I'm more than just the second wife

38

It's been a week with the baby in the house. Zanda is telling anyone and everyone she's got a new baby and he sleeps in her room. She takes great pride in being a big sister. She offered up her room and bed when the conversation of getting the nursery ready for him came up. She's up before everyone and breaks into his crib and sleeps besides him and every morning when I check up on them I find them cuddled together. It's the sweetest thing. I thought it'd be hard for her to adjust to not having all the attention but she's more excited than anyone. His little hands and piercing eyes fascinate her most.

Instead it's Yanda who's battling to adjust to the baby. He's still so cold and detached. He hardly interacts with him. He's a great help, he gets Zanda ready for school, helps with homework ,puts her to bed and ensures she doesn't feel left out even though she took the news of the baby rather well. He's up until late painting , carving wood , assembling furniture for his room, installing baby monitors in every room and mounting the  television. Every single detail in the baby's room he saw to with the greatest care. Both our cars had car seats installed in them. He picked the most expensive of each item and had an endless list of questions he asked about how safe and how durable each was. The baby had so many clothes he'd outgrow a lot of it even before he'd wear them. Every room in the house was baby proofed. Just yesterday I saw him fiddle with the child's lock buttons in the cars and the washing machine. He came to bed each night exhausted but the following day he's up finding  another thing that needs fixing. He'd taken his paternity leave to see to everything himself but he avoided even watching over the baby whilst he laid in his crib. I thought I'd bare with him because I truly had sprung this on him but he wasn't talking to me, I had to guess what he was feeling and that was cementing the doubts and setting us back in our therapy and causing a rift between us. My patience was running thin. I thought I'd wait for him to open up to me but that is proving to be a long damn wait.

It was a Saturday morning and I was in the kitchen making us brunch, just ham and cheese sandwiches, Zanda was currently obsessed with those, whilst Zanda played with the baby in its cot in the living room with Bluey playing on the tele in the background. Bluey was her current favourite but she too couldn't compete with the baby. Yanda walked in all sweaty and sawdust speckled on his face. He walked over to the fridge pulling out a bottle of water uncapping it and chugged it down a bit of it dribbling down his chin over his Adam's apple, down the middle of his collarbones and down his chest wetting the white, well now off white vest he wore. My gaze following the drop from his lips right down to his chest. I could just...

I was drawn back from my wayward thoughts when he finished the bottle and his eyes fell on me and a knowing smirk graced his lips and he winked at me making me scowl back at him in response. This is our first real interaction this whole week. He chuckled turning to walk away. "Yanda can we please talk about the baby?" He slowly turned around and he sat on the high chair facing me. "Zanda baby here's your sandwich." I yelled and she rushed over to get it. "Thank you my koki!" She said grabbing her plate and cup of milk and dashing away to the baby. I slid his plate over to him with his apple juice and I sat with my plate.

"Yanda I feel your actions contradict themselves. You seem to be preparing for the baby but you won't even look at him. Do you feel we're not ready ? Are you not comfortable with his skin condition? Are you upset with me for accepting him and feel because I have you can't say no? Please talk to me." I felt tears burn my eyes. I felt about this more than I allowed myself to express. He stood from his chair and came over to me, he shifted my plate , picked me up and placed me where my food previously sat and he took my seat holding onto my hands in his.

" My wife please look at me." He coerced gently making me look up at him. "I'm scared, I'm scared if I fall in love with him, pave a way for him in my heart and be hopeful he too will be taken from us, I can't bare that loss again. I'm not strong enough. I don't blame you for anything. We met him on the same day, well you probably delivered him that's how you met her but you didn't keep the news from me, I'm the first person you called and if you remember I took the lead in making the decisions that day that will bind our lives with his. Maybe a part of me did it to hopefully heal a part of me losing our children hurt and maybe that's a mistake but I'm here, I'm with you, I'm excited but I don't want it to get to my head and we're not allowed to keep him." In that moment I understood his reservations. And my anger simmered down.