The Dark Side Read online

  Zoe knew her father was in therapy, and he mentioned vaguely that he had changed therapists around the time he filed for divorce. He didn’t explain why, until Zoe turned thirteen and the divorce was final. He had begun dating his therapist, and ethically, she had insisted that he find another therapist, and had helped him do it, a man. His original therapist, whom he had seen for six months, was a woman named Pam, which was all Zoe knew about her. Brad had just turned forty when the divorce became final, Pam was thirty-five, had never been married and had no children, and both of them wanted a fresh start in life. Her lover of several years had died, and Brad had lost his youngest child. They married within months of the divorce, and moved to Santa Barbara, where Brad bought a house and Pam joined another practice.

  Zoe met Pam shortly before they got married, and felt disloyal to her mother when she did. Pam was a nice woman, and they both insisted that they wanted Zoe to visit whenever she wanted to, their home would be open to her at all times. But Beth managed to convey that whenever Zoe went to stay with them, she committed an act of treason. She didn’t have to say it, the message came through her pores, in her days of even heavier silence when Zoe got back. There was a stone wall between Zoe and her mother that she couldn’t scale, and hadn’t been able to for three years since Rose’s death. She still slept with Rose’s teddy bear, Pinkie, who felt like her only friend.

  She started high school at fourteen, the same month that Brad and Pam’s first child was born, ten months after the wedding Zoe hadn’t attended, out of loyalty to her mother. Her new half-sibling was a baby boy named Christopher. Her father was over the moon about him. He had always wanted a son, and now he had one. Zoe felt left out of the circle of their love, and couldn’t bring herself to feel anything for the baby. Her sense of isolation was complete a year later, when their second child was born, a baby girl they named Ashley, who added insult to injury by looking shockingly like Rose, with white-blond hair that framed her face in the same way. Zoe couldn’t bear looking at her. She was fifteen when Ashley was born, five years after Rose’s death. Coincidentally, Beth went back to work then, as a nurse, after taking a refresher class. Her mother working changed very little in Zoe’s life, except that instead of sleeping all day as she had for five years, she was at work. She had been absent from Zoe’s life for what seemed like an eternity by then.

  Beth began dating a doctor a year later, when Zoe was sixteen. He had children older than Zoe, whom she decided not to meet, and Beth didn’t insist. They weren’t getting married, they were only dating. Zoe went to Santa Barbara as seldom as possible. She had excluded herself from both her parents’ lives, just as they had excluded her for years. She was used to taking care of herself by then, and had been since she was ten. She was remarkably self-sufficient.

  Zoe plunged herself into her studies all through high school, and had few friends. She didn’t want to explain to anyone the reasons for the strangeness of her home life, and her lack of engagement with her parents. Both of them had moved on, and accidentally left her behind, like a piece of luggage they had overlooked.

  Neither of them was surprised when she was valedictorian of her class. They had come to expect nothing less of her, and didn’t seem to realize how remarkable it was that she had outstanding grades despite her lonely home life and lack of emotional support from her parents. She had gotten in to almost every college she applied to, and accepted a place at Yale, as a pre-med student. Her goal was to become a pediatrician in underdeveloped countries and save the lives of children who might die otherwise.

  Both her parents had come to her high school graduation and said they were proud of her, which she found hard to believe. They barely knew her or anything about her. She felt as though they had divorced her before they even dissolved their marriage. The family she had grown up in for six happy years had disappeared. They were strangers to each other now. Zoe found every excuse she could not to go home to either of them for holidays when she was in college. Seeing her half-sister had remained acutely painful. Ashley was three when Zoe started college, and continued to remind everyone of Rose. She was the image of her.

  Zoe graduated from Yale with honors. She hadn’t enjoyed her years in college, but had done well. She had dated very little, and remained closed with everyone she met.

  She was accepted into medical school at Duke, and excelled for two years, when a summer of soul-searching made her realize that she didn’t want to spend the next seven years in medical school, and as an intern and resident. She wanted more instant gratification, and to do some good in the world.

  She took a leave of absence from medical school and went to work for a non-profit, a shelter for abused children on the Upper West Side in New York. She was direly needed there and could relate to the children, who were in deep physical and emotional pain. The reasons for their grief were different from hers. Most of them had been physically abandoned by their parents. She had been emotionally abandoned, but the agony was similar, and she related to them immediately. The children and her superiors could see Zoe’s empathy.

  Her medical training was helpful to her, and she eventually got a master’s at NYU in the administration of non-profits.

