“Look,” they told me. And I did.

The head was gray and wrinkly, like some sort of alien, reflected in the large mirror positioned at the foot of the bed. Seeing that head kept me going as the pain ripped through me and a ring of fire circled between my legs.

“Can I push longer?” I asked, gasping.

They had already counted to ten, the nurse and my husband, Zach, each holding one knee. I took an extra sip of air at seven—they didn’t know this; I was supposed to hold my breath and bear down all the way through to the count of ten—so I could push a bit longer. I needed to. That wrinkly gray head, slick with wet swirls of hair, needed to come out.

“You can if you need to, Grace, but remember to rest.” The nurse patted my leg. During the thirty seconds before the next contraction hit, she put the oxygen mask over my face. “Breathe,” she whispered in my ear.

An hour earlier the epidural wore off just around the same time the Pit drip kicked in with a force that knocked the air out of me. “We need another cocktail,” the nurse shouted into the intercom.

It seemed like an eternity before the anesthesiologist slid next to me, colorful pendants hanging from his neck almost brushing my cheek. Each contraction still grabbed me in the back first, then the belly and strangled me. Whatever he shot into me didn’t make much of a difference. But, that head kept me going and I bore down with all my might, feeling stronger and weaker than ever before.

“Go, Grace. Go, Grace. Push. Push. Push. Go. Go. Go.”

I was a racecar driver. My pit team was cheering me on. I was about to finish the Boston Marathon, the New York City Marathon, the Iron Man Triathlon. I was Woman hear me roar.

Suddenly there was a knifing pain and a release. “Oh my God,” I gasped.

“The head’s out,” Dr. Spellman said.

Moments later they shouted, “It’s a boy!” and suddenly the warm, slippery baby—my baby—was placed on a blanket on my chest. I hadn’t cried once, but now it flowed. I gazed at the tiny boy. Bits of blood clung to his face.

“He’s so cute,” I said.

The moment seemed anticlimactic, but I was shocked by how cute he really was and how instantly I fell in love. In childbirth class they prepared us for a squished head and beat-up face—but he was perfect.

Even the nurses said he looked like a C-section baby. “You’re so lucky,” they said.

“Hello, Henry,” I whispered. “Hello, my baby.”

Zach leaned over us, stroking my hair. I barely even noticed the contractions urging me to deliver the placenta.

After the cleaning up, weighing and Apgars, counting fingers and counting toes, everyone cleared out of the room so Henry and I could try nursing. The late afternoon sun slanted through the windows illuminating not just the room, but the Boston skyline as well. Henry was surprisingly hungry and latched on right away. It hurt more than I expected; but it would get easier. I wanted to pinch myself. Was I dreaming? My son suckled at my breast. He was less than an hour old, but I’d known him forever.

We decided to have a baby because of a pregnant tree. Rather, we decided when to have a baby because of a pregnant tree—a skinny tree with a big round belly of a bump. Zach and I were hiking around Walden Pond, when the question just slid out between my lips. “Should we start trying?”

Zach sucked in his breath before answering, “I don’t know. Isn’t it a little soon? We’ve only been married a year.”

I was already been thinking about it for months at that point, from the moment my sister, Paula, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer not long after Zach and I said our vows. A fear that I faced the same fate had wrapped its fingers around me then and wouldn’t let go. I was scared for her, of course, but I was also scared that if I didn’t get pregnant just then—who knew what might happen?

My mother had called me with the news. She barely whispered Paula’s biopsy results, before breaking down into sobs. After hanging up the phone I sat curled on the couch, watching dusk fall and the streetlights come on. I didn’t bother closing the shades and shadows from the bare tree branches were crisscrossing the walls. When Zach came home from work I carefully explained to him that we should start trying for a baby, even though it was barely two months since our wedding night. I pulled the fleece blanket under my chin. The heat was all the way up in our small apartment, but I was still cold. Waiting until we were married for at least a year made sense, but the terror I felt muddled my thoughts. “We need some happiness. My family needs some hope,” I whispered.

Zach pulled me to him. He kissed me for a long time—long enough for something to finally break down and let the tears flow. I sank into him and sobbed knowing I was no more ready to have a baby than I was to scale Mount Everest.

Ten months later, after surgery and months of chemotherapy, my sister was cancer free. Somehow, against all bets, those mutant cells were gone, and the terror of the ordeal fell away. Even the endless hours I spent consoling my six-year-old niece during my sister’s hospital stay faded in memory. By the time Paula’s hair grew back into a chic pixie cut, and the color and smile returned to her face, I felt ready to get on with my life.

Even that day at Walden Pond though, the rational part of my mind still said Wait a little longer, have a little money, a house, a future, your career on track. But, my heart said Now, now, now. “I’m going to be thirty in less than six months. If we want to have more than one kid, we better get started,” I reasoned. I also knew that a pregnancy before thirty was the best defense against the type of cancer that invaded my sister.

Zach couldn’t argue with my logic. He was thirty-one. Even if he wouldn’t admit it, his biological clock was ticking too. I knew it was. “What if we’re not ready when the baby comes?” he said, softly.

“Well, you get ready.” At the very moment I answered him, I saw the tree. Now, I wasn’t usually one to believe in signs, but there right before my eyes was that pregnant tree. I had never seen anything like it. “Look at that.” I pointed.

