Mother's Story (28 page)

‘How are you feeling now?' she whispered.

Jessica looked up through swollen eyes and smiled briefly. ‘A bit better and a bit worse.' She sipped her coffee, comforted by the warmth as it slipped down her throat, which was raw from crying. ‘Better because I've told someone and worse because I'm so ashamed that you know how I feel.'

Polly sighed and nodded. ‘I think you were very brave to tell me how you are feeling. It can't have been easy for you.'

‘I was drunk.'

‘Drunk or not, now you've had the courage to say it, we can start to put you right.'

‘You make me sound like a broken thing, like a doll whose arm's come off or something.'

‘I… I think you are a broken thing, Jess.' Polly's voice was small.

Jessica stared at her friend. ‘I don't know why this is happening to me. I don't understand how my mum and my nan and everyone else can just cope, get on with being a mum, but I can't and I… I don't want to.'

‘Don't get mad with me,' Polly said, ‘but I just called Paz and spoke to him.'

‘Did you tell him?' Jessica's chest heaved at the thought of him knowing her horrible secret.

Polly shook her head. ‘Not the detail, no. But the outline, the basics, and he agrees with me: you are poorly, Jess. This isn't something that a week in Majorca or a good night's sleep can cure. You need to go your doctor and be as honest as you can.'

‘What will Matt think?' Jessica wondered aloud.

‘Knowing Matt, he will just be happy to know what is going on and that you are getting it sorted. He meant every word of his wedding vows, Jess: in sickness and in health. He loves you, he really does.'

Jessica glanced at Polly. ‘He is always going on about how strong I am and how capable and clever, but I'm not. I'm a mess and I don't want him to leave me.' She buried her head in her arms and cried again.

‘He's not going to leave you, Jess. He loves you. He really does.' Polly ran her hand over her friend's hair.

Jessica straightened up and nodded through her tears. ‘Okay.' She held the mug between her palms. ‘Can I ask you something, Poll?'

‘Of course you can, babe. Anything.'

‘Do you think I can get better?'

Polly reached out and gripped Jessica's hand inside her own. ‘I think that you can do anything, my lovely mate, anything you set your mind to, and you won't be doing it alone. We will be with you, every step of the way. I'm taking you home. We are going home today and we are going to get this sorted out. I don't know how it works, but we will do it together, one step at a time. Okay?'

‘Okay,' she mumbled.

Jessica watched as the sun shifted higher in the sky, throwing its warm rays across the ocean and falling on her skin. She lifted her head and smiled. She felt warm, as if a chill had shifted from the pit of her gut. Warm and hopeful.

10th January 2015

You Are Not Alone
:
Post Natal Depression and its Aftermath
. These are the words I am digesting. Whenever Paz visits, he always brings me a new book to read. I haven't read any of them so far – I don't want to listen to some doctor who has no idea what I have been through talking about hormones and telling me how my brain is messed up. But this book's cover awoke something inside me, and yesterday, I opened it in the middle and started reading. Then I went back to the beginning and I have just finished reading the whole thing. And I feel, god, how do I feel? Shocked, sad and strangely relieved. Paz is right, people need to know more about this, people need to talk about it because I think that maybe if I had known more about it, known what was happening to me and just how many women it affects, then I wouldn't have felt so alone, so frightened and so isolated. I have been wondering, had I known how common it was, would this information have helped me in any way and I think it would. I think I would have found it easier, knowing I was in a club of many thousands, rather than a club of one. The scariest thing has always been how it crept up on me, throwing its dark cloak over my head so I couldn't see what was happening. ‘You know it's an illness?' the psychiatrist asked me this over and over again, practically every week since I arrived here, but I just never really believed her. I suppose I couldn't believe that an illness could make you behave in such a terrible way. I didn't want to let go of the guilt. Today I told her about the book and how I was beginning to see it.

