I’ve had a peculiar husband ever since I became pregnant.
He had always wanted a child more than anything in the world, so at first I assumed it was just excitement.
But gradually, I started to feel completely chilled by something he was doing.
He would wake up at precisely midnight each night, slowly get up, and come kneel by my bed. I was initially impressed by the tenderness with which he would place his ear against my tummy.
Until I noticed that he wasn’t paying attention. He was muttering.
I had to hold my breath to hear a few words since his voice was so low. They were long, unintelligible syllables that sounded like a whispered discussion from a dream or a private prayer.
I could occasionally make out pieces:
“Submit to me. The vessel is her. Don’t harm me.
And on other evenings, even more unsettling language:
“Time is almost here.”
When I informed my buddy Amara, I attempted to shrug it off. There could be a paternal tie, she suggested.
Fathers, however, don’t cry and murmur at midnight.
Fathers who have never left the house don’t wake up smelling like smoke.
Three weeks ago, the worst started.
When I opened my eyes that night, I was struck by an oppressively heavy quiet. and I noticed him crouching on the bed’s edge.
Three weeks ago, the worst started.
When I woke up that night, I noticed him squatting close to the bed and using what appeared to be a crimson liquid to write odd symbols on the floor.
He smiled slightly when I asked him what he was doing:
“It’s to keep you and the baby safe.”
I made the decision to go the following day.
However, I discovered a tiny, sealed clay jar covered with a white cloth at the entryway.
He wrote my name in his handwriting on it.
I asked him what it was when he got home. His face turned white.
“Have you touched it?”
“Yes.”
Abruptly, he cried out: “Why? Do you wish for a negative outcome for yourself?
He shut himself in the restroom. The sound of earthenware breaking reached my ears, and then silence.
He didn’t sleep that night. He sat next to the bed and stared at me silently.
His intense, vacuous gaze made me worry that he had lost self-control.
When I opened my eyes in the morning, I saw a pool of red liquid next to me.
I had terrible stomach pain.
I let out such a loud cry that the neighbors knocked on the door.
But Richard was gone when they got there.
There was no sign of him, but the red stuff remained.
I was informed that I had miscarried at the hospital.
According to the physicians, stress and pregnancy difficulties were to blame.
However, I knew what I had witnessed. I was aware of my emotions.
He had been sure that the baby was in danger and had been preoccupied and paranoid.
His whispers and his acts were all out of the ordinary.
Richard hasn’t been seen since.
Authorities believe he ran away, either to avoid the law or his own troubles.
Every night continues to be a waking nightmare for me.
Every movement, sound, and minute that passes midnight transports me back to that tension, that anxiety, and that crimson liquid that I smelled and saw.
I am aware that a portion of me will always be marked, despite my efforts to start over.
Every chill I get and every abrupt silence in the house serves as a reminder that he was there. He was obsessed and thought he was protecting the kid, but in actuality, he was ruining everything around him.
I live with that fear all the time now.
I no longer go to sleep without the light on, and occasionally I hear sounds that give me the impression that he is still alive and that his passion has never really gone away.
I convince myself that it’s all over, that it’s just my imagination, and that it’s stress.
However, I know in my heart that he left a mark.
Nothing will ever be able to remove that trail.