We walked around it, studying that bump from all sides. We even took pictures of it—me next to it, hand on my tummy, laughing. There was no doubt, this tree looked pregnant. It was small, besides the belly, and bare, in a little clearing carpeted with blazing red and gold leaves. Only a few stubborn ruby leaves clung to it. I could touch the top branch, and I plucked one leaf. A thick log sat beside it. We lowered ourselves on to it. I fingered the leaf, an almost translucent jewel.

“Well?” I asked.

Zach smiled. “We’ll get ready.”

****

When we brought Henry home, he was nursing every hour. I’d slept maybe five hours in seventy-two, and yet I was trying to clean up the steadily mounting mess. Gift wrap and shopping bags littered the floor; my discharge papers were still strewn across the bed, along with What To Expect the First Year, Attachment Parenting and three baby magazines. My laundry from the hospital was piled in the doorway.

I had just refilled my hamster, Hamlet’s, food dish with his favorite sunflower seed, corn kernel, raisin and banana chip mix. I felt terrible—he usually got fresh food by 7:00 p.m. and it was already 10:00. I’d emptied the old food, so I knew he wasn’t hungry, but I still felt guilty for ignoring him. While I was pregnant I had a dream that I put my baby, a girl, in the hamster cage and fed her granola and sunflower seeds, while I nursed the hamster. Hamlet was my first baby, strange though that may sound. He was more like a cat than a hamster. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into his cage as I passed carrying Henry.

“Lie down,” my mother commanded. “Have some soup. You’re gonna collapse.”

“I feel fine,” I answered, as I lay Henry on his changing table.

“Let me do that,” my mother said. “I’m here to help you. Why am I even here if you’re not going to let me help you?”

“I’m only going to have my first night home with my son once. He’s only three days old once. I need to learn by doing. You can give me pointers. Okay? Just watch. Really, I need to do this.” I smoothed my nightgown and began.

My mother sighed and sat in the glider. She was muttering to herself about not being needed when something warm trickled down my leg.

There was a red stain on the carpet next to my foot. Blood snaked down my ankle leading to it. My mother saw it a split second after I did. She jumped up and literally pushed me out of the way. “I’ll finish this. You call the doctor now.”

I cleaned up and grabbed the phone. It was 10:14 p.m. I felt a bit foolish dialing the emergency line. The doctor got right back to me, though. “What have you been doing?” he asked.

When I told him, he explained very slowly, like I was an idiot, that if I didn’t lie down, I would end up in the emergency room and quite likely back in the hospital. “You won’t be able to take care of your son, your house, or anything then. Call me immediately if you saturate more than a pad an hour or if the bleeding doesn’t slow when you lie down.”

I lay down, but brought Henry with me to nurse. Zach put him in the bassinet at midnight and he woke at 1:03 a.m. to nurse again. My mother came in when he woke. “Please let me give him a bottle. Look at you, you can’t even open your eyes. You need to sleep. Give him some formula,” she begged.

Hamlet was rattling his cage to come out too. Hamlet was the one who trained us to wake up in the middle of the night when he wanted to play, which was every night until recently. He’s the one who trained Zach and me to take care of something small and helpless. I put drops in his tiny nostrils and swabbed his eyes with antibiotic ointment for ten days when he was sick just a month earlier. I felt so guilty ignoring him. Zach kneeled in front of his cage, said, “Hey buddy,” and took him out.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Henry was wailing. My mother brought him to me.

My father came in then. The crying had wakened him. “Your mother’s right. The other girls fed formula. Why can’t you? Denise didn’t even feed the baby a bottle herself until he was a week old. She rested and had your mother and the baby nurse take care of him. Paula adopted and she had a baby nurse. Why you didn’t get a baby nurse, I don’t know.”

My head was too heavy to reason. I couldn’t explain that if I gave him formula now he wouldn’t breastfeed successfully. I couldn’t explain that I didn’t care that my sisters both formula fed and had baby nurses. I chose to breastfeed and change diapers myself. Paula didn’t have a choice, and Denise had postpartum depression. My nipples were cracked and bleeding, my head throbbed. Henry was screaming and boom…my milk came in.

“Get the hell out,” I hissed. “He’s my child.” I immediately felt guilty. They traveled hours to get here the day he was born, but it was too late.

“At least we’re here,” my mother said, her voice cracking. “Not like the others. If you want us to leave though, we will.” At her words Zach put Hamlet in his exercise ball and left the room, not saying a word.

****

Four days before my due date Zach had announced that his parents were leaving for a vacation in the Florida Keys the next day.

I snorted. “Very funny.”

We had a running argument for days over whose mother would get to help the most the first few days with the baby.

“I’m not joking,” he said. “My dad said they need to get away, so they’re going for two weeks. One week if it’s a boy, I guess, so they won’t miss the bris.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” I couldn’t believe they would skip town just before their first grandchild was due. It was my parent’s fourth and they called every night to see if I was having regular contractions, so they could get on the road for the five-hour trip. They already had directions to the hospital, their bags packed and the car gassed. And Zach’s parents were a two-day car ride away, at best.

They called once in the hospital—just returning Zach’s call the day Henry was born. I will never forget the hurt in Zach’s eyes when he asked me why they weren’t calling, or even turning around and coming home. “Don’t they care?” he implored. Becoming a parent was supposed to be the happiest moment of his life, and he felt abandoned by his own parents. Was it any wonder I agreed with my mother on this one thing?

“Go tell him you’re sorry,” I said anyway. “He’s really hurt by this.” She nodded and left.

After Henry nursed, I stumbled into the bathroom. The bleeding had slowed—one good thing.

