I was going to be a mother.
Absently bringing my hand to touch my stomach, I blinked back the tears forming in my eyes. I didn’t know if I should be happy or sad about the results. My stomach roiled and it wasn’t because I was pregnant, but because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
Ethan and I had barely sex at all over the past few months. In fact, it was only twice. We were still considered newlyweds by some standards, yet both times we were intimate was because I’d practically thrown myself at my husband. Family planning hadn’t really been discussed outside of the occasion ‘when we have kids’ comment here or there. I wasn’t on birth control, but Ethan almost always used a condom—almost being the keyword. I thought back to the last time we had sex and couldn’t remember if he’d used one.
The churning ball of anxiety intensified. Pregnancy meant I would continue to be dependent on Ethan and wouldn’t have the chance to go back to school and fulfill my career dreams. Deep down, I knew it was so much more than that. College and a job, while still very much important to me, were the least of my concerns at that moment.
A year ago, I might have been ecstatic about a baby, but things had changed—Ethan had changed. He hadn’t been himself for over a year, and I didn’t know what was wrong. I had asked him about it several times, worried I’d done something to upset him, but he insisted everything was fine. He said it was just work stress. When I pressed him to tell me about it, he told me he couldn’t talk about ongoing investigations in the department.
While I knew he couldn’t talk about certain aspects of his job, my insecurities had been working overtime as of late. He frequently went out in the evenings, returning late in the night or not until the next day. More than once, I’d considered the possibility there might be another woman. My heart didn’t want to believe it, but my suspicions had become all-consuming. Perhaps it was my hormones going haywire since I was pregnant. Maybe the changes in my body were making me paranoid for no reason at all. I knew Ethan loved me as much as I loved him.
So, why was I afraid to tell him about the baby?
I ignored the worrisome thought and stood up. With a shaking hand, I placed the pregnancy test on the bathroom counter, turned on the faucet and splashed cold water over my face. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I practiced a smile.
Happy—I needed to be happy when I told him.
When we spoke over dinner just an hour earlier, Ethan seemed distracted, I assumed because of something to do with work again. He frequently came home agitated from the stress of his job, and it was something I’d just grown accustomed too. My only hope was news of a baby on the way would brighten his sour mood. It might even rekindle something that had been lost between us.
I exited the bathroom to find him on the sofa, leaning over to tie his shoes. I frowned. He’d pulled a twelve-hour shift and had barely been home for two hours. He couldn’t possibly be leaving again.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Yeah, honey. Work,” he responded in the dismissive tone he often took with me whenever I asked him where he was going.
“Oh. I was hoping we could talk,” I said softly.
“Now’s not a good time. And by the way, I’m not going to ask you again. You need to remember to put the toothpaste away in the bathroom drawer. You always leave it on the counter, and I’m sick of having to put it away.”
My eyes widened in surprise. Clearly, his mood over dinner hadn’t improved. Now, he had to go to work—again. Or so he said. We needed to talk about what was going on between us. I needed to know if my fear I felt about his possible infidelity was all in my head.
He stood and walked to the front door. I hurried to catch up with him.
“Ethan,” I pleaded, placing my hand on his shoulder. He pushed it away forcefully and I staggered a few steps back, my knee smacking against the hard, oak end table.
“Ouch!” The pain stung, but I ignored it. “Ethan, stop. Please. Where are you really going? I need the truth.”
He turned to face me, his impatience evident as he ran his eyes over me unsympathetically.
“What truth?”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes but I refused to let them fell.
“I don’t think you’re going to work. I’ve been able to hear your police scanner most of the evening, and it’s been quiet.”
He glanced behind me at the little black box sitting on the end table next to the sofa. Taking a few steps toward it, he reached down to silence the quiet chatter between dispatch and patrol, then walked over to me and placed a placating hand on my shoulder.
“Gia, don’t try to be smart. It doesn’t suit you,” he cajoled as if I were a child he needed to appease. My head snapped back from the insult.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I challenged. “Listening to the scanner, then putting two and two together isn’t exactly rocket science.”
The subtle grin that twisted the corners of his mouth was condescending, mocking, almost. I wanted to scream. Instead, I shrugged out of his grasp and turned my back to him. The man standing behind me felt more like a stranger every single day. I wanted him to be the man I married, the man I fell in love with, who brought me daisies. I wanted to feel cherished again. The idea of Ethan cherishing anything or anyone other than himself made me pause and think back on our relationship.
Have I ever felt cherished by him?
Not really. If I were honest with myself, I’d never felt truly respected or valued. Ethan had always doted on me in a placating way—like a child who was given a present for behaving.
I felt his hand come up to touch my shoulder. It was strange—a part of me longed for his gentle touch, but another part of me wanted to recoil from the contact.
“Come on, Gia. I don’t like to see my girl all worked up over nothing. You know I’m the brains in the house. We both know that.”
My eyes widened, and I spun to face him once again.
“You’re the brains? Why? Because you have an expensive college degree, and I don’t?” I snapped. “I wanted to go to college! You pushed me into the role of the police chief’s wife, with me on your arm for various functions and photo ops. You convinced me of the demands and talked me into staying home to take care of the house. Don’t you dare try to make me feel insignificant. I did exactly as you asked me to do!”
My lack of a college degree had always been a sore spot. It was something I yearned for—a longing deep in my belly that always seemed out of reach. Saying those words aloud made me realize what I had slowly become—a kept woman, the very thing I’d once told a stranger I didn’t want to be. I pushed away the memories of a conversation from years long past and took a deep breath, unsure if I was overreacting.
“Honey, you aren’t insignificant. You do a good job. The house looks great. Well, most of the time.”
I stared at him and processed the negging comment. That was just his way—backhanded compliments that never ceased to make my confidence waver and make me worry if I was a good wife. I was tired of being spoken to that way, tired of being made to feel small. Still, I was too exhausted to fight, and we’d been doing so much of it lately. Sometimes, letting him go to wherever it was he went in the evenings was just easier.