Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [33]
‘What do I do?’ he asked, the smile now gone.
‘Just sit and hold her. It’s not that hard. Try and take as much interest in her as you have in that young midwife.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘What are you being such a bitch about?’
‘I have had a bad afternoon with her. She has been crying and unable to sleep, my scar is hurting, my breasts are leaking milk and I’ve barely seen you.’
‘I told you I was going to play golf with Dad. I don’t get a chance to catch up with him much these days.’
‘Funny, I thought you took the time off work to be with us. And then to cap it off I hear you with that bloody nurse again. I didn’t know flirting with the husbands was in her job description.’
With that I burst into tears.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
In addition to my earlier listed grievances, I was carrying ten excess kilos, my belly looked like a half-deflated balloon that had been kicked around a five year old’s birthday party, my hair was greasy, I was wearing a nightie my recently departed nana would probably have rejected as too dowdy and my bulging maternity bra housed something that resembled two misshapen mounds of blue cheese. My husband, handsome as ever, had not made any sexual advances to me in nine months and was now openly flirting with a slim-hipped recent graduate nurse who was batting her eyelids at him at every available opportunity. And he wondered why I was upset?
It was pointless trying to tell him this, so I just said, ‘Probably the baby blues. They’re meant to happen a few days after birth. Something to do with my hormone levels changing.’
‘Oh,’ he said, relief evident on his face. My husband was the type who liked to put all unfathomable female reactions down to hormones.
I took myself off to the bathroom, taking my time in the shower, washing my hair and letting the tears flow down the drain with the shower spray.
When I re-entered the room I found him sitting in an upright chair, an incongruous island of testosterone amongst the bouquets of flowers and pink teddy bears and ‘It’s a girl!’ balloons. He was holding Isabel, still asleep, like I imagine someone would hold an unexploded mine.
‘You can relax a bit,’ I said.
‘I didn’t want to wake her up. I hope you’ve got over your hysterics now.’
‘I’m not hysterical, just tired and hormonal and you’re not helping…You know, even if we’d had a boy there is no guarantee he’d have turned out to be the son that you’d have wanted. He might have turned out to be a sissy or a computer nerd who was no good at sport.’
‘What is that supposed to mean? Do you think I’m unhappy about having a girl or something?’
‘Well I’m struggling to find a reason why you seem so uninterested. I understand why you distanced yourself from the pregnancy but now we do have a healthy baby nothing much seems to have changed.’
‘I don’t believe you. I just don’t know anything about babies and don’t know what to do. Do you want me to go or something?’
‘No - I want you to bond with your daughter.’
‘Oh boy,’ he said, ‘well there is something I wanted to talk to you about, but I’m not sure it would be a good idea to bring it up now.’
‘No, tell me,’ I said as I settled myself on the bed to comb my hair. ‘I have nowhere else to go.’
‘Are you sure? Okay…’ He took a deep breath, which gave me forewarning this ‘something’ might be unpalatable. ‘I’ve heard that Cathay Pacific is recruiting first officers at the moment and I’m thinking of applying. I’ve been speaking to lots of people about this and the news is all positive. It’s a profitable airline with good job security and by all reports a great company to work for.’
‘What?…Don’t all those things apply to Qantas? Why do you think you’d be any happier there than where you are now? And they’re based in Hong Kong, aren’t they? I don’t want to move anywhere now that I’ve just had a baby…Of all the times…’
‘Calm down, I’d still be based in Sydney. We wouldn’t have to move - well not for a few years anyway - though to be in line for a passenger command it looks like you have to relocate to Hong Kong at some stage. If I get the job