In the morning, my parents were too polite. “Time to nurse,” my mother said cheerfully when Henry began wailing fifteen minutes after he finished. “He must not be getting enough if he has to do it so much. He should be satisfied for at least a few hours.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s called cluster feeding and it’s perfectly normal. The nurses at the hospital told me all about it.” I sounded much more rational than I actually felt. When I changed Henry’s diaper though, I was horrified. It was stained orange, one of the warning signs under the When to Call the Doctor section in my discharge papers. A sign of dehydration. “Stay calm,” I told myself, but my hands were shaking fastening the fresh diaper. I held up the old one, it was no bigger than a doll’s diaper, and rubbed it between my fingers. Was it wet? I couldn’t tell. I just couldn’t tell.

The pediatrician reassured me that it was probably just a chemical reaction with the diaper, if he had no other signs of dehydration. “Just watch him,” he said, like I could do anything else.

His next four diapers were definitely wet and he had two diaper blowouts. I recorded this information in a small green notebook under the heading Henry’s Poops and Pees. I was amazed that I found another’s bodily functions so endlessly fascinating.

My mother came into my room and sat next to me while I was nursing again. I was surprised at my lack of modesty, I had no shame baring my breasts in front of her or any other female, related or not. “You’re doing a great job, Gracie,” she said, quietly. “Really, I’m very proud of you. Your father is too. Your sisters never got right into it like you.”

“Thanks,” was the last word I said before I fell asleep holding Henry to my breast.

****

One week before Henry was born, Zach and I had walked around the marina by our apartment. I was contracting pretty strongly before we stopped to rest and eat our ice cream cones. I leaned back into Zach as we sat on an iron bench. The Boston skyline winked at us from across the water. “Well,” I sighed. “Any day now our lives will be turned upside down.”

Zach rubbed my shoulder. “Maybe our lives won’t be turned upside down, but right side up.”

I held this thought in my heart, when Henry was three and a half weeks old and he smiled at me for the first time. He had reflexive smiles before, just his little rosebud mouth turning up at the corners at nothing in particular, but this, this was a real smile.

“Henry,” I cooed. “Mommy loves you.”

Suddenly, his face changed; it lit up. Every feature smiled. His eyes twinkled, his nose crinkled and I fell madly in love all over again. I tried to get him to smile again, cooing and tickling under his chin. Miraculously, he did, even bigger than the last. Maybe he loves me as much as I love him, I thought and my heart almost split. Maybe our lives were turned right side up into a new life.

I was broken out of my reverie, by Zach’s cries, “Grace, get in here now. There’s something wrong with Hamlet.” When I walked into the bedroom, Zach was kneeling in front of the cage. “He’s just lying there crying. He fell over when he tried to get up.”

I never heard a hamster cry, but it was a heartrending sound. Half squeak, half whimper. “Take him out,” I said. “Hold him.”

Zach took him out of the cage and wrapped him in a t-shirt, he stopped crying and fell asleep, his little paws twitching. “Maybe he’s just tired or slipped or something,” Zach said, hopefully. “Maybe he’s okay.”

Zach held Hamlet all night, while I held Henry who, for the previous two weeks, only slept on my chest. I half slept propped up by pillows while Henry nursed on and off all night. He screamed in protest each time he tried to nurse on the left side, so I kept switching him to the right. This happened almost every hour.

Hamlet woke when Henry did, cried a bit then fell back to sleep. When Zach placed him in his cage in the morning, he walked stiffly into the corner and fell into a fitful sleep. “Get some peanut butter,” I told Zach. Hamlet licked a bit off, but refused the water Zach offered him.

I was desperately trying to get Henry latched on to my left side. The more I tried, the more he howled in protest. I felt like I had a cement ball wrapped in fingers of fire in my breast. Just cupping my breast to nurse hurt like hell. My face was burning up and everything ached.

“Oh my God, Grace. Hamlet just fell over.” Zach’s voice had a desperate quality I had never heard before. I stood up slowly and crossed the room, not wanting to see what I knew I would: a scene that a four weeks postpartum, delirious woman should never see. I handed Zach Henry. Sobbing, I reached for the phone to call the vet. I knew the number by heart. Hamlet had been in three times in the past two months.

“Bring him in,” they told me. “He’s a very old hamster. We’ll put him to sleep humanely.”

I hung up the phone and whispered, “But he’s only two and a half.”

****

Zach had brought Hamlet home for me a few months after we got engaged. I had crashed on the couch after staying up all night to make a deadline for the magazine I wrote for, when I heard tiny squeaks and scratching. “I have someone I’d like you to meet,” Zach whispered in my ear.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. He held a small blue box with air holes. “You didn’t bring me a rodent, did you?” I asked hazily. “I told you I wanted to get a kitten.”

“You know we’re not allowed to have cats or dogs here. Come on, just meet him.” Zach opened the box and held it out to me. “His name is Hamlet, because you love Shakespeare. I know you really want something cute and furry to come home to, especially when I work late. Just give him a chance—don’t think of him as a rodent. Think of him as a pet.”

That tiny, furry gray and white body, that little pink nose, those earnest black eyes all conspired to steal my heart. I cuddled him all weekend. He eased my stress while I prepared to interview one of my favorite musicians from my college days, in Boston on tour. I stroked his fur, while we listened to the CDs in preparation. I sang into his little pink ears and kissed his nose. One slow song always calmed him. I put it on now. We were preparing to say goodbye and the song just fit.

