‘It’s odd,’ Loll said, her back against the wall as my fingers rested on the collar of her blouse. ‘Why would you think I did anything to help Romilly when your party line has been that she was experiencing postpartum psychosis? Why would anyone help her leave if that were the case? I would be getting her medical help. There is no way I would let her leave.’
I looked at that bow again, hanging low and loose at Loll’s collar.
‘Unless what you’re saying is that you don’t think Romilly experienced postpartum psychosis at all,’ she said. ‘Or didn’t ever? Hmm. Interesting.’
I pulled, ever so slightly on both ends of the bow; one arm braced against Loll. My sister-in-law’s eyes tried to show defiance but there was something else and I knew it because I have seen it before, in eyes identical to hers: the very edge of fear.
Had she lost weight through all of this too? She seemed lighter, somehow. Perhaps that was just seeing her at close quarters; deep wrinkles across her forehead, greys around her temples, the sad reality of this woman, another one who seems more imposing from a distance.
That’s women for you.
‘You don’t think that leaving your newborn baby would be something you’d do if you were going through postpartum psychosis?’ I asked.
She swallowed and I felt it on my fingertips.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think that could be something you’d do if you were going through quite a few things. Postpartum psychosis is one of them, sure. Pure desperation is another.’
I bit my lip.
Tasted blood.