The Workaholic Wife ✅

Bittersweet

"Your child? I'm carrying the baby. Not you! I think I know what I'm doing!"

"And what's that? Overworking yourself and helping others but not yourself?" My mother asks, sitting beside me and turning me towards her.

I look at her in the eyes. "I love helping mother. I like to be free. If anyone restricts me from doing what I like, then I would happily choose abortion!" I warn.

Everyone in the room audibly gasps.
My father has never laid a hand on me before. Yet, when he slaps me across the cheek, I expect it. I deserve it. I regret it.

"I did not raise you to be a—

I stand up, not wanting to hear more. Tears sting my eyes as I walk out of the room, and rush up the stairs to my bedroom. I shouldn't have said that.

Yet I did. I was not going to hide and be a coward. I head back down the stairs.

"I love this child more than you, people. I'm the mother. If there was the smallest harm, I wouldn't have done the job. What do you expect me to be? A housewife? I spent eight long years, preparing to be a doctor. Do you know how many nights I've spent with dead people, how many hours I've spent consoling mothers who lost their child to an epidemic, how many hours I've spent trying to make a teenage mother agree to keep her child? Insurmountable. And you!" I faced my father. "You have every right to do what you did." I turned to my mother next. "But you? You should trust me more. That your daughter will always make the right choices for herself and her growing child. You should trust me more." With that, I go back to the living room and plant my behind firmly on couch, and expect a apology. From everyone except my father.

Yet, no one says anything. In an hour, everyone's mingling, except me. I sit in a corner, on a separate couch, pretending to sleep. I can hear what everyone is saying. My mother pulls my father away silently, probably warning him to not let me near anymore danger, and probably scolding him for laying a finger on me.

I smile. She had that right. I never gave that freedom, but my mother wrenched the right from me forcefully. I let her because, of course, you couldn't argue with her.

Afterwards, my mother came back with my embarrassing baby pictures. Mayma, in exchange, showed my mother Aniket's baby pictures. I couldn't take it anymore. Partly because I was being embarrassed, and secondly because I was curious to see Aniket's cuteness as a child.

"Look at this one. She looks so adorable playing with her rubber duck in the bath tub." My mother squeals. And the most embarrassing thing was, my husband was sitting beside her, looking at my pictures. I stop pretending and jump out of my seats, retrieving the scrap book in one yank.

My mother point a finger at me accusingly. "I knew you weren't sleeping."

"You can't just show him naked pictures of me." Okay, that sounded wrong. "Baby pictures." I add, blushing furiously and clutching the scrap book to my chest and hiding my face behind it.

"Relax, I've already seen everything. You have nothing to be ashamed of." Aniket says, winking at me, and lazily slouching back into the couch.

I hit him with the scrap book, earning a glare from my mother and a chuckle from Mayma and Pops. Even Papi laughs wholeheartedly.

"You idiot! You. Don't. Say. That. In. Front. Of. People." I yell, hitting him every time I uttered a word.

He pulls me in, tickling me, and I yell at him more, struggling to get out of his grasp. My feet hits the coffee table accidentally and everyone tushes around me, to see if I'm alright. "I'm fine." I say, chuckling at their cautiousness.

"Aniket pulls me in closer, and I snuggle into him, not caring that that my family was watching. Until he pinches my waist. I swallow my yelp, and glare at him for ruining the moment. Okay, that was not playful.

I sit up, getting out of his clutch. "Aniket, are you all right?" I ask him.

"Yes, I'm fine. Why are you asking?" He asks, smirking at me. I sigh, and face him. "Stop smiling. This is serious. You haven't been yourself."

"What do you mean? He looks fine to me." Mayma says, looking at her son as she sips her cup of tea.

"I can tell Mayma. I can't tell you why, but I suspect it's something to do with his head injury.

"Your behavior. It's changed. I can notice the slightest change in you Aniket."

"How? I feel fine." He says, shrugging his shoulders.

"I cannot explain it in front of them." I hiss at him. "But, trust me," I say in a normal tone, "you have something much worse."

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