“Let’s take him to Angell Memorial, instead of our regular vet.” Zach said. “It’s the best in the city. We owe it to him.”

I nodded; my head and my breast were burning up. I took my temperature. It was 102.4. Right after my doctor told me I had mastitis and should go to the emergency room since it was Sunday, Hamlet started crying again.

I took a couple of Tylenol and made a split decision to take the hamster to the vet instead of going to the emergency room. He was more than a $6 hamster; he was our pet. Hamlet traveled with us to a resort in Lake George, an inn on the Cape (three times), a motel in Connecticut and countless trips to my parents in New York. At the inn we were known as the hamster people and the no pets rule was lifted. Every morning we were there Hamlet was invited down to breakfast where he had some cantaloupe and Cheerios before we put him back in his cage.

During our wedding ceremony, the rabbi told our guests, “Zach and Grace are great parents, just ask Hamlet. Imagine when they have real babies.”

When I did go to have a real baby, I kissed Hamlet goodbye. A picture of him was even my focus object during labor. But for four weeks I barely paid attention to him. Zach made sure that he played with him and stroked his fur, but I had been too tired and preoccupied to do much more than call out hello.

I peeked into Hamlet’s cage. “Hi baby,” I cooed. He didn’t even lift his head. I turned back to Zach; his eyes were rimmed red. “I know,” I whispered as he handed Henry to me.

The phone rang. Zach answered it. “We had a little delay. Hamlet is sick. We’ll get there when we can.”

“My mother?” I mouthed. To make everything worse, we were supposed to be in New York for Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year and a High Holy Day—before sundown. Zach handed me the phone even though I waved “no” with my free hand.

“Are you going to miss dinner?” my mother asked.

“Ma, Hamlet is really sick. I think we need to put him to sleep.” She sucked in her breath. I knew she was remembering the day she called me in tears, just having put our 15-year-old terrier to sleep. I tried so hard not to cry. “Listen,” I said quickly. “I’ve gotta finish packing. We need to get him to the doctor now.”

On the way, we played his favorite song, and I held him on my lap. Henry fell asleep when we got in the car. I’d nursed him before we left, just the right side, I was too tired to try the left. He woke up, screaming, as soon as we walked into the emergency clinic. While Zach checked in Hamlet, I sat in a corner and draped a blanket over my shoulder. It was the first time I nursed in public and I kept checking, side to side, to see if anyone was looking. Rather than risk his screaming, I offered the right side again. Henry fell back to sleep before Zach returned with a diagnosis sheet that said Hamster Flat Out at the top. He tried to hide it from me, but I saw it anyway.

“Flat out? What the hell does that mean?”

Zach just shook his head. The room was drenched in that hospital smell. I closed my eyes, and it was just four weeks earlier and all was right. Henry just arrived; Hamlet was sleeping snuggly in his cage. For a moment I forgot where I was, then the door swung open. A man walked in carrying a white dog wrapped in a towel, his coat stained bright red with blood. “He was dragged behind the car,” his owner cried.

“How can you let that happen?” I wanted to scream. But, I kept my mouth shut. Hamlet was still crying. “Why aren’t they taking him? Maybe I should go ask.”

Zach put his hand on my leg, “No. I don’t think it’s going to make a difference now.”

It was an hour before they took us, and I just watched Hamlet wasting away, but when the vet, Dr. Wilson, examined him, Hamlet squirmed and struggled to get out of her grasp. She held him up and said, “I don’t think he’s dying. He’s dehydrated and undernourished, but I think that’s because he has a cyst in his stomach, I feel it.”

Zach and I exchanged glances. Was it possible to have hope? Dr. Wilson took Hamlet’s temperature—rectally—and he strongly objected, wriggling to get away. “It’s a little low, but he is definitely not placid,” she said. “We’ll put him on the warming table.” She wrapped Hamlet in his towel and moved him to a small table. “Do you want my opinion?”

We both nodded. Henry stirred in his carriage and I pushed it back and forth while I listened to Dr. Wilson. “I wouldn’t put him to sleep right away. We’ve successfully removed cysts from hundreds of hamsters. It’s a very common procedure. I suggest you leave him here and we can run some tests, do an ultrasound and an x-ray.”

“Wouldn’t that make him uncomfortable?” I asked.

“Oh no, he’ll be in a warm cage, hand fed lettuce and apples and given an under the skin IV to hydrate him and plump him back up a bit. The ultrasound and x-ray are painless and the blood test is done in a flap of skin. I really think he can make it, he has spunk.”

I held this hope to my heart, but I also knew how old he was. “He’s over two and a half,” I mentioned.

“Well, some hamsters live to three or more,” she said. “Of course you don’t have to do any of this, but it seems like you really love him.”

We did, so we said yes. Yes to everything, whatever lifesaving methods were needed. We kissed Hamlet goodbye and let him lick a bit of peanut butter that we brought with us off of our fingers.

I nursed Henry on the right side again when we returned to the car. Tears streamed down my face, but neither of us said a word. It was too late to go to the emergency room. We had to get on the road to make it to my parents by dinner. While we were driving, I attempted to pump my left breast that was the size of a football. After I gave up on the pump, I took two Tylenol to keep my fever down.

In synagogue the next day, Zach and I prayed for Hamlet. I was sure we were the only ones praying for a hamster and wondered what people around us would have said if they knew. I called the hospital when we returned. “Hamlet is stable, he’s eaten apple slices and lettuce and is hydrated,” I was told. “He’ll have an x-ray in a bit and an ultrasound in the morning.”