  She was twenty-four when she left medical school, and made rapid advances in the hierarchy of the non-profit. She loved the anonymity of living in New York, in a studio apartment she found in the West Village. Her father and Pam visited her whenever he went to see his publisher. Her mother never traveled. She had sold the house in San Francisco by then, and moved into an apartment with the doctor she had dated for almost ten years. Beth told her there was a room for her, but Zoe never used it. She had no desire to stay with either of her parents and they didn’t insist. They were both a powerful reminder of a painful past that each of them had managed to survive differently, either by forging new lives or running away, which was Zoe’s way of dealing with the past. Whenever they saw her, Pam expressed her concern about her, and told Brad she wished that Zoe would seek therapy. Pam thought she was too removed, too disengaged. There seemed to be a part of her that never really connected with people, even with the children at the shelter, whom she claimed she cared about so much. Pam didn’t believe her. But Brad insisted she was doing fine. He always reminded Pam that she’d had remarkable academic success, and was now in a job that satisfied her deeply. He thought she was happy, which wasn’t a word Pam would have used to describe her. Both professionally and personally, Pam could sense how abandoned Zoe had felt by all of them, and how scarred she was as a result. Zoe’s lack of serious attachment to any man, or even her parents, concerned Pam. Some part of her was missing, had died within her or was too damaged to engage. Outwardly, Zoe appeared to be fully functional, to a high degree, but Pam was afraid it was more of an act than real.

  Brad had done well emotionally thanks to Pam, and the love of their children, which had healed him. He cared about Zoe too but no longer knew how to reach her. Beth was happy with the man she lived with, but deeply affected by the loss of her youngest child. She was a quiet woman whose pain was etched on her face.

  At twenty-eight, Zoe was assistant administrator of the non-profit in New York, where she still worked. She was considered gifted with abused children and supremely competent. And she met Austin Roberts, handsome, Harvard educated, a well-known child advocacy attorney who took pro bono cases for some of the children at the shelter, and had recently joined the board. He was mesmerized by Zoe, bowled over by her beauty, and enormously impressed by how knowledgeable, dedicated, and talented she was. She was a dazzling combination of beauty and brains, and she was cool and aloof enough with him to provide a challenge he couldn’t resist. She turned him down several times before agreeing to have dinner, which felt like a victory.

  Zoe was intrigued by his family history. His father was an attorney, his mother had a doctorate in psychology. They were both engaged in philanthropic pursuits. He had two older brothers, b
oth married with children. He was thirty-six, had gone to Harvard undergrad and law school, and had an intensely busy practice. He spoke warmly of his family, and his youth, and she could tell that they were close, unlike her own family which had been shattered by Rose’s death. He was also strikingly good-looking, tall, athletic, with dark hair and dark eyes. The evening flew by as they got to know each other, and they saw each other frequently after that. After three months of serious dating, they admitted that they were in love. For Zoe, it was a first. Professionally, they were a perfect match, with common interests in the well-being of disadvantaged children. Personally, they came from opposite poles. He was from a close family and enjoyed spending time with them. He loved his brothers, and their wives and children. Zoe told him of her childhood, her sister’s illness, their disrupted home life during her deterioration, and the total collapse of their family after her death. His heart ached as he listened to her. He was touched by how warm and kind she was with his five nephews. They were a family of boys. She was good with children, which he liked. His parents and brothers and their families welcomed her warmly as they got to know her. His mother was particularly touched by the history Austin shared with her and marveled at how whole and well-balanced Zoe was in spite of it.

  “She’s perfect,” Austin said to his mother, beaming.

  “It’s a wonder she’s as sane, warm, and normal as she is,” Constance Roberts said, pleased to see her son so happy. “It sounds like she had a very tough time.”

  “She was basically on her own growing up while they grieved for her sister.”

  “It happens that way sometimes,” Constance responded. “Grief can be incredibly isolating. People mourn at different rates. A lot of marriages don’t survive it.” Constance liked her immensely, and had enormous compassion for what she’d been through as a young girl. Zoe admitted that she wasn’t close to either of her parents as a result. She had kind words for her father’s wife, whom she said was a nice woman and a wonderful partner for her father, but she had come into Zoe’s life at the wrong time. She’d been in her teens and in pain herself and had never let her in. And it seemed too late to her now. There was too much water under the bridge for all of them, although her father was faithful in his efforts to stay in touch and see her when he came to New York. He had given up trying to convince her to visit them in California. He suspected that his daughter Ashley’s striking resemblance to Rose might be part of the problem. Zoe could see it in the family photos her father sent. She had grown to look as they guessed Rose would have if she’d survived.

  Austin and Zoe dated for two years before they moved in together, in a small one-bedroom apartment they found in the West Village, near where Zoe had been living. They loved the neighborhood, and furnished the new apartment. They got on famously. When they began living together, she was thirty, and he was thirty-eight, and he wanted to get married sooner rather than later. They wanted to start a family, but neither of them was in a rush, and both of them had demanding careers. His family had accepted her warmly by then, but were discreet and didn’t want to push. Austin’s mother, Constance, was sure that her parents’ divorce made Zoe fearful of making a mistake.

  After a year of living together, they finally decided to get married, which they did in the garden of Austin’s parents’ weekend home in Sag Harbor on Long Island. It was a very small wedding, which was what they wanted. Both of Zoe’s parents came, with Pam and Hank, Beth’s partner. It was a beautiful summer day, and everyone enjoyed it and felt close, sharing Austin and Zoe’s special day. The couple honeymooned in Wyoming, hiking and fishing and riding, which Zoe had learned to like while dating Austin. He loved the peace of the outdoors to balance his often stressful work life, and she had come to appreciate it too. They were in perfect harmony, with common interests.

