My Husband Humiliated Me for Postpartum Leakage—Then I Took His Company

Chapter 2

When I got home, it was nearly dark.

I had just reached the door when it opened from the inside.

Fiona stood inside, first looking down at my shoes, then kicking a pair of slippers toward me.

"Change your shoes. Don't bring the dirt from outside in here," she said.

I stood in the entryway, still holding a cardboard box in my arms.

My arms ached under the weight of the box, and my lower back throbbed with a dull, dragging pain that came in waves.

But that wasn't what scared me most.

What scared me was knowing that the moment I bent over, my body would likely lose control again.

Seeing me frozen in place, Fiona immediately frowned. "What, you can't even change your shoes anymore?" she asked.

I slowly set the box on the floor, bracing one hand against the wall as I tried to change my shoes.

But I'd barely squatted down when a sudden heat flooded my lower body.

My entire body stiffened instantly.

That familiar sense of losing control came too fast, without any warning.

Fiona immediately stepped back, her voice turning shrill. "Why are you leaking again?" she exclaimed.

Soon, the baby's cries came from the bedroom.

My heart clenched, and instinctively I wanted to go inside.

But Fiona was faster, blocking the doorway. "Don't go in," she said.

I said, my voice hoarse, "The baby's crying. Let me hold her."

She looked at me with a frown. "In the state you're in, what makes you think you can hold her? Smell yourself. What if the smell is too much for the baby?"

I stood frozen in place, the color draining from my face.

I said, "I'm just not recovering well from childbirth."

She cut me off immediately. "What woman hasn't had a baby? How come everyone else gets through it, but you can't? Aaron works hard all day outside, and he has to come home to this? If you don't feel ashamed, I feel ashamed for him."

At that moment, I suddenly felt so tired.

So tired I couldn't muster a single explanation.

I only thought back to the day I gave birth.

I was in so much pain that my entire body trembled as I clutched the bedsheets, unable to even cry out.

Later, after the baby was born, I was wheeled into the hospital room. Aaron, his eyes red, held my hand and said, "You've had a hard time, honey."

He said he would never let me be wronged again.

It was because I believed those words that I swallowed all the bitterness that followed.

When my wound hurt, I endured it.

When my breasts were engorged and I ran a fever, I endured it.

I'd pace back and forth holding the baby alone in the middle of the night, and during the day I'd still force myself to keep up with projects. I put up with all of that, too.

I thought I just had to tough it out for a while.

Once it passed, things would get better.

But now I finally understood that things wouldn't.

Because the ones who pushed me down weren't strangers.

It was them.

In the end, I turned around and went back to my room.

While showering, I gripped the sink, tears falling one by one.

But I didn't even dare cry too hard.

Because I knew that once emotions took over, I'd lose even more control of my body.

When I came out after my shower, the baby had stopped crying.

Fiona was holding her in the living room. When she saw me come out, she immediately pulled the baby closer and said, "She's asleep. Don't come over."

I stood in the middle of the living room, suddenly feeling that this house was terribly empty.

So empty that as this baby's mother, even getting close to my own baby felt like an intrusion.

Aaron came back at nine in the evening.

The door had barely opened when Fiona rushed to greet him. "You're finally back. She leaked again when she got home today and still wanted to hold the baby. Luckily I stopped her, otherwise that smell would have gotten all over the baby," she said.

Aaron looked up at me. There wasn't a hint of concern in his eyes, only impatience. "You made such a scene at the company today. Can't you just give it a rest at home?" he said.

I looked at him, suddenly wanting to laugh. "I made a scene?" I asked.

"Wasn't it?" His tone was flat. "You're not in good shape right now. Isn't it normal to take leave to recover?" he replied.

"So you gave my office to Brielle?" I asked.

"She's more stable than you," he said.

That single sentence silenced me.

At eight months pregnant, I went with him to meet investors, my feet so swollen that even my shoes hurt.

After the dinner, he helped me into the car, saying that once the baby was born, he'd make sure I rested properly, that he'd take care of the company.

So the "rest" he spoke of meant pushing me out completely.

I looked at him, my voice growing tight. "When the company was at its worst, who toughed it out with you?" I asked.

He said nothing.

"Who begged for that investment for the company?" I pressed.

His face darkened.

"Aaron, you say she's more stable than me now. But have you ever thought that without me, you wouldn't be where you are today?" I said.

"Enough," he finally snapped. "Amara Winslow, stop using the past against me. You can't even control your own body right now, and you still want me to hand over the company to you?"

My heart clenched.

So all the pain I endured to bring that child into the world, all the effort I made to get back to work—in his eyes, it all came down to one thing: I couldn't control my own body.

Fiona cut in. "When a woman becomes a mother, she should stay home and raise her children. You insisted on running back to the office. See where that got you? You can't even look after the child properly, you've ended up like this, and you're holding Aaron back," she said.

I looked at them and suddenly didn't feel like explaining anymore.

Not because I had given in.

It was because I'd suddenly realized there was no point arguing with them.

Some scores shouldn't just be fought over.

They should be settled.

That night, the baby cried again.

I was about to get out of bed when Aaron stopped me. "Don't go," he said.

"She's my daughter," I said.

He looked at me, keeping his voice low. "The way you are now, you'll scare her," he said.

I stood there, not moving for a long time.

Then the door shut.

I leaned against the door, slowly sinking to the floor, listening to the baby's fitful cries from the next room as tears streamed down.

But as they fell, I suddenly wiped them away.

They all thought I would keep taking it like I always had.

But not this time.