“He’s stable! He’s stable!” I shouted to Zach.

After, I finally went to my sister’s obstetrician for the mastitis. My breast was streaked red top to bottom and I nearly jumped off the table when he examined it.

“You’re lucky you came in now,” he said. “This is a nasty case. Just keep nursing or pumping.” I left with a prescription for antibiotics in-hand and raced home to my parents’ house to call the vet. Hamlet was still stable.

The report was the same in the morning. They told me to call back in the afternoon to find out the results of all the tests. Zach packed the car to leave while I nursed Henry. Hot compresses and massages plus the antibiotics helped a bit and Henry finally emptied the left side, though I still winced as he latched on.

My mother slid next to me on the couch and whispered, “You’re a wreck. You need to come back here. Have they given you any help at all?”

By they, I knew she meant Zach’s parents. “Not much, but that’s okay,” I answered.

“So have you said anything to them about their skipping town?”

“No. Zach forgave them. He said they just wanted to give us our space, that’s why they didn’t call.”

“That’s a crock of shit,” she said, just as Zach walked in.

“What are you talking about?” Zach asked. His jaw tightened.

“Nothing, sweetie.”

When I called for the update on Hamlet while we drove through Connecticut, the vet simply said, “I’m sorry, but he’s one sick little hamster. There’s nothing we can do.” Everything else she said was kind of muddled in my mind. I think it had something to do with too many cysts and that he stopped breathing once. I made arrangements for us to put him to sleep the moment we returned to Boston. I knew we needed to say one last goodbye.

When I hung up, I sobbed uncontrollably and thought, I must be totally insane. Henry was asleep, peacefully. I put my finger under his nose. Yes, he was breathing.

Zach cried too, I wasn’t used to hearing it. I stopped when he started. “He’ll be at peace soon,” I told him. But we both knew that Hamlet represented something really wonderful about us, and that everything was changing.

“I took care of him,” Zach said, wiping his nose with the napkin I handed him out of the glove compartment. “The past month, you’ve had Henry. I can’t nurse him. It’s like you two have this circle and I’m an outsider, but Hamlet needed me.”

“I’m sorry,” is all I said.

After Hamlet died, everything did change. I thought the night we buried him in his little red sleeping bag in Zach’s parents’ backyard was the bottom, but it just kept going down. It seemed like Zach and I fought about everything: laundry (he did more), cooking (we kept the pizza place on the corner in business), the stack of dishes from breakfast still in the sink, but mostly we fought about his parents.

Even though Zach forgave his parents for skipping out for a tropical vacation just before their first grandson was born and the transgression of not calling us in the hospital, I did not have an easy time. At Henry’s bris, Zach accused me of being cold for not offering Henry to his parents the moment they walked in the door. I calmly explained that this was a very stressful day for Henry and he was not being passed from relative to relative. I was either holding him, nursing him, or he was in the bassinet. “If they wanted one on one time, they shouldn’t have waited until their grandson was eight days old to come see him. They could have held him the day he was born if they hadn’t left,” I whispered.

I felt better after saying that and the fights probably wouldn’t have escalated had it not been for the repeated disappointments Zach endured at his parents’ hands. I watched him hang up the phone, eyes downcast the week after Hamlet died.

“Are they coming before Henry goes to sleep?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“My Dad says he just has to clean off the porch and rake the leaves. They’ll be here around 7:30. They really want to see him. I told him he might be sleeping then, not to expect too much,” he said, quietly.

“They don’t even deserve to have a grandchild if they can’t make time for him,” I snapped, startling Henry who was napping on my shoulder. “Shh,” I whispered. “It’s okay.” I turned back to Zach, “I’m sorry, but you have to call them back and tell them to be here earlier or don’t bother coming at all. I’m not keeping Henry up so he can entertain them. And I’m certainly not going to stay awake past 8:00 myself. He wakes at midnight, and I’m exhausted.”

“That’s not fair,” Zach answered. “I haven’t seen them in a week. They want to see Henry. They’re just busy. You treat them like second class citizens.”

I collapsed into the recliner and put my feet up. Henry sighed in his sleep. “I guess we just grew up differently. In my house you put family first, menial chores second. You know what would really be shocking—if your parents arrived at 5:30 with a plate of sandwiches and a bag of chips.” My mother had stocked our freezer with vats of homemade meatballs, chicken soup and loaves of banana bread the last time they visited. We finished it all the first week. Maybe I just expected too much. I waved my hand. “Forget it. Let them come over whenever. But, if your father asks, ‘Doesn’t he do anything but sleep?’ again, I’m gonna lose it.”

Zach’s parents continued to work visits into their schedule, I continued my lukewarm reception, and Zach continued lashing out at me after they left. “How come you asked my mother to wash her hands when she came in? You know she’ll do it anyway…” or some variant on the theme.

The arguments about household duties kept cropping back up again too. “If you put your dish in the sink, how difficult is it to take the extra thirty seconds to put it in the dishwasher?” Zach asked. Or, “I don’t mind doing the laundry, if you’d just put it away instead of letting it pile up in the laundry basket until it falls over on the floor. You obviously need help around here, Grace. Have my mom come over to watch Henry so you can get some stuff around the house done.”

“I’ll tell you what, if your mom can work it into her schedule, I’ll take a nap when she comes over,” I answered.