  They came back to New York relaxed and happy. They had agreed to start trying to get pregnant on their honeymoon. It was a romantic adventure trying to do so, which brought them closer. At thirty-one and thirty-nine, after three years together, they both felt ready for parenthood. But Zoe was disappointed month by month, and so was Austin, when nothing happened. It added some tension to their marriage. They’d been married for a year with no results, and went to a fertility specialist at Zoe’s suggestion. The doctor agreed to start an aggressive treatment program with hormone shots for Zoe, which Austin administered. The fertility plan gave them hope that their dreams of a baby would come true.

  They went through four attempts at in vitro fertilization, until the final one succeeded fifteen months after they had begun. With real excitement, they were cautiously victorious, and waited three months before they told their families, although Constance suspected it before, but didn’t want to be intrusive and ask them, knowing it was a sensitive subject.

  Zoe had an easy pregnancy, read every book she could lay her hands on, and was very intense about child rearing theories and the importance of a wholesome pregnancy. She was diligent about her health and the baby’s, and she and Austin were both excited. They decided not to find out the baby’s sex and be surprised at the birth. She planned to take a four-month maternity leave from the non-profit she was running by then, and Austin was taking three weeks off to help her after the baby came. Zoe insisted she didn’t want a nanny or a baby nurse, she wanted to do it all herself, bond with the baby, and emulate her own mother, who had taken care of them without help, and said she had loved it. Zoe’s mother was pleased for them when Zoe told her she was pregnant, but she made no plans to come to New York before or after the delivery, and said she couldn’t leave work. Zoe could tell it was an excuse, and suspected that bonding with the baby would bring back painful memories for her.

  Jaime Rose Roberts made her appearance four hours after Zoe left work on a busy Wednesday. Her water broke as soon as she got to the apartment, and she called Austin immediately. He rushed home from the office where he was working late. The delivery was fast and easy, and everything about it was normal and went smoothly. Jaime lay in her mother’s arms afterward. Austin looked at them adoringly. He had never been happier in his life. Jaime was a beautiful baby, and looked just like Zoe, with dark hair and blue eyes. They had chosen the name from one of a dozen books they had. They loved it because j’aime meant “I love” in French, and she was certainly one of the most loved infants in the world.

  As Zoe held her, she felt something that she hadn’t felt since Rose had died. There had been something missing from her life for all those years, the little girl she had loved with all her heart, and had lost so tragically when she was ten. Zoe was thirty-four years old now, and Austin forty-two. For twenty-four years, there had been an aching void in her life without Rose. And now Jaime had arrived to fill it. As she looked from her husband to her daughter, Zoe finally felt complete.

  Chapter 2

  Before Jaime was born, Zoe felt thoroughly ready to embrace motherhood. She had read so many books, she felt prepared and had many theories of her own. She and Austin were confident, and Zoe had everything organized and under control. Since Jaime was a healthy baby, and the delivery had been natural and without complications, they only spent one night in the hospital, and were then told they could leave. They were both excited at the prospect of bringing their daughter home.

  Both sets of grandparents were elated at the news of Jaime’s arrival. Jaime was the first grandchild on Zoe’s side, and the first girl on Austin’s, so she was a star on both sides of the coin. They emailed photographs of her to everyone, and the entire family agreed that she was exquisite. She weighed over eight pounds and looked like a healthy, robust baby.

  She was sleeping peacefully in a bassinet in Zoe’s room at the hospital the day after she was born, when Zoe moved into high gear, and asked to see the attending pediatrician. He had to sign the baby out anyway for them to leave, and looked startled when Zoe asked in detail about the various tests that had been administered as part of the routine after
a birth. Zoe had read about all of them, knew how they were scored, and assured the doctor she knew what the results meant, which impressed Austin. She was thorough about everything she touched and took her responsibilities seriously, motherhood being the most important one of all, as far as she was concerned. She was satisfied with the test results the doctor shared with them. He gave them a few helpful tips for their first few days at home, how to manage the nursing, how long to nurse, what to do if she got cracked nipples, and what not to be alarmed by, since they were brand new parents and this was their first child. He assured them that they could get the baby on a schedule in the first few weeks, and Zoe looked at him in disapproval.

  “Putting them on a nursing schedule can cause serious psychological damage later on. It amounts to withholding nourishment from them, and will make them feel as though you’re starving them. I’m not going to do that to my daughter,” Zoe said firmly. She was very intense about it, and definite in her ideas, as Austin and the doctor exchanged a look. Austin hadn’t realized until then that Zoe was opposed to schedules.

  “If you don’t try to work out some kind of routine, your milk supply could become erratic and she might not get enough to eat, and you and your husband won’t get much sleep,” the doctor said gently, realizing how inexperienced they were. So far, Zoe had done all the reading, and she had all the theories and information. Austin was planning to leave that up to her. She had had stacks of baby books on her night table for months, and was annoyed when he didn’t have time to read them. She wanted them to be informed modern parents, on the cutting edge about the baby’s upbringing and health. She had gotten increasingly intense about it as the birth approached.