Jessica sprinted around the kitchen table at the sound of the front gate creaking. ‘Daddy's home! Ah! Daddy's home! Quick, quick, come on, let's hide.' She grabbed Lilly, who squealed with delight, and ran up the stairs before jumping onto their bed. She tugged the sheet over their heads and wrapped her daughter in her arms, inhaling the scent of her as she pulled her towards her chest, cuddling her like a soft cushion. Lilly giggled and kicked her feet.

‘Where are my best girls?' Matthew called, shutting the front door behind him and placing his briefcase on the floor.

Jessica heard him throw his keys on the console table and pad around the kitchen. Next came the click of his wedding ring on the banister and the sound of his tread on the stairs.

‘Well… they are not in the bathroom!' he shouted.

Lilly yelled out an excited response.

‘Oh, dearie me, I think I need to bash the lumps out of this very bumpy mattress. Like this!' Matthew gently thumped the space to the left of his wife, who chortled gleefully, as did their daughter.

‘Oh no, Lilly, he is getting us!' Jessica lifted her legs to form an arc and avoid Matthew's prods.

He growled and poked his head under the sheet. ‘There you are!' He wriggled under the cover and lay down next to his girls in their makeshift hideaway. ‘How was your day?'

‘Our day was good! Lilly went for a walk around the furniture with only a little bit of help from me. And she has acquired a taste for broccoli, which I told her was little trees and that she was a giant tearing them up and gobbling them whole! And, drum roll please, she said sock!'

‘Sock! How marvellous!' Matthew lifted his daughter and kissed her feet. ‘At least we know we can turn her out into the big wide world and her toes will always be warm.' He smiled.

‘Hey, we're not turning her out quite yet; she's only nine months old. I think another twenty-nine years and two months and I might just consider it.'

Matthew kicked off the sheet and sat up as Lilly climbed up her mum to reach the lamp on the bedside table.

‘Oh no you don't, little wriggler!' Jessica pulled her back and, standing, popped Lilly on her hip. ‘Right, come on, Lilly Rose, we have a table to set and wine to chill because when you are asleep, I am going to ravage your dad, yes I am! I shall ravage him stupid!'

Lilly laughed.

Matthew undid his shirt and slipped off his tie. ‘You're going to have to start moderating your speech with her soon. She'll be repeating everything you say!' He laughed.

‘Love, she just managed sock. I think ravaged might be a few months away yet.'

‘Ock!' Lilly shouted, before clapping her hands together.

‘That's close enough!' Matthew grinned.

‘And I cooked dinner. A big fat chicken is, as we speak, roasting in the oven, and there's mash and veg, all ready to be slathered in gravy.'

‘Gah!' Matthew laughed.

‘Yes, lashings of gah!'

Jessica turned and looked at her lovely man. The combination of antidepressants, counselling and Topaz's mindful relaxation techniques were working. Just a few months ago, when she and Polly had cried on the pebble beach, Jessica could not have imagined feeling like this. But ever since the doctor had said the words ‘You have postnatal depression,' it was as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Jessica didn't feel sad, or ashamed; she felt relieved. So, so relieved. Someone clever, medical and experienced was giving a name to the thing that was destroying her and not only did that thing have a name, it was an illness. She was ill. Not mad; ill.

She and Matthew had held hands, tears streaming down their faces, as the doctor explained to them how the disease worked. He had described how it was most likely brought on by changes in hormone levels, and that it affected between ten and fifteen women in every hundred who'd recently given birth. Polly had been right: it was quite common. Unlike with the health visitor's questionnaire, this time Jessica had been honest about her negative thoughts, her guilt at being a bad mother and even that she had at times considered hurting herself and her baby. Matthew had been aghast, but he had gripped her hand even tighter, for which she was entirely grateful. The doctor had then prescribed a daily dose of mirtazapine to help combat the depression. He also emphasised that she needed to eat regularly and recommended that she exercise and have sessions with a relaxation therapist; she chose Paz.