The more Zach nagged me, the less I wanted to do, but inside I felt like the worst wife in the world. Every ounce of my energy went to keeping Henry fed, clothed, dry and happy. There was just nothing left to give. One day I found Zach in the basement of our apartment sitting cross-legged in front of Hamlet’s cage. Inside was Hamlet’s food dish and exercise ball, but it seemed so empty.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs.” Henry was sleeping, the monitor on my hip was quiet, just the slightest rise and fall of his breath was heard. I knew that if I took Zach by the hand and led him upstairs to our bedroom, all would be forgiven. I could use my mouth, my hands—I could remind him of why he loved me. I could slip from being Henry’s mommy into Zach’s wife so seamlessly, weaving it right into our day, but the phone rang, the monitor screeched with wails and the moment was lost before we even made it up the stairs.

Three months later, I still hadn’t found a way to slip back into being Zach’s wife. Henry was five months old and the haze of the early days lifted a bit. I knew his different cries and he did more than nurse all day. In fact, he nursed for only ten minutes at a time and hours passed between feedings, though my mother still insisted nursing was too much work. He rolled over, ate cereal, cooed and said, “Mama” much earlier than I ever expected. Although I knew he was just making sounds, every time I heard that one I wanted to whoop with joy. Shout it from the rooftops.

Nights were a different story. I wanted to jump off of a rooftop after five months with no sleep. I was a walking zombie—the more tired I was and the more Henry showed it was only me he wanted, the more I lost track of myself and the more I lost touch with Zach. The fights moved from his parents (whenever I got pissed off, I did my labor breathing and whispered my mantra, forgiveness) and housework (I at least got my dishes into the dishwasher and the laundry out of the basket) to the bedroom.

On our Saturday trip to the mall Zach leaned over my shoulder, his face in my hair. I thought he was going to kiss me, instead he said, “I feel like we’re roommates.”

We were by the jeans display at Baby Gap. I held up a tiny pair then put it back. We couldn’t afford anything at full price. “Why are you bringing this up here?” I whispered. “We can’t really talk.” Henry slept soundly in his carriage. I pushed it back and forth.

“We can’t really talk at home either,” Zach whispered back. “You’re always preoccupied. At least Henry is asleep. The phone isn’t ringing. I know I have your attention.”

I silently pushed the carriage to the sales rack. Zach followed. I knew why he brought it up. We’d had sex once in five months. On our second anniversary—when Henry was three months old—Zach led me upstairs to the turned down bed. He had left a chocolate on the pillow, the same kind the hotel had on our wedding night. Making love again was tender and sweet and it hurt like hell. Although my stitches were gone, the spot they closed back up was still on fire. And somehow, even after childbirth, I was still tight as I was when I had sex the first time as a seventeen-year-old virgin and it was equally painful. Plus the mastitis had returned with a vengeance late that afternoon so even hugging was too much contact for my tender breast. Zach’s touch nearly sent me flying off the bed. Only double doses of Tylenol had brought my fever down.

When I went to the doctor for the infection the next day, she asked what kind of birth control I was using. “Condoms, I guess, though I haven’t really needed them much—just once,” I answered. “Is that normal at three months?”

She reassured me that it was, especially with no sleep, and as a bonus fitted me for a diaphragm. “Just try to do it once a week,” she advised. “Make a date. You’ll see—even if you don’t feel like it at first, the desire will return.”

The diaphragm was still sitting in the closet unopened when we left for the mall that morning. Maybe its presence was a cruel reminder to Zach. “Remember the prescription we were supposed to fill—our ‘date’ once a week?” Zach asked. I rifled through the sales rack looking for bargains, barely glancing up at him. He was excited when I told him the doctor’s advice to have sex once a week. “I like her prescription. The pharmacist is in, baby,” he said seductively when I collapsed into bed that night.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, inspecting a red sweatshirt marked down to $6.99. “Really. It’s just tough after a whole day taking care of the baby.”

“How tough can once a week be, Grace? I’m just getting really frustrated. I come home from work, do a load of laundry, empty the sink, take out the garbage, waste a couple of hours online and go to sleep. Just to do it all over again the next day.”

My head throbbed. I turned back to Zach. “What do you want me to do greet you at the door in a French maid’s uniform?” A grandmotherly type sorting through the rack looked up at me. Zach started to walk away, but I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry,” I said again. I was.

He turned back to me. “Stop saying you’re sorry if nothing’s going to change.”

The next night I planned a romantic interlude. Zach had called to say he would be working late; he’d be home around 7:30. Henry was bathed and ready for bed at 7:00. I lit French vanilla candles and changed into the ivory silk and lace nightgown Zach bought me for our anniversary. I snapped open the pink case my diaphragm came in and examined the flesh colored dome, praying I could get it in right. I read all the instructions and placed it on my night table, along with the spermicide. I was on the bed by 7:20, waiting. I slipped one spaghetti strap off my shoulder and ran my tongue over my lips for practice. “I’m ready,” I whispered into the air.

I had it all planned out. When Zach came upstairs to change after work, I’d push him on the bed and slowly unbuckle his belt, undo his pants, take my time unbuttoning each button on his starched pale pink dress shirt and stop for a moment to admire his muscles rippling under his white ribbed tank. By then he’d be straining against his gray boxer briefs. I’d pull them off slowly, lowering my mouth on each inch as it’s liberated. I could hear him moaning in my head. When he couldn’t take anymore, I’d slide onto him and we’d melt together, sweat and skin.

