The first few weeks with a newborn had already stretched Mara to her limit. So when she realized her husband kept disappearing in the middle of the night, her imagination went straight to the worst possibilities. Then she checked the baby monitor and saw him enter the nursery at 2 a.m. carrying a paper bag—and hiding something she never expected.

Coming home after giving birth is difficult.

Everyone says so. They offer advice like, “The first few weeks are a blur,” and, “Sleep when the baby  sleeps,” and, “It gets better.”

What no one tells you is that sometimes you end up sitting on the bathroom floor at three in the afternoon because the baby has cried for twenty minutes, your breasts ache, your stitches burn, and you cannot remember whether you brushed your teeth that morning or the previous day.

No one explains that postpartum  depression does not always feel like sadness. Sometimes it feels like static or rage. Like being trapped inside a body that no longer belongs to you while everyone insists you should feel grateful.

That was the hardest part.

I loved my son so much that it frightened me.