When Toby was born, my mother-in-law came to stay, to help, and I was grateful, at first, because I was drowning.

But help, in her hands, became control, and control, over months, became something I did not have a name for.

Every instinct I had was reframed as a symptom.

My worry was anxiety.

My vigilance was paranoia.

My exhaustion — which they had a great deal to do with — became the proof of my unreliability, the thing they pointed to whenever I said something was wrong.

And my husband, who I had thought would stand beside me, stood beside her, every time, until I stopped being sure which of us was the parent and which was the problem.