Part 3 — What Three Months of Alone Had Looked Like
I need to tell you about the three months before the phone call, because the affair was not the beginning. It was the conclusion.
When Sophie was born, I expected the adjustment to be difficult. Every new parent expects that. The sleep deprivation. The constant feeding schedule. The learning curve of caring for a body so small and so dependent that every decision feels consequential.
What I did not expect was doing it alone while married.
Elon took three days of paternity leave. On the fourth day, he went back to the office. He told me his team needed him. He told me the quarter was critical. He told me I would find a rhythm.
I found a rhythm. It was the rhythm of a woman who woke every two hours, fed a baby, changed a diaper, fell asleep sitting up, woke again, fed again, changed again, and moved through the daylight hours in a fog of exhaustion so thick that I once put the kettle in the refrigerator and stood in front of the stove waiting for cold water to boil.
I told Elon I needed help. He told me to hire someone. I told him we could not afford full-time childcare on one income. He told me money was tight.
Money was tight. Except for the restaurants. Except for the hotel. Except for the necklace.
I did not know about those expenses then. I knew only that the man who told me money was tight came home every evening smelling like cologne and looking at his phone with the particular attention of someone reading words that were not written by his wife.
I texted him photographs of Sophie during the day. Her first smile. The way she gripped my finger. The face she made during bath time that looked like she was negotiating the terms of her cooperation.
He did not respond to most of them. When he did, the responses were one or two words. Cute. Nice.
I stopped sending them during the second month. Not because I stopped wanting to share Sophie’s moments. Because sending a photograph to someone who responds with nice and nothing else is not sharing. It is performing for an empty theater.
My mother noticed. She visited on weekends when she could. She told me I looked tired. I told her I was fine. She told me fine was the word women used when describing a situation they had decided to endure rather than change.
She was right.
The phone call changed endure to act.
