched on, I gasped in pain. My entire body was drenched in sweat as my sutured uterus contracted.

Juliet came to the hospital to meet her new sister. That was the bright spot of my six days there. I got mastitis, the cure for which was nursing more. My incision got more sore, not less, but I couldn’t take any effective pain medications because I was nursing. My nipples started to bleed. That was the last straw. She could be bottle-fed. It was fine.

John picked her name. Sadie. Like a factory worker in World War II. He suggested Barbara as a middle name, to which I said, “Don’t curse her with that.” I know it was meant to be a compliment. But honestly. Sadie Barbara Frost? How would that look on a diploma?

And so her middle name was Ruth, after his grandmother. It was fine. It would grow on me, hopefully. I didn’t have any other suggestions.

Looking back, I realize I had postpartum depression. In those first few months, however, I just thought I was a failure.

When she was asleep, I loved her. When she was awake, it soon became clear that she didn’t prefer me. She wanted John, and he took a partial leave so he could work from home to help. When Juliet was born, he’d taken all of two days off.

But for Sadie, he was here, and it was helpful. He’d make me lunch and feed the baby, walk the floor with her, take her for a ride or put her in the carriage and tell me to rest and bounce back.

I didn’t bounce back.

I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep. The surgery and its complications took a lot out of me, and I just didn’t bond with the baby the way I wanted to. The way I had with Juliet. I had a coughing spell a few days after I came home and tore my stitches, so that fun event had to be repeated.

I started to resent Sadie, the way she wouldn’t be comforted by me, the exhaustion from the moment I woke up, dreading the long day ahead. When John went back to work full-time, I held Sadie as she cried and fussed—colic, teething, always something—and I’d look at the clock and count the minutes until Juliet would get off the school bus. Then I’d feel that love. I’d find enough energy to make dinner and pretend I was fine, because when my older daughter was around, I did feel so much better, gosh, yes.

I waited for my second-born to love me the way Juliet had. She didn’t. She didn’t hate me, of course not, but we just didn’t have that special connection. Sometimes I’d see her looking at me, and I swore she knew. What was it about me that she sensed? That I was a fake? That I hadn’t wanted her as much as I’d wanted Juliet? Was I a terrible mother?

During this same time, Juliet and I became closer than ever. Whether she knew it or not, I think she saved me. The sweet girl would bring me a cup of tea without asking if I wanted one, or she’d pick me flowers from the garden, knowing I was too tired to do it myself. That Mother’s Day, she gave me a card that said, “After intensive research and based on my own experiences, this fact cannot be denied: you are the best mother in the history of the world.” That was also the day Sadie cried and cried; she was teething, so I rubbed her gums, and she bit down hard, slicing my finger with her razor blade of a new tooth. My finger bled a shocking amount, and it throbbed for the rest of the day.

That about summed things up. I kept trying to get my second-born to love me, and everything I did was wrong, whereas my first daughter continued to adore and like me. I tried. I really did. You can’t compare your children, all the authorities said, and I tried not to. I wanted to make room for Sadie. I tried to. But John was her favorite, and my poor