“Has Motherhood Been What You Expected?”

I work in customer service. After hanging up on a rude customer, I scream obscenities, burst into tears, and rush outside to sit on our back porch, body curled over my knees. My dad — visiting from out-of-state, a calculated risk in August 2020, before vaccines and at the height of anti-mask sentiment — rushes to ask if I’m okay while my husband tries to calm our six-month-old. I don’t know what’s wrong. I feel unmoored. Numb. I fantasize about being dead. An abrupt disconnect. A cessation. An absence of feeling. My husband is a therapist, and I’ve been in enough therapy […]