The other night we were sitting in bed, reading, the baby laying between us. I started crying. Weeping. The kind of sobbing you do when a wave of an almost uncontrollable sadness washes through you. 

"What is it?" Darin asked me. The crying had come out of nowhere, which is how he knew it was serious.

"It's been five weeks," I said, and he knew what I was referring to.

"Well, as you know, I don't care if I never hear from her again." 

"I know." And I cried some more. Because things got so bad. Because things have <b>always</b> been this bad. Because I want to make everything all better and I can't -- I can't because for once in my life I can't be the one to bend, and because in this particular case it's not going to do any good. 

I think that's the part that hurts the most. All the placation in the world is not going to do any good, and I'm no longer the person who will keep giving ground in order to make everything all better.

The reason why, of course, is Sophia.

				* * *

Five weeks ago, my mother went Defcon 5 on Darin.

Boy, that sounds so flip. I guess I mean it to; I use humor as a way of distancing myself from the Really Bad Things. This event was the "I Can't Tell You About It" event I mentioned in one of the updates to my notify list. I describe the event so coldly, so succinctly, and really, it was possibly the worst thing I've been through in some time.

				* * *

My mother had come down to see the baby and ostensibly to help a little bit. I knew she wouldn't help much (although she did cook dinner while she was here, with Darin) but Darin and I had decided it was very important for her ego that she be the first grandmother to see the baby. Isn't that stupid? 

No, that's typical, actually.

She came down when Sophia was 6 days old, on Wednesday. My father would fly down on Saturday. The two of them would leave Monday. Seemed simple enough.

My mom was thrilled to see Sophia. Kept talking about how cute she was, wanting to hold her. It annoyed both Darin and me how my mother always wanted to wrap her in blankets ("Because she's cold" -- "She's not cold, Mom"). Or wanted to wipe the milk residue off of Sophia's tongue. Or wanted to feed her, during those first initial weeks when feeding Sophia was the bane of my existence.

Mind you, when Sophia was a week old, I wasn't doing so well. I had a ton of hormones crashing through me and would cry at the drop of a hat. We watched the movie <i>Babe</i> and when Darin saw me crying profusely he said, "What's wrong? Where's the baby?" And I said, "They're selling the sheepdog puppies!"

I was having trouble breastfeeding and had since the beginning, because I had learned to do it wrong. Sophia was latching on wrong, which had led to my nipples becoming bloody, traumatized gashes. The lactation consultant had recommended pumping, so as to give my nipples time to heal. I was upset and concerned (and crying, natch) that maybe Sophia would get nipple confusion and forget how to breastfeed, since we had to feed her with a bottle so often early on. 

I couldn't talk to my mother about my breastfeeding problems. I'm sure she formula-fed us. I couldn't ask -- we don't talk about things like that in my family. If it were up to my family, I still wouldn't know where babies come from. 

So periodically I'd go downstairs to the area where we had the breast pump set up, pump the milk, and bring it up for Darin to feed to her. Pumping took at least a half hour every time, so I'd be sitting downstairs, by myself, away from Sophia, away from everybody.

My mother never asked what I was doing. Or how I was feeling.

The first few days went fine. She came down, cooked meals (with Darin's help...although each and every time they were in the kitchen together my mother would say, "Too many cooks spoils the broth"), and held Sophia. When we went for a walk, my mother took charge of Sophia's stroller. 

My Dad arrived on Saturday. We had lunch, I think, and I took some pictures of Sophia on my Dad's lap. He stroked her hair and kept saying how wonderful she was, but he didn't touch her much, just let her sleep. He was awfully skittish around my niece Madeline when she was just an infant too, although my sister says he really enjoys Madeline now that she's bigger and not quite so fragile. 

At some point I went downstairs to nap.

When I woke up, I heard my mother yelling. And Darin yelling back. I burst into tears. It took me at least twenty minutes to work up the courage to go upstairs, and even then I'm not sure I went up right away. 

				* * *

I cannot deal with anger. 

I don't mean that I don't like it; I mean that I shut down. My mouth stops working. My brain stops working. It's as if my central nervous system completely seizes up, which I guess it does. 

I've always known the reason I can't deal with it, of course: my mother.

My mother never dealt with things that upset her as they happened. Oh no. She stored up. One slight after another would pile up until finally KABOOM! She would come at you with everything, at all once, at the top of her lungs. There was no such thing as a mild disagreement, no such thing as a gentle reprimand. Either everything went along absolutely harmoniously or it was a first-strike attack. In a situation like that, you live on eggshells, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

I do the same thing now too, although I'm getting better at it. Darin cannot put up with my not saying immediately when I'm hurt, when I'm angry, when I don't like something. He told me once he'd much rather see me get angry once than depressed for days.

