Twisted Up

From the outside, Amy Griffin's life appeared picture-perfect. But she knew, deep down, that all was not right. In this excerpt from her memoir, The Tell, the initial signs of a childhood trauma begin to appear.

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Life was busier than ever as a parent of four small children living in Manhattan. But that was good, wasn't it? Even the governor of Texas when I was growing up, Ann Richards, who had a quick tongue and a beehive hairdo, said so: "If we rest, we rust," she'd famously quipped. It was advice I'd taken to heart.

For the better part of a decade, I was nursing a baby, carrying one toddler, and trying to ready another for admission to a preschool that would, as it had been explained to me by other moms on the playground, determine their fate. I dragged strollers out of the backs of taxis, sat in ballet classes, and juggled nap-time schedules. I sourced Halloween costumes, elaborate Easter baskets, and thoughtful Christmas gifts. Anytime there was an opportunity to demonstrate my commitment to being an exceptional mom, I wanted to be the best at it: There was no end to committees and benefits and end-of-school picnics, birthday parties requiring elaborate cupcakes, and athletic events in need of juice boxes. I was fortunate that we could afford childcare, but with no family in New York to help me, I felt that the health and happiness of my family rested solely on my shoulders. I wanted people to see me as a good mother by the way my children behaved and appeared; after all, they were a reflection of me. It did feel, at times, that I was doing more things for my children than with my children—things that had no bearing on my relationship to them, that they would never know I'd done—but such were the rarefied problems of a New York City mom. And for the most part, from the outside, it looked glamorous: I loved bringing my family from Texas to New York so I could share this fast, exciting life I'd built with them. It felt like another achievement, to run them through my New York City paces, and I wanted to be seen for it.