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me.” I said yes immediately—he was smart, funny, and sweet; all the good things I thought a husband should be. I loved him. I also didn’t want to be like my mother, resigned to survive my life alone. I was certain having a husband would make motherhood that much easier to navigate. And besides, Martin was delighted to become a father. I could still be a journalist. I could still live the life I’d planned. I’d just have Martin and a baby living it right along with me.
    Alice, of course, was thrilled to learn she would be a grandmother. We told her about the baby a few weeks after the impromptu wedding. At her urging, with the sudden knowledge he was about to become a father, Martin surprised me by leaving the public school system, parlaying his technical savvy into a cushy, well-paying programming position with Microsoft.
    “But you love teaching,” I said when Martin informed me he was switching careers. Martin’s intense fondness for his students was one of the things that made me believe he would be the kind of father neither of us had ever known. “What about becoming a principal someday? Isn’t that what you’ve wanted?” We were driving during this conversation, on our way out to dinner. My hand rested on the curve of my stomach, a first attempt at cradling our child.
    Martin shrugged. “The benefits at Microsoft are amazing, Cadee. They’ll pay for everything . . . your pregnancy, the birth, insurance for all of us. Plus, there’s the opportunity to move up in the company.” He threw a brief glance out the window. “I’d never get that with teaching. Not really.”
    “But—” I began, and he cut me off.
    “I want this, honey. I do. I want to be the kind of father my dadwould have been proud of. I want our child to have everything we didn’t.”
    I hadn’t argued with him further. I tried to be supportive the way I assumed a good wife would. Not that I had any firsthand knowledge of what a good wife actually looked like. But since life presented me with the opportunity to have everything my mother never did—husband, kids,
and
a career—I wasn’t going to screw it up. I was going to have it all.
    For a while, it felt like I did. Toward the end of my pregnancy, with the security of Martin’s new job, I left the
Herald
and started freelancing. My first few articles sold quickly, so I assumed I’d have no problem picking it back up a few months after Charlie’s arrival. Aided by a perfectly timed spinal block, giving birth was easier than I expected it to be, though learning to take care of an infant was much harder. Charlie was colicky, and no matter how many times we tried, he refused to take a pacifier or a bottle. The first six months of his life, if he wasn’t sleeping, he was nursing. Sleep became a rare luxury, and even with breastfeeding, my body didn’t bounce back the way all the books I’d read promised that it would. Instead, it clung to fifteen of the thirty-five pounds I’d gained while pregnant. I was puffy and exhausted. I also discovered that I really didn’t want sex anymore; that overwhelming physical desire simply ceased rising up beneath my skin. This startled me and had a profound, immediate effect on my marriage. The one place Martin and I always connected was in bed.
    At first, Martin was patient. He said he understood. We’d climb under our covers at night and he’d just hold me. After a couple of months passed, though, that wasn’t enough. He’d hold me, but then start to kiss my neck. His hands moved over my hips, urging me to him. I knew what he wanted. I felt guilty, so I forced my body to mimic the correct motions, despite my mind silently screaming to be left alone. This was a new sensation for me. I was used to wanting him, too. At that point, the only craving I felt for physical connection was cradling my child in my arms.
    “Mmm, you feel so good,” Martin whispered in my ear. My body felt stiff and unresponsive, but I murmured a loving sentiment