The first thing my mother tried to take from me after I gave birth was twenty-seven thousand dollars.
The second was my daughter.
And if those hospital doors hadn’t burst open when they did, I still don’t know which one I would have lost first.
My husband, Grant, had been gone less than an hour when my mother entered my hospital room without knocking.
Diane Mercer brought no flowers.
That was how I knew something was wrong.
My mother always carried something when appearances mattered. Grocery-store roses for funerals. Satin-wrapped bakery boxes for family dinners. Expensive gift baskets at baby showers, usually positioned so everyone could see the card bearing her name.
But when she came to meet her first granddaughter, she had only her purse.
My younger sister, Brielle, followed her inside wearing a cream coat and knee-high boots.
“You have got to be kidding me, Natalie.”
Those were her first words.
Not congratulations.
Not how are you?
She didn’t even look at Clara, my daughter, sleeping against my chest.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier, I’d had an emergency C-section after Clara’s heart rate suddenly dropped during labor.
Now every movement felt as though someone were dragging a wire through my abdomen.
I was exhausted, swollen, medicated, frightened, and so overwhelmed by love for the tiny warm body against me that sometimes looking at her made it hard to breathe.
Brielle raised her phone.
“The venue needs the deposit today.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“My birthday venue. I’ve called you fourteen times.”
For a second, I genuinely thought I had heard her wrong.
“Brielle, I gave birth yesterday.”
“I know when you gave birth.”
“Then maybe this conversation can wait.”
“It can’t.”
My mother sighed.
