"You can't go interrupting his inspiration over some little thing!"
Jeanette chimed in.
"Exactly. Plenty of women have babies. What's all the fuss about?"
Then she gave Elena Fox's hand a knowing little pat.
"They never registered the marriage, so don't go calling her his wife. It isn't appropriate."
I pretended not to understand, biting down on the tearing pain as I lay back against the hospital bed.
In the delivery room, hemorrhaging while they fought to save me, I finally understood.
People change.
The love back then was real.
This neglect now was real too.
There was someone at Tom's side again, someone in step with him.
And that someone wasn't me anymore.
I was extra.
I dug out my phone. Tom had sent exactly one message.
From more than ten hours ago.
【Focus on having the baby. My mom and Elena are both there.】
The very next second, I watched Jeanette and Elena Fox walking out the door, their backs to me.
"All right, since the baby's out, I can finally relax."
"Elena, let's go grab a bite."
Elena's voice practically sang.
"Sounds great. I heard a new French place opened nearby. Let's go try it."
The baby lay in the bassinet, crying loud enough to split my eardrums.
I lay flat on the hospital bed, every part of me coming apart, unable to get up.
The moment my child was born, I became a mother.
Body and soul.
And Tom was still that same boy lost in his paintings, lost in his pretty little romances.
The tears and the bleeding never stopped.
I told myself: this child no longer had a father.
The postpartum nurse from the next bed couldn't stand to watch. She came over and changed the baby's diaper for me.
"A baby this small only cries for three reasons. Hungry, wet, or dirty."
"Do you have any other family here?"
I shook my head.
"No."
"Help me find a postpartum nurse. Starting right now. I'll pay extra."
In five days at the hospital, Tom never showed up once.
When he happened to remember me, a few messages would pop up on my phone.
【Maggie, thank you for giving me such a beautiful daughter.】
【Elena sent me the photos.】
Elena Fox came every day, as if filling in for Tom's husbandly duties, and she went through the motions with zero effort.
"Miss Pruitt, Mr. Henson has a lecture today. He can't make it."
"Miss Pruitt, Mr. Henson's giving a talk at his alma mater today. It's all scheduled. Can't be canceled."
She called me Miss Pruitt.
Not his wife. Not anymore.
She came every day to report Tom's schedule to me.
But mostly, she came to gloat.
Because she was the only channel I had. Only through her could I learn where my child's father was that day, what he was doing.
Every day she photographed my daughter and sent the pictures to Tom.
Then she'd mock her.
【Mr. Henson, your daughter doesn't really look like you, haha.】
【Mr. Henson, she's so ugly.】
【Mr. Henson, this is what they call a vaginal-birth cone head. Looks like something out of Alien.】
I texted Tom.
【When are you coming?】
Two hours later, he finally replied:
【Once I get through this stretch.】
【My mom and Elena are both there. They'll take good care of you.】
I stopped texting.
You can't wake a man who's only pretending to sleep.
That "once I'm through this" was never coming.
The day I was discharged, the wind was fierce.
I called the rideshare myself.
The postpartum nurse carried the baby for me.
There was almost no luggage.
Just the baby's bottles and diapers, and my disposable underwear.
The clothes on my body already reeked.
Sweat mixed with blood.
Those few days of giving birth were the most wretched of my entire life.