Despite wishing for it, Jessica did not feel magically better overnight, but she clung to the diagnosis like an anchor. She was poorly and, just like having a headache or the flu or something more sinister, she had to take drugs to enable her to feel better. And so take them she did. Slowly but surely, she began to feel a little better every day, until finally one morning it was as if she had woken up from a very bad dream. Her senses were sharper and her thoughts positive, but best of all, she started to love every second she got to spend with her little girl. It was as if Jessica and Lilly were on catch-up. Lilly would snuggle into her mother's lap as Jessica read to her and they would go for long walks and feed the ducks. The best thing about it all was that she felt like a regular mum. That day, she spent a whole hour bathing Lilly, marvelling at her little pink toes, her chubby bottom and her infectious giggle. She was perfect. Preparing her breakfast was no longer a chore; it was a joy to watch her daughter each morning, listening to her burble away.

Life, however, was not perfect. She still fell into bed each night knackered, like any other new mum, and there were still moments when she felt a longing for her old life, missing the way she and Matthew had once been able to focus solely on each other. And the sex… well, their pre-Lilly exploits were still more of a memory. The difference now was that she was able to snatch moments of joy with her daughter and if she thought about the future, she no longer felt quite so afraid. The black cloud under which she had been living hadn't disappeared entirely, but it had turned to grey and was full of very large holes through which Jessica could poke her head and take a breath.

Matthew was standing on the landing, smiling. He loved the new Jess, who was very like the old Jess, but perhaps just a bit less bonkers and a bit more responsible. The vision of her going to feed the ducks with Lilly filled him with unimaginable joy. He could barely believe that only three months ago he had been scared of leaving the two of them alone together.

‘So, a good day?' he asked as his wife made her way out onto the landing.

‘Yes, Matt.' She smiled. ‘A very good day.'

2nd March, 2015

Something very strange and wonderful happened to me today. I walked to my art therapy session and halfway down the corridor I started humming. I stopped in my tracks and was so stunned I had to lean on the wall. ‘Are you okay?' one of the cleaners asked me. I nodded. I was more than okay, I was beaming. I had been singing a song in my head, and humming as I walked! This might not sound like much, but let me tell you this is a really big deal. I cannot remember the last time I had sung. Can't remember the last time there was space in my head that allowed lyrics and music to fill my mind. It was lovely. The song was one that Matt and I danced to in the kitchen, it made me feel happy, remembering the old me. I arrived at my class feeling positive, me positive! Amazing. I was told to sketch the first thing I thought of and I drew a ravine. Lilly, Matthew and my parents were on one side and I was on the other, they were waving for me to join them, but there was no bridge, no rope, nothing. I was stuck. ‘Look!' My therapist pointed at the image, ‘You want to cross that ravine, but you are unable, circumstance is preventing you. Circumstance, not something you have done. This isn't your fault, you have no control. No matter how badly you want to, you don't have the means to get across.' I looked at her and I got it. Sometimes no matter how badly you want to do one thing, you just can't, no matter how much you wish it. Circumstances beyond your control won't allow it. I thought about the terrible thing that I did and I used to think that if someone offered me the chance to rewind time, would I stop and do something differently, change the outcome? And the answer had always been no, I don't think I would or could and that frightened me. But with my new head and clearer thoughts I was able to say, Yes! Of course and if I could have that day back and do things differently, then I would. I would in a heartbeat.

This has been a very good day.

Matthew woke to Jessica kissing his cheek.

‘Good morning,' she whispered.

‘Well, good morning to you. This makes a pleasant change from the alarm.' Matthew reached out and pulled his wife towards him. His touch was hesitant at first; as a couple they were still a little out of practice. They kissed in a way they hadn't for a long, long time. This was no obligatory peck hello or goodbye, but a slow, full-mouthed kiss full of love and passion, a kiss that cemented their desire for each other. Jessica shed her nightdress as Matthew pulled her on top of him. There she lay, smiling, skin to skin with the man she loved.

‘Matthew, my Matthew…' She ran her fingers over his face and chest. ‘Polly's wedding day!'

‘Yep. I remember every second of ours.' He kissed her throat.

‘Me too. It was perfect. I love you so very much, you know that, don't you?'