Zoë Jones

When people find out you're having a baby, you hear a lot of “Congratulations!” and “Mazel tov!” I heard a lot of: “How is Marvin ever going to cope?”

If you'd told me five years ago that I'd be spending a sunny Los Angeles afternoon on Zoom with a pet psychic while Franklin, my one-and-a-half-year-old

Motherhood, like social drinking, came with its own set of unspoken rules. I felt expected to smile through the exhaustion, to hide my anxiety while my body and mind were still healing. Thank God it all came to a head.

It was supposed to be a fling. A sexy distraction to keep me from obsessing over my ex. And it worked, at first. But then my brain did that thing it does, and rerouted the obsession—from my ex to him.