“My friend just had a baby,” my husband said without emotion. “She’s moving in for six months, and you’ll take care of her.” I smiled and replied, “Of course.” He assumed I had finally accepted my place. But when she showed up with luggage, a crib, and plans for my house, the doorbell rang. I opened it and said, “Perfect timing. Your surprise is here.”
The evening my husband announced that another woman would be moving into our home for six months, he barely glanced up from his phone. What made it worse was how casually he said it, as though I were household staff and my obedience had already been decided.
“Remember to clean the house really well,” Daniel said, scrolling through his messages. “My friend Vanessa just had her baby. She’ll be staying here for six months so you can help take care of her.”
I stared across the kitchen island at him.
“You volunteered me to care for another woman and her newborn?”
Daniel finally raised his eyes, looking irritated instead of ashamed.
“She needs support. You work from home. Don’t make this dramatic.”
I nearly laughed.
Vanessa wasn’t merely some distant acquaintance.
She was the woman whose name regularly appeared on Daniel’s phone after midnight. The same woman who touched his shoulder a little too often during company dinners. The woman who once looked at me with a smile and said, “Daniel tells me everything.”
For months, he had dismissed me as jealous.
Now he expected her to live inside my home.
“Six months?” I asked calmly.
“Yes.”
“And where will she sleep?”
