The rain was coming down hard the night everything changed. By the time I got home, I wasn’t alone — and the look on my husband’s face said it all when he recognized my companion. By the time I left the office that evening, my body felt as if it belonged to someone else.
My feet were swollen, my back throbbed with a dull, relentless pressure, and the baby pressed upward so hard that it felt as if my ribs were cracking from the inside. Eight months pregnant does not feel miraculous. It feels heavy and slow, as if carrying a truth you cannot set down.
I made my way to the parking garage, one hand braced against my belly, trying to steady myself. I had been working full-time throughout the pregnancy, mostly because I had to, and partly because staying busy was easier than sitting at home watching my marriage quietly hollow out. Travis had decided, somewhere around my sixth month, that the pregnancy was my responsibility.
He did not say it outright, of course. He never did. My 32-year-old husband just stopped doing things.
Like going to doctor’s appointments, cooking, and asking how I felt. Travis started going to the gym twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, because, as he put it, “Someone in this family needs to stay in shape.”
The first time he said it, I laughed because it sounded like a joke. The second time, I didn’t.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have parents or family to turn to because I was adopted. My mother-in-law, Marjorie, noticed before I did. She would call to ask about me, but I learned to give polite, vague answers because Travis hated it when she got involved.
According to him, she was controlling, dramatic, and always looking for ways to make him look bad. He had forbidden me from “dragging her into our marriage.” His words, not mine. So I kept my mouth shut.
I told myself that marriage meant handling things privately, that asking for help would only worsen things. So, that cold, rainy night, all I wanted was to get home, take a shower, and lie down. I turned the key in the ignition and pulled out onto the road, rain already tapping against the windshield like a warning I chose to ignore.
The drive was quiet. My thoughts drifted between the baby’s upcoming arrival and the mental list of things I still needed to get done before maternity leave. I was halfway home when the steering wheel began to vibrate.
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