Page 7 of The Elements

Emma was the most uncomplicated baby a first-time mother could wish for.

She slept well, ate whatever was put in front of her, and seemed endlessly fascinated by the world around her.

I suffered no postnatal depression and grew skeptical over the horror stories I’d heard about how difficult motherhood could be.

When I took her for walks in her pram, other women stopped to comment on how beautiful she was and, as if she was aware of the compliments coming her way, she would smile and extend her arms toward them.

Maybe she was trying to get away from me.

To my surprise, however, Brendan, the prime mover in our decision to become parents, was not as attentive a father as I had expected.

He was disappointed not to have had a son and made no attempt to hide this.

It wasn’t unusual that he didn’t change nappies or do any of the feeds, most men didn’t in those days, so that didn’t bother me, but I was baffled by his indifference toward the baby.

Whatever disappointment I felt, however, was more than compensated for by the bond I was building with my daughter and, after a year passed, it was I who suggested that we have another child in order that Emma would not grow up without a playmate.

“We’ll try for a boy this time,” was his response, as if either of us had any say over the outcome. And, a year later, Rebecca was born.

The opposite of her sister in almost every respect, Rebecca was problematic from the moment of conception.

My pregnancy left me feeling enfeebled and bilious, and while Emma had popped painlessly out of me, as if she simply wanted to get going on life without another moment’s delay, Rebecca’s was a long and challenging labor that required the intervention of two doctors and a fleet of nurses.

When she finally appeared in a tsunami of blood, shit, and screaming, Brendan looked like he was going to throw up with the drama of it all, and when he saw that I’d been delivered of a girl, he muttered, “Ah Christ!” under his breath, loud enough for those in the room to exchange looks that suggested this would be the talk of the tearoom later.

When we brought her home, she was impossible.

She would only sleep when I was awake but insisted on attention when I could scarcely keep my eyes open.

She refused most foods but demanded to sample everything that came into her orbit before scrunching her face up in indignation as the flavors hit her taste buds, before spitting them back at me.

She would scream for no reason, earth-shattering sounds that bore into my skull and made me feel that I was going mad.

She hated being bathed, and this nightly ritual soon became so traumatic that I assigned the job to Brendan, refusing to have anything more to do with it.

“Sure what do I know about washing a baby?” he asked, as if I was asking him to scale Mount Kilimanjaro or paint an Old Master.

“You know how to wash yourself, don’t you?” I shouted at him, unable to put up with his indolence any longer. “It’s no different. There’s just less of her.”

The only thing, or rather the only person, who could soothe Rebecca was Emma, who would toddle over to her sister as she lay screaming on her mat and collapse next to her, placing a small hand upon her forehead, and, in that instant, she would calm down.

Although they were different in so many ways, there was an extraordinary connection between them from the start and I was grateful that Emma did not show any signs of jealousy.

She had a way with Rebecca that both Brendan and I lacked.

Or maybe Rebecca simply preferred her to us.

Was I as insentient to Emma’s needs even then?

Was I a terrible mother from the start, driven, as I was, by status and my busy social life, viewing her as just another accessory, like my necklaces or earrings or perfumes?

If I dwell on these questions too much, I will bang my head against the wall until I, like her, am dead.

I failed her. And yet they are ever-present, fighting to be answered, challenging me constantly.

That sisterly bond was to grow and strengthen in the years that followed, and while they say that a parent never gets over the death of a child, I think it is Rebecca who will suffer the most in the decades to come.

Emma, only two years older, was the mother she needed, and she can’t forgive me her loss.

It’s an injustice, but I suspect she blames me more than Brendan for what happened.

The next few years were so taut that there was no more talk of babies after that, until both girls had started school, when I experienced an unexpected rush of loneliness and decided that I might like one more.

I suggested as much to Brendan, but he refused even to countenance the idea. (By now, he had decided that condoms were not such a terrible idea after all, and our sex life, while hardly as busy as it had once been, had not entirely vanished.)

“I’m surrounded by women as it is,” he said, trying to make a joke of it. “I’m not going to be outnumbered even more.”

“But we might have a boy this time,” I protested, but he wouldn’t be convinced, and, in time, I made my peace with it. A family of four, after all, was more than many had. Not quite a Gentleman’s Family, but close enough.

Still, I’ve always felt certain that we were supposed to have a third child, and that if we had, it would have been a boy. I’m so convinced of this that I occasionally find myself mourning the son that I did not have as much as the daughter that I did.

I would have called my son Zac, a name I have always loved, but in our family, he would have been called Zaccy, until puberty hit, when he would have demanded that we revert to his given name. And, although he would have been the youngest, I believe this ghost-child would have protected us all.