“Regan,” Gwen had whispered when her own ravenous creature was laid in her arms, thinking of King Lear and the ways in which the men of the world consistently underestimated the women around them. Christopher heard her and thought of Ronald (a picture of her grandfather and the Gipper hung in their upstairs hallway), and that was what had gone on the birth certificate, extra “a” and all. No surprise. She and Christopher had always just missed understanding each other, like cars trying and failing to merge into each other’s lanes.

Once she’d had a month or so to recover, she went to see Teddy. He had all this supply, and she knew where he could get demand. But they’d have to be smart about it. The “perfect” mothers of the world would want to say that they’d been duped if the truth ever came out. They’d add a bunch of the in-vogue wellness jargon, some fancy packaging to make it seem legitimate, and jack up the price to ridiculous amounts. Teddy had been resistant, but he owed her. She’d taken care of him her entire life, even though he was older, and now that she had two tiny, precious girls relying on her, it was finally the time for him to step up and be the big brother that she’d always wanted him to be.

Besides, Gwen told Teddy when he still hesitated, they were giving these women a gift. Their own mother had spent her life yoked to every fad diet that came along, denying herself and denying herself, always hungry for food she couldn’t have. She’d given her limited rations of energy to her drunken husband and her wide-eyed little girl and, most of all, to her troubled son until she had nothing left for herself. TrueMommy would make things easier for women like their mother, keeping their appetites at bay, allowing them to actually have some time for themselves. Those women could afford it.

The most flabbergasting thing about it all was that it had worked.

Gwen played her cards right. She learned how to create appealing design templates, how to cover her tracks, and how to open up a secret bank account. Using a lawyer bound to keep her identity private through attorney-client privilege, she started a shell corporation in Delaware so that the women who paid her could make their checks out to “TrueMommy LLC” in peace. But she also offered incentives for paying in cash, a small “playgroup discount” that allowed all these wealthy women to pat themselves on the back for getting a deal. The vast majority of mothers wanted to believe that they could be thrifty even as they paid out insane amounts, and so most of the money made its way to Gwen in the form of hundred-dollar bills, collected by the cute, discreet college boy she hired to do personal TrueMommy deliveries each month. (The women tended to go gaga over the fact that TrueMommy cared so much about its customers that it sent a boy in uniform to hand-deliver the vitamins! Such service!)

Gwen found midsized Momstagrams of beautiful women who needed validation but who hadn’t yet gotten quite enough of it. They always revealed far too much information about their whereabouts in the updates they posted. Going to sail some boats in Central Park with my little sea captain, they’d write under a picture of their child in a sailor outfit, and she’d run out to the pond and then very casually sit next to them, striking up a conversation, mentioning with a sad sigh that motherhood could be so lonely. Their eyes would light up, and they’d either invite her to the playgroup they already had or resolve to start one with her name first on the list.

She never introduced TrueMommy right away. She would attend a few playgroup meetings first, make sure that nobody involved was a crusading-justice type who would care more about blowing the whistle than about self-preservation if they ever had to face the reality of what was in the pills they were gobbling down. And then she’d send the message to the Mom accounts and rehearse the actor from Philly whom she’d hired to play Dr. Lauren Clark, prepping her with all the questions that Gwen would bombard her with during the playgroup meeting, as well as anything else she could think of. In general, she’d only show up at a handful of playgroup meetings every month, just frequently enough to make sure that everything was working out as it was supposed to. She’d avoid having her picture taken or getting too close to anyone. And if things started to go south, she could always pretend to be as dumbfounded as the rest of them and drop the specter of Child Protective Services to keep them all quiet.

The Whitney playgroup had been different, because it was actually in her neighborhood. She did want Reagan to have one stable thing so that she’d develop healthily and be able to form lasting relationships. Gwen used her real name in that one, invited them to her house when Christopher mentioned how much he wanted to have a Christmas party and meet some of her mom friends, and acquiesced to get together not only once a week, but twice. She hadn’t intended to introduce TrueMommy with these women at all. It was too close to home. And Amara was so outspoken and unfiltered that she might be the kind to tell the truth in a worst-case scenario. But then Gwen had watched how Amara worried about Charlie. Amara’s fear that she was failing her son could be a powerful resource. Mothers who felt that they were mothering wrong were a uniquely vulnerable group. What had really cemented the whole thing, though, was the Joanna factor. Joanna had spooked them all, priming them to look for a miracle, a way to ward off contagion. How could Gwen pass up such an irresistible opportunity?

Throughout New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, Gwen had two hundred fifty mothers hooked. She planned to do it for a little less than a year, which would get through most of Teddy’s supply, and put her a hair north of the amount she needed for the house. Then she’d gradually taper off the dose of the drug in each week’s shipment before she disappeared. But she’d started keeping a list of mothers who’d taken to TrueMommy like fish in water, who thrived on it so much that she had a feeling they’d seek it out even if they knew the truth about what was in it. She had twenty-nine mothers on that list (she’d had a tentative thirty-one, before she’d taken Ellie and Meredith off), and perhaps she could work something out with them. It could be a good source of continued revenue. Help her buy some furnishings for the house, send Rosie to ballet lessons.

She fell into bed every night completely exhausted, but also fulfilled in a strange way, the kind of self-satisfaction that she hadn’t experienced for years. Whenever she went to work parties as Christopher’s date, everyone’s eyes would glaze over when she said she was a stay-at-home mom. It had been exhausting to prove that she was smart, so she’d started playing dumb instead. Now, as she widened her eyes and asked about their jobs, which sounded so exciting and so tough, some badass bitch inside of her threw her arms open and howled into the wind.

* * *

—

In the beautiful West Village brownstone, as all the women sipped their wine and chatted among themselves, Gwen noticed that one of the other mothers, an exceedingly tan woman named Angie, was scribbling various ailments onto her TrueMommy personal-curation form.

“Oh, right!” Gwen said, scooting over. “I need to do that too. I told them the other week that I’d been feeling a little nauseous, and they upped the peppermint oil in my vitamins. I’ve been feeling so much better.”