Baby - part 1

”I want a baby” has been on repeat since the first morning of our honeymoon, three married years ago. “Why so soon?” I asked at the time. She answered that she wanted a baby with my hazel eyes, her little nose and my handsome hands. Quite an appealing sales pitch, I must admit. Three years later and she still voices the same desire, but seems to have made quite a few changes along the way. I suspect the long grueling hours as management consultants have left us with very little time to dream, let alone conceive babies. We did consult a fertility specialist after a year of trying who assured us that all was in order – except for our finances of course. I was reluctant to start a family just yet. My friends who’d already made the big step assured me that it would be the end of my life as I know it, and practically I wondered how our combined salaries would allow for our existing lifestyle, plus baby. My wife was 27 when we married, a successful analyst at a big consultancy, rapidly climbing the corporate ladder whilst others like me stayed back and watched her sail past. I couldn’t believe how lucky I’d been to find a woman like her; “every man’s dream” as my mother described her, adding that I was a very lucky man that she’d chosen me. Indeed Lisa could have anyone she wanted. Why me? I still can’t answer that question. She’s stunningly beautiful. She’s the girl who smiles at everyone but gets a small handful of smiles in return, only from those who are too madly in love with her to envy her. I’d always gotten the impression that both men and women envied my Lisa, as if she was too brilliant a star for the general greyness of earthlings. And yet she inspired them. Where Lisa went others followed, most of the time hoping to pick up the crumbs from her luscious mouth, other times as if they wished her aura to be contagious. This is the woman I married three fateful years ago, and whose presence in my life has lit an unwavering flame. I’m a better man for her. Conversations about our wives down at the pub always end up in a tease fest starring me; when my mates find their wives overbearing and boring, I’m still in awe of mine. Until yesterday.

I came home from work to find Lisa already there: highly unusual for a Tuesday at six pm. When I asked if she’d finished work early, she answered casually that she hadn’t been, preferring instead to stay home and watch daytime TV. I worried a little at this sudden change but decided she was probably falling ill with the flu like Archie and so many others at work. I cooked dinner to the best of my ability and settled for the night slightly intrigued but too tired to fret. I woke up this morning to find another woman in my bed.