Chapter Ten

Alexander

We were discharged from the hospital after few days because Julie had some complications after the delivery. I was scared to death during those times and my baby cried so much as if she knew that her mum was struggling for life. When the doctor examined her that morning, he said it was okay for us to go home now. So here we were, I just made her stay in bed while I did everything.

I called her mum to tell her that Julie had been delivered of the baby. She was so happy to hear that and she said she would come visit when she got an off duty from work. I was okay with that because I was working from home since she gave birth and I just dropped by the office on few occasions to check up on how things were at the office. Julie was mostly quiet since we came back from the hospital and I tried my best to make her cheerful. She smiled sometimes and most times she just stared at our baby.

"Baby, are you alright?" I asked her. She smiled and nodded her head then she looked away from me. Something was definitely wrong with my wife and she just wouldn't tell me what she's going through. I was sad. Julie was unhappy about something and I could not pay my hands on anything meaningful as to being the reason for her sudden change. The house was always quiet and gloomy except for when our baby Kassandra cried. Julie didn't even have friends who could come visit. She was a loner and found it very difficult to say how she felt.

Now I didn't know what to do about her new attitude. It wasn't welcoming at all. I called her mum again, now I complained to her about Julie's sudden quietness since she gave birth and how she has refused to at least talk to me. I told her mum about it so that at least maybe she could make Julie speak up.

"Julie has always been a quiet kid and I think if she wanted us to know what is wrong she would have said something about it" her mum said. Was her mum really serious right now?

"Can you give her the phone so that I will speak to her?" she continued. Okay, I will take what I can get right now. Heading to Julie's room I gave her the phone and when she looked at me I whispered to her that it was her mum so she took the phone from me and listened as her mum spoke to her. I carried Kasey from her hands and went out of the room.

"Mum, really there is nothing wrong. I'm totally fine." I heard her say then I stopped to hear what she said then she continued "Mum he's just too worried about me because I had a complication after I delivered Kasey" she said I was worried, why won't I be worried when my wife has refused to be lively since she gave birth. She just ate, slept, fed Kasey, had her bath and bathed Kasey. I cooked the meals, I did the dishes, I did laundry, I vacuumed the house whenever I wanted to because she just had our baby and I needed her to recover fully and quickly. But the least she could do was have a conversation with me. She still insisted on sleeping in a separate room from me. I don't know what I did wrong to Julie but I was becoming restless and sad because my once happy marriage was not happy anymore.

When Kev visited, he noticed how gloomy my house was. I told him how Julie spends twenty hours out of the twenty-four hours of the day in her room. I just went into her room anytime I was free to carry Kasey out of the room because I could bet the poor girl was tired of seeing that room. I decided to just give her the space she wanted and she seemed happy with it. Kevin was speechless. I know that this situation was way above him. He couldn't say anything about it. At least this once he was now feeling how sad I was.

***

I woke up at the cry of Kasey. I checked the time and it was 3am in the morning. Julie was supposed to check up on her but her cry seemed to increase and I could hear Julie's footsteps or her voice hushing Kasey so I rushed to Kasey's room which was close to Julie's own. Walking down to her crib I looked in and I couldn't see her in her crib. And Julie's door was closed with her lights on. She was probably with her and Kasey's cry increased as the seconds went by so I decided to go into Julie's room and see if I could help then I opened her door.

"What the actual fuck!"

I shouted and froze for a nanosecond then I ran and carefully carried Kasey to console her. Shit! When I decided to open this door this was the least thing I ever expected to see. My heart was beating very fast and I was so scared right now.