When I shared the news of my pregnancy with my husband, his face betrayed no glimmer of emotion, as if I had murmured nonsense about buttered crumpets melting in the rain. Id expected him to be over the moon, or at the very least, to muster a flicker of delight. After yearning to become parents, submitting ourselves to endless appointments and odd concoctions, I thought this moment would take flight on wings of joy. Instead, he seemed drained, as though he believed fatherhood had slipped out the back door while no one was looking. Oddly enough, before learning I was expecting, hed mentioned wanting to adopthis words tangling strangely with the tapestry of our lives. Now, his mouth sat as tight and sour as overbrewed tea. I told myself he must need time, that perhaps he was lost in one of those English fogs that swallow ones mood whole. Still, my joy floated undisturbed, drifting above the grey rooftops.
I felt giddybuoyant, as if I were pirouetting through a dream stitched together of soft clouds and sunlight. What I had long wished for glistened in reality at last. Yet, it seems fate had ordered a rough crossing. My pregnancy was anything but gentle: countless nights watched from hospital beds, the impending arrival forcing me to leave my job behind, a trail of unanswered emails and empty teacups in my wake. My husband, meanwhile, retreated furtherbecoming peevish, almost bristling. Pregnancys hardly real work, is it? Youre not lugging sacks of coal about. I need a wife, not a ghost floating around in dressing gowns. Im tired of tending the house alone, toiling from dawn till dusk like a cart-horse, hed snap, voice thin as an Eton tea towel. Id recite the doctors orders, explaining, They told us: dont overdo it, dont heave, look after yourselffor the babys sake. These pleas seemed to dissolve into the wallpaper.
Eventually, the hospital folded me up again, but my husbands presence vanishedno telephone chirped, no flowers arrived, not even a wisp of concern found its way to my pillow. An unplanned caesarean followed, my child born too soon and yet, mercifully, whole. Elated, I rang him to share the news. Congratulations, he said, and, oddly, they were the loveliest words hed ever given me, fragile and precious as the first snow of winter. When I finally walked under the sighing trees back to our house, I discovered he had lefta phantom, gone like a forgotten umbrella after a storm. Fear and grief threatened to unmoor me, but for my childs sake, I gathered myself. I made a promise, standing alone on the threshold: whatever strange weather lay ahead, I would do all I could to find happiness and ensure my childs well-being, come what may.
