Page 1 of The Housewife's Robot
CHAPTER ONE
ROSE
Iwake up with tears in my eyes, my heart aching.
I had another one of those dreams where I’m holding a baby, and it felt so real. His tiny fingers curling around mine. More tears stream down as I open my eyes to the morning sunlight streaming into the room.
Gasping for air, my chest heaves as reality floods back. The same cold bedroom, the same hollow marriage, the same emptiness in my womb that’s been there for five long years.
I press my face into the pillow, sensing that my husband Daniel is awake next to me. I don’t want him to notice that I’ve been crying. This time, I want him to take me seriously as I wipe my eyes with the edge of the blue bedsheet.
Daniel is sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to me as he plays on his phone.
My heart pounds against my ribs, the dream still fresh, the phantom weight of a baby still heavy in my arms. It’s now or never. I roll toward him, clutching the sheet to my chest.
“Dan, I want a baby.”
His spine stiffens. And he slowly turns towards me. “What?”
I swallow hard, throat dry. “I think I’m ready to start the next chapter. We’ve been married for five years now.” My voicetrembles despite my efforts to sound confident. I’ve rehearsed this conversation a hundred times in my head, but now that it’s happening, I feel like I’m stepping off a cliff.
His face remains impassive as he studies me, and I search desperately for any flicker of warmth, any sign that he might be considering it. I notice the lines forming at the corners of his eyes, the stubble on his jaw that he hasn’t shaved yet. He’s still handsome in that corporate, polished way, but he has aged.
“A baby is too much right now,” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand, already turning away from me, reaching for his phone again. “We wanted to focus on our careers, remember?”
“I’m ready now,” I say, my voice small. But he’s already ignoring me and texting away on his phone to God-knows-who. I’m twenty-seven and not getting any younger.
I’m always so careful to keep the peace, to smile and nod and pretend everything’s fine. Anger bubbles in my chest as I turn away sharply, rolling back to my side of the bed, putting as much distance between us as possible without falling off the edge. Marriage shouldn’t be this clinical and detached. I know that from all the books I’ve read, from watching my parents, and from the fairy tales I believed in as a girl. A husband and wife should be partners, should listen to each other, and should want to create a baby together. But it doesn’t seem to be his priority, and it probably never will be.
He’s been giving me the same answer for years. I wish we had discussed all this before getting married five years ago, pushed by our families in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and before moving here to Seattle for Daniel’s tech career.
Daniel leaves the bedroom, and tears roll down my face. I don’t know how long I can accept it. Sometimes I wonder if I’m being too much since we’re living a quiet, peaceful life, but resentment grows inside me.
When the tears finally stop, I drag myself to the shower, hoping the hot water will make me forget the very real dream I had.
Under the shower’s spray, I try to lose myself in the sensation of water cascading over my skin. The shower is where I do my best thinking, where I write sentences in my head for articles that I write as part of my freelance writing career. But today, all I can think about is the emptiness in my arms, the hollowness in my chest.
Over the sound of water, I hear male voices in the house.
Daniel must have brought one of his work friends home again. He’s always bringing people into our space without warning, as if our home is just an extension of his office. I roll my eyes and rinse the conditioner from my hair, mentally preparing to meet whoever it is with a smile plastered on my face. The good wife. The supportive partner. The roles I’ve played for so long, I sometimes forget who I really am beneath them.
I step out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my hair but leaving my body bare. I’ve just started applying lotion to my damp skin when the bedroom door swings open.
“Rose, I want you to meet—” Daniel’s voice cuts through the room, followed by a second pair of footsteps.
I scream, dropping the bottle of lotion, hands flying to cover my breasts and pussy. My husband stands in the doorway with a stranger. He’s a tall, dark-haired man I’ve never seen before. He’s staring at me with an intensity that makes my skin burn.
“What the fuck, Daniel!” I shriek, trying to crouch down to grab my towel from the floor without exposing more of myself.
The stranger immediately bows his head.
“I apologize for the intrusion, Mrs. Bennet,” he says softly, his voice deep and strangely melodic. He turns to leave, but Daniel puts a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s perfectly fine,” my husband says with a smirk. “You can look at her. She’s just my wife.”
Just his wife. The words slice through me like a knife. I stand frozen, naked and vulnerable, as the stranger’s eyes flicker back to me, his gaze moving over my exposed skin with methodical precision.
“Introduce yourself, Rose,” Daniel says, the command in his voice making my teeth clench. Something in me snaps.
