Katie Pugh | Wild Flower

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Part of the therapy was that Pippa had to exercise a hobby that satisfied two requirements. The first was that it allowed her time outside of the home. The second was that it was something she could actually expend energy doing. She also had to attend talk therapy.

Now the knife weighed satisfyingly in her palm, and the meat made her fingers slick as she stripped pink pieces from bone and tendon. The carnage was delightful in her nostrils, and what had already been browned made the kitchen smell heavenly.

The work came easy. The conversations did not.

“We have to talk about what is happening to you,” the doctor had said. “Have you had problems communicating in the past? Pippa?”

She should have just said no, that she had always been a bubbly, conversational bee, never slowing as she zoomed from one friend to the next. She could have said that she just found herself feeling different after Bobby was born, more drawn to a world outside the one peppered with stuffed animals and mobiles and lullabies. In fact, she could have said that she had a dream one night during the bed rest where she was walking through the forest, trundling slowly as if with a great weight. In the dream, she looked down, and Bobby was a baby bear.

She didn’t say any of that, though, because she was too busy watching the rabbit in the bushes across the street. Instead, her stomach growled at the therapist, who jotted down a few notes.

Now, she dropped potatoes, carrots and garlic into the stewpot. Next, salt and pepper flew out of her fingers into the mix, along with a small handful of brown sugar, two bay leaves and a pinch of cinnamon.

Just at the edge of her range of hearing, she heard the crunch of gravel on the driveway, the hum of the car as it came up towards the garage. Quickly, she turned the sink on until the basin went from crimson to pink to clear.

She spat a piece of gristle into the swirling water, and it all disappeared down the drain.

When the front door closed and she could hear Donald coming down the hall, she double-checked the knot on the trash bag and looked across the kitchen, where she could see a mirror in the dining room. Her spotless face smiled back at her, and she tugged her sleeves down over several shallow cuts that zig-zagged in claw marks across her bicep.

“Some women experience varying emotional issues related to post-partum depression. Have you found yourself feeling lethargic or having thoughts about harming yourself or the baby?”

“No,” she had said, watching the rabbit lift its head, sniff in one direction and then the other. Its back shined like drops of oil, and its heart was frantically beating, a tiny berry in its chest.

She licked her lips.

The doctor’s pen scratched softly on the legal pad.

They greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek, and she waited for Donald to hand Bobby to her. “He did well with Veronica,” he said, removing his tie and heading to the bedroom for a change of clothes. “They had a good day.”

“Great,” she said, burying her face into the baby’s hair and breathing in, deep and noisily. Sweet soap, powder, lavender. He giggled.

“What’s for dinner? It smells fantastic.”

“Stew,” she replied, taking another quick glance around the kitchen. With a wet paper towel, she used a free hand to take a quick swipe against the counter top and inspected it.

“Oh yeah?” he asked from the other room. “What’s in it?”

She took a deep, relieved breath as she saw that the wipe had picked up a few stray hairs from the marble. They were short, and if he had seen them, he may have thought them cat hairs – which would have been difficult to explain, given their not owning a cat. She dropped the paper towel into her apron pocket.

“I’m hoping that with a few more sessions, we can get to the bottom of what is causing the change in you. But you have to work with me, okay? You can change.”

But did she want to?

“Chicken,” she lied.

(Continued…)