Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney Read Free Book Online Page B

with two healthy babies, doing nothing but stress and worry. She should be grateful, shouldn’t she? Happy every moment of every day? And yet …
    Even keeping to the speed limit, she managed to arrive into the main street of Clare fifteen minutes early for her appointment. She found a parking space and sat for a moment to collect her thoughts.
    She’d set up today’s meeting a week before. It was with the editor of the Valley Times, the newspaper she’d worked at for more than four years, right up until she’d left for maternity leave eight months previously. Officially, she was supposed to be on leave for another five months. Unofficially, she was beginning to worry for her sanity. Seriously worry.
    She hadn’t talked about it with Daniel yet. When did they get the chance to talk about anything much, apart from the twins? It wasn’t that she regretted having them, not for a second. She didn’t. They’d talked about starting a family from the earliest days of their marriage, and had been overjoyed when she finally got pregnant. Her pregnancy hadn’t been easy, bad morning sickness combined with day-long tiredness. But then to learn that she was having twins! It seemed like the most wonderful present anybody could ever get.
    And it was. It was . She loved her babies so much, with a fierceness that surprised her. She’d done everything she could for them. Breastfed even when it seemed so painful and strange. Stayed up all night if she had to. Slept for only an hour here and there for weeks on end. She hadn’t brushed her hair or changed out of pyjamas for the first few months. It had all been worth it, to be with the two of them, to see Daniel with them, to be able to think “we’re a family.” It felt magical, amazing, special. Precious.
    She’d also loved being at home initially, being a full-time mother, with no office politics or deadlines, the world simplified to the day-to-day, hour-to-hour practicalities of caring for two small babies that she adored. That euphoria had lasted for the first three months, even if it had taken the occasional buffeting from a kind of exhaustion she’d never thought she’d feel. Until, recently, something had started to change. When she looked at her son and daughter, the overwhelming love was still there, but underneath it was a new, different but equally strong sensation. It felt like claustrophobia. As if the walls were closing in on her. It wasn’t only unsettling. It was becoming frightening.
    Something had changed with Daniel, too. She’d started to feel something other than rushes of love when she looked at him. To feel jealousy instead. But how could that be? She loved her husband, didn’t she? His kindness. His humor. His lanky body, his kind eyes, his dark shaggy hair. How amazed he looked, every time he held his son or daughter. How happy he was.
    That was it. She was jealous of how happy he was. It’s all right for you , she kept hearing a voice say at the back of her mind. It was all right for Daniel. She’d never seen him so content. He loved his new job, as photo editor and production manager on a rural newspaper based in Gawler, less than an hour’s drive from their house. Off he went every morning, transparently happy to have that time in the car on his own, listening to music, or the news, or just silence. Back home, she was buried alive in nappies, in mess, in dirty clothes, dirty dishes, sterilizers, bibs, noise, and chaos. She still wasn’t sleeping properly. She was eating badly and too much, putting on weight, not losing it. It’ll get better, won’t it? she kept asking herself. Once the babies were a bit older? Less helpless? Less dependent?
    But what if it didn’t? What if the older they got, the bigger they got, the hungrier they got, the more of her they needed? What if this was all that her life would ever be from this moment on? What if this was the truth of motherhood, the feeling that she was slowly drowning, slowly losing herself,