dear Z
i can’t believe we made such an awesome baby together! it was so smart – its just 13 weeks and its already waving towards the ultrasound! so cute! i feel SUCH love for it right now. I know its a her already. 
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i love you again. i love it. i’m so excited, having a baby will be AWESOME! xx
Dear Z,
Once more, you snore next to me, the slow dripping of the AC breaking your siesta. Our quixotic relationship has seen another 24 hour mad LSDesque turnaround – hate on friday, love on saturday, hate again on sunday. and so the wheel turns. i have been pregnant for THREE months. THREE. we have been married for FIFTY more. did you actually think you would never have to support me? HOW did you get in 6 fucking lacs of debt AGAIN. HOW!? WHY!? was is guns, alcohol and your stupidity again? Or was it bartering my future and the future of our baby to pay for your parents – “yes I can take care of it” man when you really fucking can’t take care of anything.
i’m sick of it. i’m sick of trying to help you with your fucked up finances. I’m sick of trying to help you get out of debt. I’m sick of paying your bills. I’m sick of you. you can’t pay for me, I’ll go somewhere else. I’m sure we’ll both be relieved – let this child be my problem forever, I don’t want you to have anything to do with it if you’re too fucking stupid to manage your damn life.
you don’t have to pay for a single fucking thing. you live with your parents for Gods sakes. You would be considered the ultimate loser in western society – unfortunately, the world is full of dead beat dads. I never knew I’d fucking go out and marry the only one in middle class Pakistan.
Dear Z
you’re snoring next to me, blissfully comotose. I’m exhausted. I spent the morning crying after you abused, kicked and screamed and left for work, leaving me crumbling on the floor snot dribbling down my lips and chin, my eyes red and nose bulbous. i had to splash water on my face, put on damage repair makeup and run to my meeting 10:00 am, sans breakfast, sans energy, and a will to live with you. at 5:00 PM, dizzy with pain and fatigue, knees wobbling, i manage to somehow drive home from work without an accident and crawl into bed into an emergency faint / nap, only to wake up in three minutes and cry and cry and cry about how miserable I am. i didn’t cry once in Lahore. not once. i hate this place. its ugly. its dirty. the paint is peeling. the door handle doesn’t work. the lght switch is broken. there is mud tracked in from your shoes all over the floor. there is dog shit outside, and a cloud of helpful flies, beetles and insects feeding on it. there is no green, there is too much furniture, and i hate every single thing about the room. i’m too tired to clean the bathroom, with your piss stains on the rim, shit stains in the bowl, toothpaste spit stains in the sink, a generous dose of body hair in the clogged tub drain and the smattering of mud, dirty footprints and dead insects on the floor. i feel ill to live here. i feel too ill to clean after a days work. what do you earn? why don’t you give me ANYTHING. how can you hate me so much to deny me my cultural and religious rights as a wife. how can you live with yourself?
i’ll never understand it. you yell and scream and use harsh words at a crying, blubbering pregnant woman who didn’t get enough sleep and who’s back is literally bruised black in pain. i am depressed. i don’t have enough to eat. if you are going to provide none of those things, at least provide me emotional comfort, companionship so i can get through this. if you can’t provide the 25,000 measly thousand for the car payment, or the 5000 for a maid, or the 2000 for groceries, or the 3000 for the next fuelling, fine. i’ll try to do it somehow. but don’t yell and scream being surprised that i’ve quit my job and am serving a notice period and that i won’t be funding your life anymore. don’t bulge your red rimmed alcohol driven eyes telling me you’ve only known for two days that you’ll have to pay for all this shit and that of course you need more time. We’ve been married for five years. I’ve paid off ALL your debts THRICE, and you continue to go on and dig yourself into debt again and again. I’ve been pregnant for 12 weeks – we’ve known for the last two months . did you think i would continue to cook, clean, work, fuel the car, buy the groceries, take out the trash, do the dishes, clean the bathroom, do the laundry like i have been? do you think i would continue to be the husband, the wife, the child, the mother, the father for you? how could you? how will we raise this child in one filthy filthy shit stinking room?
i don’t know how i can go on. this is why i cry. this is why i can’t stop. i don’t know how this will end.
I’ve crawled into bed, my knees shaking with weakness and my stomach cramping terribly. i’ve overdone it at work today, sitting too long, not eating or drinking enough, and this vicious little parasite in my womb is making me feel it. i’m sorry baby, mama’s been bad today. please please give her a break i pant. i close my eyes and my headache starts, and all i can do is moan and hope God is kind today.
z saunters in, bringing in a whiff of vile smoke from his mother’s cigarette. “go away!” my voice is high pitched, whiney and irritating even to me. “you stink of smoke!!!!”
he stops, caught in the headlights of my glare. pinned, he mumbles something about showering. he returns one minute and exactly five seconds later, in a dirty towel he’s picked up from laundry, but has been rinsed down and is not smelling as vilely as before. he throws on his sweats, the ones that he hasn’t been able to wear because of the the huge hole in the butt and jumps into bed. “don’t thrash about for God’s sake” that same shrill shrew-like voice says. who is this person i wonder in my pain and nausea befoggged brain.
i wait for him to extend some bodily comfort, some cuddle, something, ANYthing to help. nothing. alarmed, i turn, and his eyes are closed, and his mouth is open, and the start of gentle snores begin. “you’re asleep ALREADY! get UP. the baby is trying to kill me! rub it!” i poke him till his eyes open. “huh wha what?!” he wakes up. its been two minutes since he’s walked into the room, and ten seconds snce he lay down in bed. how does the man sleep like this!
“belly time!” i say firmly.
he groans. everything in him wants to say no.
“i’m pregnant with your child. i think i’m going to die. i have a headache. have mercy man” i shamelessly play the pregnancy card, because dammit, I am and i’m in hell.
mercifully, he reaches over a half hearted arm, and his fingers wiggle across my belly. lower than my belly actually, where the pain epicenters. “are you giving your mama a bad time baby?” he says. the circles are like heaven. circulation starting to my poor squashed-in-clothes womb. i can’t help the moan of appreciation that escapes. bliss in a belly rub.
z gets into it. awake a little more now, he decides he wants to talk to the baby, which means he puts his lips to my stomach and whispers stuff till i giggle helplessly. i don’t complain. it actually feels like the baby is feeling better. i sure as hell do. the knee shaking has stopped, and my pain is limited to just my head now.
z curves towards me, ready to sleep, one hand on the baby. occasionally, even in sleep, his hand continues to rub. i finally asleep into blissful blackness, content.
