The first time something felt off, it was small enough that I almost ignored it. One night, I came home late and found Emily already in bed, lying very still with her back turned toward me. It wasn’t unusual for her to sleep early, but there was something about the way she didn’t move at all, like she was pretending. I stood there for a moment, watching, before turning off the light. I told myself she was just exhausted.
Over the next week, I began to notice things I couldn’t quite explain. Emily stopped coming to the table when I ate dinner. My mother would say she had already eaten earlier because the baby had kept her busy. Sometimes I brought food to the bedroom, but Emily would insist she wasn’t hungry, always avoiding eye contact. Once, when I sat beside her, she flinched slightly, so quickly that I almost convinced myself I had imagined it.
I told myself it was normal. Postpartum recovery can be unpredictable, and I had read that hormones and lack of sleep could change a person’s behavior. That explanation felt reasonable, and I held onto it because it was easier than questioning anything else.
Still, a pattern began to form. Emily lost weight faster than expected, and although my mother said some women simply bounce back quickly, I could see the sharpness in Emily’s face that hadn’t been there before. She started keeping the bedroom door closed during the day, and when I knocked, there was always a brief pause before she answered. Even the baby cried more when my mother held her than when Emily did, which didn’t make sense to me at all.
I kept telling myself I was overthinking, that I was just tired and looking for problems where there weren’t any. But then something else happened that I couldn’t ignore as easily.
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