“I can’t stop thinking about you, I have to say. Worrying about all the stress you’re going through, wondering how you’re able to hold your head up high with everything that’s been happening. You’re amazingly strong.”
Her expression was so sincere that I had to fight the urge to hop up and kiss her on the cheek. It wasn’t that Dr. Keller was ever a cold woman, because she was always very friendly. But to see her that concerned, to know that she cared about me, that I wasn’t just a random patient to check off the to-do list—it made me appreciate her in an entirely new way.
“It’s not easy,” I said. “But there are good days, too.”
“I wish there was more I could do for you, Mina, I really do. I mean it when I say that you can call me whenever, even if it’s after hours. I’m always available.”
I nodded, afraid to speak, because if I did, I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to stop.
“Your mom must be very proud of how well you’re handling all this. I see a lot of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings even who aren’t halfway as put-together as you are at eighteen.”
The dam burst, and there was no more holding back. I gave in to it, let all my deepest, darkest thoughts and fears escape out into that exam room. “I’m just scared sometimes, Dr. Keller. All the time, really. I’m scared that I’ll do something wrong, that I won’t be a good enough mother. I’m scared that somebody will try to hurt my baby, and that people will never leave us alone. We’ll never have a normal life. We’ll never be safe.”
The worries dropped out, hot and heavy, one after another, words that I’d never said out loud before. I sagged against the back of the exam table, feeling drained from my confession.
“Oh, Mina. Oh, Mina, Mina,” Dr. Keller said, her voice a soothing purr as she stood and leaned over me, her hands smoothing my hair behind my ears, just like my mother would have done. Dr. Keller, my mom—they were so effortlessly maternal. Strong, nurturing, sensitive by nature. I knew from my mom that Dr. Keller and her husband had two adopted children, and I’d always wondered if she couldn’t conceive—a sad irony for someone who spent her days bringing other women’s babies into the world.
But what if I wouldn’t be like them? I didn’t feel ready to be a mother, but I hoped that it would click, that it would all fall into place once the baby was in my arms. But maybe I wouldn’t be enough. Maybe I’d already made too many mistakes.
“Every new mother is scared, Mina. Every single one. She wouldn’t be a good mother if she wasn’t. Being a mom means a whole lot of being scared for the rest of your life. But one thing you need to realize now to save yourself a lot of time and stressing for the rest of your life—there’s no perfect mom. Not possible.” She smiled down at me, her eyes twinkling behind that day’s thick green frames. “Every mom makes mistakes, a hundred little ones every day, probably. Trust me. My kids could tell you. But that’s okay. A mom learns, she moves on, she makes another mistake. That’s life, Mina. You can’t put so much energy into worrying about all the little details. A baby isn’t like a final exam. There’s no perfect answer for every decision. You make the best out of what you’re working with. You cut yourself some slack, and you forgive yourself. Got it?”
I nodded, letting her words soak into me, willing them to stay trapped deep inside where I couldn’t let them go. I needed them—needed their truth to keep me sane.
It was terrifying, but it was freeing, too, not to have one clear “perfect” to aspire to, no set 100 percent to always be reaching for. Not anymore.
“And everything else that you’re experiencing, Mina, on top of all the normal mom fears . . . that’s why I’m just so amazed by you. It’s good that you’re letting it out. You can’t keep all this bottled up.”
“I know,” I said, knotting my hands around my stomach. “I know it’s not good for the baby that I have all this stress. But I can’t pretend it’s not all happening. I can’t not be scared when I have so many people all around the world who hate me. Do you see the things they say about me online, Dr. Keller? Do you read the messages that complete strangers post about me?”
“I do,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I hate reading them, but I hate not reading them, too. I want to know what people are saying, just to know what you’re up against.”
“I check them every day, too. Have you seen the latest?” I laughed, in spite of the fact that nothing was funny. “The Christmas Eve photos of me and Jesse in what everyone thinks was a compromising position, but what was really just me whispering a stupid apology to him. Scandalous, huh?”
“There are very cruel and very ignorant people in this world, Mina. Your pregnancy is making that horrifyingly apparent.”
“I just don’t understand, Dr. Keller. I don’t understand the kind of anger—the kind of passion—that drives complete strangers to feel this involved in my life. Who are these people, really? Do they seem normal in their everyday life? Are they schoolteachers, nurses, lawyers—people who seem completely rational and stable? And then they come home at night, or they take their lunch break, and they go online and they write that I’ll burn in hell? That my baby will burn in hell with me? I just don’t understand where it comes from. The fervor. The idea that it’s their duty, almost, to condemn me. Or maybe it’s just sick entertainment for them. They’re bored or they’re angry at their own lives somehow, and I’ve become some kind of outlet. It’s unreal, Dr. Keller. It’s just so unreal to me that these people . . . they actually exist. And they think I’m the one who’s doing something wrong?” I laughed again at the irony of it all, swiping at the tears dotting the corners of my eyes.
“Technology,” Dr. Keller started, voice trembling and her cheeks splotchy red as she fought to compose herself. “Technology makes people feel too powerful, Mina. They can say things online that they’d be too cowardly to ever say to someone’s face. It’s a cheap, artificial kind of strength. These people who hate so much, hate without even really knowing . . . their hate is more about them than you, Mina. They’re weak. And they’re scared. People like that, they always need a target. They need to point a finger at someone besides themselves. You’re so much better than they are, Mina. Deep down maybe they know that. Maybe that’s why they’re so angry.”
I hopped off the table and crossed the floor to face her. I reached my arms out and hugged her, wrapped myself tightly around her as I closed my eyes and leaned into the fresh lemony scent of her coat.
“Thank you, Dr. Keller.”
“Like I said before, Mina—anytime. I mean that.”
I gave one more squeeze and pulled back, my head still too busy spinning with her words to speak.
“I’ll see you in two weeks, Mina. Be safe, and keep on doing what you’re doing.” She smiled and reached out for the handle on the door. “You’re getting so close to the end now.”
• • •
“I have to say, Jesse, when you first suggested a trip to Long Beach Island, I thought you were crazy,” Hannah said, stomping through the hard, wet sand in her furry black winter boots. “But now that we’re here? It feels perfect. Insanely perfect.”
“Good to hear, Hannah. So glad you approve.” Jesse grinned at her, kicking a soft spray of sand in her direction. She shrieked and kicked back, running to the water’s edge as he chased after her.
I smiled, pulling my hood tighter around my face. I’d thought the idea was crazy, too. A deserted vacation town at the end of December, temperatures hovering in the low twenties. Jesse and I had discovered on one of our morning car rides that we had both spent our childhood summer vacations along the sacred beaches of LBI, a skinny stretch of island off the New Jersey coast. It was always bursting with people during the summer, mostly families with lots of sticky, screaming kids in tow, but it was a ghost town in the winter. Restaurants and stores boarded up until Memorial Day weekend, houses dark and stripped of the usual kitschy island decor, driveways emptied of boats and cars. I would have expected to be depressed to see my golden summer world so gray and desolate, but now that we were there, I loved it, loved the peace and solitude. I could breathe here in the winter—I could let my hair blow in the cold, salty wind, stare out over the water, and scream at the top of my lungs if I wanted to. No unsupervised kids ramming against me with their boogie boards or sobbing about the fierce green bottle flies.