By the time Zach got home, the candles had burned down; I had changed back into sweats and was asleep on the couch. I woke when the door opened and glanced at the clock. 9:46 p.m.

Zach’s hair was all messed up and his face was red. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. He leaned over to kiss me and something just kicked in. I stuck my nose in his hair and breathed in deeply.

He jumped back. “Did you just smell me?”

I did. What could I say? “No.”

“You did so. What are you expecting to smell?” Zach stood with his arms crossed looking down at me. A shaft of moonlight fell through the blinds.

I didn’t know what I thought I’d smell. Chanel No. 5. Raspberry hand cream. Something that was not me. All I smelled was something salty. Sea air, maybe? “Nothing.”

That night I dreamed about an old friend. He was a friend from college who had always helped me through breakups and even rough times while Zach and I were dating. I did the same for him, feeding him chocolate chip cookies while he sprawled on my couch after breaking up with his girlfriend. I had only seen him twice since Henry was born, though we talked on the phone often. The dream wasn’t sexual at first—there was only the merest suggestion of what might happen. He took my face in his hands and brushed back my hair. He traced his finger lightly over my lip and down my neck. I gazed up at him, shivering under his touch. “Do you love me?” I asked.

“So much it hurts,” he answered.

“Then show me,” I whispered. He roughly pulled off my jeans and t-shirt and I fell back onto a bed that was suddenly behind us. The sheets felt impossibly soft under my bare skin and his lips sizzled on my skin, tracing a path from my breasts down. His tongue circled me lightly at first and then more probing. I think I may have let out a moan and my eyes flew open.

I rolled over. Zach’s face showed nothing. Was he dreaming about someone? “How did this happen to us?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer; he slept soundly.

I stared at the ceiling until Henry started screaming, then I nursed him in the glider instead of bringing him to bed with me. I rocked him for an hour before putting him back in the crib. When I got into bed, Zach rolled over and threw his arm around me. He stuck his face in my hair and sighed falling into a deep sleep without ever having opened his eyes.

My friend continued to appear in my dreams, always reassuring me with a hug, looking deep into my eyes. He kissed me—hard sometimes, softly others—and held me to him. Some nights he made it past my neck again, flicking his tongue over my nipples or sliding into me with an ease that eluded me during waking hours with my husband. I felt terribly guilty at first, but after a while the dreams stopped tormenting me. I knew what they meant. I needed comfort and intimacy again. I turned to Zach. Gradually, I wove being Zach’s wife into the tapestry of our days. We made love again and once a week occasionally even became twice a week.

A few weeks after Zach came home late he arranged for his parents to babysit. They actually showed up before 8:00 p.m., so we were able to go out to dinner before I was flat on my face. When Zach got home from work, he instructed me to wear something nice. I pulled off my sweats stained with the pureed carrots Henry flung at me at lunch and stood in front of my closet in my bra and underwear trying to figure what I could possibly wear. I was still in that in between phase—maternity clothes were too big, but most of my old clothes didn’t quite fit yet.

I pulled out a stretchy black miniskirt and a low cut garnet silk tank. I grabbed a drapey black cardigan from the shelf and slipped on a pair of heels for the first time in about a year. My feet had gotten bigger during my pregnancy, so I had to really squish them in, but it was worth it when I walked out of the bedroom and Zach wolf whistled. I actually blushed, smoothing down my skirt and tucking my hair behind my ear.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Just a sec.” I dashed into the bathroom and grabbed my old scarlet lipstick. It used to be my signature color and Zach always said it made him weak in the knees when he first met me. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore it. I slicked some on and ran a brush through my hair, then twisted it up and secured it with a clip.

I kissed Henry goodbye and instructed Zach’s parents in his bedtime routine. It was amazing to me that in almost six months this was the first time they had put him to bed. “There’s a bottle of breast milk in the fridge,” I informed them just before we walked out the door. I swore I could see a brief look of disgust pass his father’s countenance. I wanted to yell, “You don’t have to drink it!” but I reminded myself to just breathe.

Stepping out into the cool night, Zach stuck his face in my hair and whispered, “Grace, you look like a hot librarian. And that skirt… Any chance you’re not wearing underwear?”

“Sorry, I am. But, maybe you could convince me to remove them later…” I trailed off and Zach let out a little moan.

“My pants are getting too tight. I can’t walk into a respectable restaurant with raging wood. See what you do to me, Grace?”

“So, what is this respectable restaurant we’re going to? You still haven’t told me.”

“And, I’m not going to. It’s a surprise.” He pulled a silk tie out of his pocket.

“Are you putting that on? Must be fancy for you to wear a tie.”

“Yes and yes, but first I’m going to blindfold you with it. I told you, it’s a surprise.”

It was a little disorienting riding in a car in total darkness. I couldn’t tell which direction we were headed and I even felt a bit panicked for a moment. But then, I decided to just relax and let Zach lead the way. I had to trust him completely. After about fifteen minutes we parked and he helped me out of the car. He gently removed the tie and fastened it around his own neck.

I glanced around, trying to get my bearings. It only took me a moment to realize we were at the Four Seasons hotel in Boston. We had stayed at a Four Seasons for part of our honeymoon—we couldn’t afford to stay there the whole time—and the one real meal we ate in the restaurant was the best meal I had ever had in my life, fresh-caught salmon on a bed of wilted spinach with garlic mashed potatoes. We ate peanut butter and guava jelly sandwiches in our room for lunch and yogurt and fruit or salads in the restaurant for every other meal. We couldn’t afford to both stay there and eat three meals a day.

