A friend tells that the friend can understand how she feels as she had to stay a few days without her husband while pregnant and that she felt as it was hell. She shakes her head. She cannot imagine how her friend could understand the emotions she was going through. The friend’s husband had not gone and screwed other women while she was pregnant, had not gone away and cut all communication with her, nor had she been going through an eternal roller coaster of emotions. So there was no way her friend could grasp any of what she was living.
Early in her pregnancy, she had seen how her friend’s husband had been paying attention to her. He would go bring her food, make sure that she would eat something, check if she did, and then make sure he kept her cool while she acted all hormonal. She had watched the two of them, a husband who cooked for his pregnant wife, and made sure she was kept happy. She had wondered why her life had become all messed up, why her husband could not be around her, spend his free time with her, and then ended up being the man he was. But then she had not found a proper answer yet. It was like the conversation she had with Niluka the day before, where she tried to make sense of the man’s behaviour, and then she was told by him that sometimes one cannot make any sense out of anything, though we would like to
see a reason as to why all happens.
Hubby dearest parents’ seem to believe that putting money to her account covers up all the shit their son does. Him running off and not keeping in touch, and then screwing his mistress while abroad, and then cutting all ties with his wife who is supposed to give birth. Her mother in law had asked her a few times whether she thought they were beggars. It did not matter to her even if they were, as long as there were no other women in her life to deal with, and had a husband who would have been caring and truthful. Her mother in law had been very specific the last time she had thrown a bitch fit at her “there is the maid to take care of “your” child, and we are there, and your parents are there! What kind of woman are you who does not want your husband to become an important man “ She was a little taken aback as she did not know how to respond to a woman of this nature.
a) She was not Mother Mary to get pregnant on her own for the kid to be “your” child.
b.) The husband’s presence was not needed to wash nappies, but to be there for his wife and child when needed, so that they would have emotional support.
c) The maid never turned up, nor did the certain in laws ever check on her or the kid, whether they were dead or alive
d) One does not attain importance in life by screwing around while married, and then running off from their responsibilities, and then by continuing to screw around.
She liked how they analysed everything based on money, and not the human relationships. Then she was glad that she did not have to spend much time with them. She had completely different values from what they believed in. Their issue was not their son screwing another while married, but that people did find out about it. And for that too, they preferred to blame their daughter in law, who they claim they could never invite home. The woman adds “you can do anything you want to us, we will die soon, and then you can come to our funeral”. She wanted to ask what good her death would do to her, as she never played any role in her daughter in law’s life. And why in the world was she to go there upon her funeral, when she did not bother to ask her daughter in law to come home even while the woman breathed. Till her communication with her in laws she had thought all the dialogues found in Sinhala tele dramas to be quite made up, but they proved that people like the characters in those were actually found in the Sri Lankan society. Just that she had not had the misfortune of meeting such, prior to her marriage.
Mother in law adds “ send the summons to our house”. May be they want to save their precious son, who will turn into an important person through screwing multiple women and then hiding it to the world, or pretending to be otherwise. She decides she can wait. Her son will be born very soon, and then she will have only time to focus on the little one who she knows would be a demanding little kid who will shriek for milk every second, and want affection which was deprived to him early on from conception. She would have to be there for him, the little one who needs to be taken care of, and manage on her own, without the claimed support of a maid nor the in laws who were to help her out in taking care of her son. Her parents were getting ready for the little one’s arrival, and stitching little cloths, that have started filling her household. Her house was starting to fill up with baby stuff, and baby lists.
And she was learning to live the idea of a marriage on paper, where there was never a real commitment, for the sake of a kid who will need his dad, or at least need to know he has one.
