The Summer Place

by Jennifer Weiner

she would scan the parks and the playgrounds, looking for kinship, for some other new mother with circles under her eyes collapsed on a bench, pushing a stroller back and forth with her foot and trying to finish reading a single page of a book or make a phone call or just drink her coffee in peace. She found other exhausted mothers, women who were overwhelmed and physically depleted. She found angry, frustrated mothers, upset by the lack of support from their spouses or their families. But, at some point in every conversation, each of those mothers would send a fond gaze toward the baby in the stroller, or curl her hand tenderly against the head of the baby strapped against her chest. But I wouldn’t have it any other way, the other woman would say, just look at her, and her voice would get softer;