I always told Zach that I wanted to go to the Four Seasons in Boston for just one meal, but it was never in our budget. “This is way too expensive, Zach. Let’s go somewhere else, there are a ton of restaurants around here.”

“No, let’s stay. You deserve a fancy night out, Grace. You deserve to be pampered and treated like a princess once in a while.”

“You really want to get laid tonight, don’t you?” I asked with a laugh.

“That’s my plan,” Zach smirked.

His plan worked like a charm. Dinner was amazing and driving home satiated and sleepy, I finally felt at ease—with Zach, with myself, with being away from Henry for more than an hour.

“What do you say we make a little stop?” Zach asked as he pulled off the road that snaked along the shore, taking a right down toward the water, instead of a left into our neighborhood. The Boston skyline winked and glimmered at us as we drove down the small side road into inky darkness. Zach parked next to a little jetty and tilted his head toward it. “Remember that night?”

I remembered. It was right after we got engaged. We were walking along the beach at dusk and found ourselves on this jetty. We climbed on the rocks and just stared out at the water, holding hands, not even speaking as the skyline lit up and we were draped in darkness. There was no one around and it was completely silent, except for the crickets singing. Zach pulled me on top of him and we rocked together, somehow not falling off. “I remember,” I whispered.

“Leave your underwear in the car and follow me.”

I was really grateful I was wearing a miniskirt; I simply pulled off my underwear and climbed out of the car. I didn’t even mind the chilly air blowing off the water, leaving a trail of goose bumps on my skin. Zach had me against the pile of rocks in a second, sliding his hand up my skirt. His finger worked into me and I let out a little moan. I felt myself softening up to him. He kissed my neck and whispered, “Just relax. It’s just you and me in this moment. Smell the salty air, feel the velvet night. Just breathe.”

He stroked me a little more and dropped to his knees, lifting my skirt a bit so he could fit his head under it. After a moment I pulled him up. “Now.” I undid his belt buckle. I couldn’t believe I was ready so quickly.

I unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and they dropped around his ankles. I yanked down his boxer briefs. I hadn’t felt that level of desire, that urgency, since before giving birth.

Zach hiked my skirt up and slid into me. The tightness gave way and it just felt blissful as he lifted me. I wrapped my legs around his waist. “Oh my God, Grace, you feel so good. I’ve missed you so much. I know you’ve been here, but I’ve missed you. Not just sex. I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too.” I kissed Zach hard and felt that familiar, but almost-forgotten wave cresting up in me. “Are you close?” I whispered.

“You go first. God knows you deserve it. And, I better pull out before I do anyway. Not quite ready for another baby.”

“No, not at all,” I gasped. Zach cupped my backside and pulled me even closer.

“Let it go,” he whispered into my hair. “Just let it go.”

I did and felt the release of months of emotional frustration and exhaustion, even more so than the physical release. Something just broke open inside of me and flooded me with light, erasing my doubt and fears. “I love you,” I breathed and kissed Zach tenderly.

After that night, whenever Zach worked late he called and then walked in the door when he said he would. We didn’t mention the smelling thing again, though I checked his pockets periodically. Did that make me a bad person? I never really thought he’d have an affair, but a few months later we were watching Henry rock on his knees, squealing in delight, getting ready to crawl, when I asked, “What did you do the night I smelled you?”

“So, you admit it. You did smell me.”

“Fine, I admit it. What did you do? I know you weren’t working.”

Zach leaned in close to me. “Honestly? I went to the marina and walked and walked, then I sat on that same bench that we sat on before Henry was born and thought about our lives being turned upside down or right side up and which one it was.”

“Well, which was it?”

“I think,” he paused. “It was right side up. Then I realized that I was pretty damn lucky and I better get home to my wonderful wife. Those first months had to be all about Henry. He needed you more.”

“You thought that, even though we weren’t having sex? Even though you felt like I was your roommate?”

“Yeah, I did. You know, when I got home that night I saw the nightgown I bought you tossed on the pillow and your diaphragm on the night table. I couldn’t believe that you were waiting for me and I screwed up. I felt terrible, but I also knew then we would be okay. And, I started planning for that night I took you to the Four Seasons.”

“That was a good night,” I sighed.

The sun streamed in the window, skipping off Henry’s hair, turning it copper. Outside, buds were appearing on the bare branches. “Rock-a, rock-a Henry,” I sang as he rocked back and forth on his knees, giggling.

“How does he have so much energy if he doesn’t sleep at night?” I asked Zach. “I swear he’s nocturnal, just like Hamlet. Maybe our child is part hamster.” The night before, I found Henry sitting up, shaking the bars of his crib at 2:00 a.m. I was too tired to rock him back to sleep, so I carried him to our bed.

As Henry and I curled together under the blanket, my arms around him, the exhaustion and frustration of being wakened every night hit me and I started to cry. Henry took his pacifier out of his mouth and gave me a kiss, then rested his face against mine for a moment and fell into a soundless sleep. I watched him, his chest rising and falling under his teddy bear print sleeper, his face illuminated by the golden glow of the streetlight outside our window. I breathed in his baby smell, my nose under his chin. The moment was ephemeral. It was gone in the blink of an eye, but my tears had dried.

“I think you’re right.” I opened the window to let in some fresh air. “We’ll be okay.”