Because that's how I've dealt with it. I saw how my mother reacted when my father argued back -- I don't remember when he stopped arguing back and when he started just taking it, but he did. My sister sometimes fought back, but my mother's response would be so hateful and hurtful that it didn't happen often. And me? Say anything? Are you <i>kidding?</i>

Not a family for a lot of honesty. Or a sense of safety.

The way I dealt with my mother's rage was to cry. I never talked back. I probably did at some point when I was younger, but I sure gave up that notion. I learned it was better to do whatever it took to avoid the problems -- be congenial, be diplomatic, be bland. 

I did that at school too, so that the other kids would like me, even though that was a fool's mission: the other kids were never going to like the kid who was a few years younger than them and smarter than them. And who had no social skills because no one in her family talked and her family never socialized with anyone else. Because she spent her life afraid of making the wrong move or saying the wrong thing.

				* * *

I don't remember what I heard of the argument between my mother and Darin and what Darin told me, but it was all bad. I trust what Darin reports to me my mother said, because he's usually been exact when repeating back what someone's said, even during an argument. I get all flustered and freeze up and can't remember what was said to save my life.

The yelling started because Sophia was on my Dad's lap, asleep. My Mom walked in and said, "Do you want me to take her?" My Dad said no. 

Whereupon my mother said, "Do you want me to take her?" again. Meaning, she hadn't been asking a question, she'd been telling my father what to do. She wanted to hold Sophia.

Darin <b>hates</b> indirect requests. It took him years to get me to stop phrasing my desires in the form of a question. It took me a long time to even see what he meant when he told me to stop doing it. Once I realized what they were, I saw them everywhere -- they're insidious, and they're <b>less</b> polite than just stating what it is you want.

Darin said, "If you want to hold her, just say so." In other words, Darin interfered. Darin said something out of turn. Darin talked back.

Which was all my mother needed to let loose on him.

				* * *

Darin has never been particularly liked by my family. Mostly, I think, because he doesn't operate under whatever bizarre protocol we've erected over the years to deal with my mother. Darin is outspoken, he's truthful, and he doesn't mince words. He's not argumentative, he doesn't go looking for fights, he doesn't go out of his way to provoke people, but if you attack him, he will respond. 

(Hey, if you ask him a question, he will respond to the question as asked, and not to whatever you think you might have asked. Once, Darin's brother Scott came to interview at his company. We had dinner that night with a pack of his friends and a pack of my friends, and Scott asked Darin how he thought the interview went. Most people would say, "Oh, it went fine, everybody liked you." Darin went over in detail what Scott did right and where he didn't do so well and what Scott could do next time better. One of my friends was <i>horrified</i> that Darin would speak to his brother that way. "He answered Scott's question," I said. Darin's honesty is the reason I like him as a reader for my writing, as a sounding board for my problems -- he will tell me what he thinks, rather than try to beat around the bush.)

My parents were at first a little standoffish to Darin because he was a stranger. (None of this "So who are you dating?" for my parents. They never asked anything about my life. And I'd learned not to volunteer.) They didn't meet him until we'd already moved in together, because they were off in Europe when I moved. My Dad warmed up to Darin fairly quickly. My mother ignored him the entire time during their first meeting. Seriously. Wouldn't look at him, wouldn't speak to him. Took a while before she'd accept his presence.

That way Darin has of being loud and of talking of subjects in depth and substance, rather than being superficial all the time didn't really fit too well with the 

Last summer, when Darin was off at MacHack, I went up to stay with my parents and see my sister before she had her baby. Deirdre drove me to the airport when I was leaving. "We never get to see just you any more," she said to me. I knew what she was really saying, though: we never see you without <b>him.</b> Well, of course not, I thought, I'm married. I never see Deirdre without Greg and that doesn't strike anyone as strange. It's because my family doesn't like Darin and his strange, communicative ways that she would dare say something like that.

I said none of this out loud, however.

(I should mention that lots of people, Darin included, have told me they think my sister treats me very badly. That she's mean to me and I just take it. I confess I don't see it. Once I went out to Chicago to visit Tiffany and my sister came with. Tiffany was very busy the whole time. When I got home I promptly called Tiffany to tell her I'd arrived safely, and she immediately told me the reason she'd been scarce so much

				* * *





				* * *

Yes, I know: what am I complaining about? I was never beaten, I went to good schools, life went pretty well.