The Wife He Forgot To Love Chapter 07
What remained was a woman who always looked miserable, cried easily, and kept shutting people out.
Who could put up with that?
At first, I didn’t want a child.
Growing up, I suffered a lot. I knew I was broken, so I never wanted to bring a child into this world.
But everyone was pressuring me.
Jonathan’s parents, my mother, and eventually, he started doing it, too.
He said, his eyes sparkling, “Dani, will you give me a child? Whether it’s a boy or a girl, I’ll love both of you for the rest of my life.”
Back then, we had just been married. I thought he was good to me, and since he was willing to pull me out of the quicksand, I felt I owed him. Besides, all of his coworkers already had children.
When I first got pregnant, he was still good to me.
He would accompany me to my checkups, take the initiative to cook and handle housework, and wake up at night to massage my legs whenever I had cramps.
With each passing month, my body transformed. I gained 15 kilograms. My face and waist became fuller. My belly was covered with stretch marks like split scars.
I didn’t dare to look at myself in the mirror. When I showered, I even turned off the lights.
I told him I looked hideous. But his eyes stayed glued to his phone as he said, “Every woman will go through this. You’ll be pretty again after the baby is born.”
Every woman would go through this.
He wasn’t trying to comfort me. He was telling me there was nothing special about me. If other women could give birth, so could I.
If other women could go through this, what made me think I couldn’t?
But I didn’t know whether this happened to other women as well—lying awake at night, sitting alone in the living room, watching the streetlamps go dark one by one.
When morning came, he got up, brushed his teeth, washed his face, ate breakfast, and before leaving, kissed my forehead and said, “I’m going now.”
That kiss felt perfunctory, like the final task on a to-do list.
After Pauline was born, I spent night after night tossing and turning.
I wanted to sleep, but my mind wouldn’t stop spiraling.
My heart was racing, as if it might burst out of my chest.
My hands were shaking. I could barely hold the bottle. I was breaking out in a cold sweat, and every time the baby cried, I cried, too.
One day, I stood on the balcony with Pauline in my arms. As I looked down, I felt a strange impulse to lean over.
When he came home from work and saw me crying, he frowned. “Why are you crying again?”
His words suddenly reminded me of the days when we were dating.
He used to stay by my side and ask, “What’s wrong?” He used to hold me close and say, “It’s gonna be alright.”
Now, all I got from him was “again.”
That single word reduced all my pain to “my penchant for drama.”
I didn’t tell him that I stood on the balcony for a long time. Even if I did, he wouldn’t understand.
He would tell me not to “overreact.”
In fact, I started out with a good job after graduating from a prestigious university. But after a year of maternity leave and the pandemic, I was one of the first to be laid off.
I thought about how to break the status quo.
The night before my suicide, Alicia took Pauline to see a movie. I spent two hours cooking Jonathan’s favorite dishes.
I was hoping we could share a nice meal and have a proper chat when he came home.
It didn’t have to be anything serious. I just wanted to look at his face and shoot the bull with him.
It had been a long time since we last shot the bull.
He got home around nine.
The food had gone cold, so I heated it. He sat down, glanced at the food on the table, and stayed quiet.
I served him soup and asked how his day went.
He said it was all right.
I asked if anything had happened at his work, and he said no.
Then I asked if we should take Pauline out on the weekend, and he said he would think about it.
As he finished with the soup, I placed a rib in his plate.
He took a bite and put the fork down.
“Daniela.”
“Yes?”
“Can you stop asking questions every time we eat? I just want to eat in peace.”
I opened my mouth, wanting to say I just wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t.
I nodded and said, “Sure.”
That was our last dinner together.
The next day, after I dropped Pauline off at school, I came home and locked the bathroom door.
For the first time in my life, I decided not to wait for anyone anymore.