Chapter 5: The Heavy Ninth Month
By the time Anna entered her ninth month of pregnancy, her physical and emotional deterioration was heartbreaking. She looked like a shadow of her former self. The vibrant, laughing girl I had married was buried deep beneath layers of exhaustion. Heavy, dark violet circles were permanently carved beneath her sunken eyes, her skin had a sickly, translucent pallor, and her hands trembled so severely that she could barely lift a mug of tea without spilling it.
Terrified by her rapidly declining health, I tried to intervene during breakfast one morning. "Anna, this is getting to be too much for you. What if we hire a part-time housekeeper? Just someone to come in three days a week to handle the heavy cleaning, the laundry, and the grocery shopping so you can actually rest before the baby comes."
Before Anna could even process the offer, my mother burst into a loud, mocking laugh that echoed sharply off the kitchen tiles. "Hire a housekeeper? For a tiny house like this? Oh, please, Jordan, don't be so ridiculous. What on earth does she need help for? She’s pregnant, not dying. Millions of women manage an entire household while carrying a child without crying for a maid. It’s called being a adult."
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Anna immediately nodded her head, her response snapping out with a frantic, desperate urgency that sent a shiver down my spine. "Yes, Jordan, your mother is entirely right. Please don't waste the money. I can do it myself. I like doing it. Really, it's fine."
She answered far too quickly, her voice pitched a octave too high. It was the rapid, desperate compliance of a prisoner who had been thoroughly conditioned to know that any deviation from the captor's narrative would result in a severe, hidden punishment the moment the guard walked away.
