What do you do?

Got up pretty early this morning. I heard the baby crying from the other bedroom where he was sleeping with Mama. When I walked in, she was rocking him back to sleep, half-asleep herself. She told me to go back to bed, that he probably just had a bad dream or something.

Do babies have nightmares?

He did go back to sleep as I stood there watching. So did she. But I couldn't stay away. I wanted to hold him. So I picked him up. He sort of whined and stretched a bit more and then settled down again on my shoulder.

Walked around with him all over the house until I started to tire. So I went into my bedroom and set him down in his crib. Mama was right, as usual. It wasn't time to feed him yet and he didn't need a change. He was fine. It probably was just a bad dream.

It was only then that I realized my husband wasn't home. His cell phone was on the bedside table. Apart from the mosque, the only other place he would go without his phone was up on the roof, to the swimming pool.

Had a quick shower and changed. Then I went up to look for him. In the lift on the way up I realized that - apart from my time in the hospital - this was the first time I'd been out of the apartment since about a week before the baby was born.

Walking past the changing rooms and the health club on my out onto the poolside, I could hear her. A woman laughing.

She was on her way to the changing rooms so we practically ran into each other. A neighbor. One of a group of cabin crew who shared an apartment about 2 floors above us.

She stopped, said hi and congratulations on the baby etc....She told me they would stop by and see me, she and her roommates. And I said all the right things.

Then she left and I continued out a bit further onto the poolside until I caught sight of my husband in the water.

He was swimming like I know him. Doing lengths. So grim in determination. A man with a mission. You'd think he was training for the Olympics or sth.

It made me smile. But then my mind went back to that girl. No one else was there. They'd clearly been in the pool together. And she was laughing. Unless she was crazy, she wouldn't have been laughing unless he'd said - or done - something to make her laugh. She can't have been laughing by herself.

And once my mind started on that track, I couldn't stop. She was so tanned and fit and gorgeous in her bikini. And watching him, I was reminded of how good-looking he was. And how long it had been since we'd had sex. And how fat and sexless I felt these days.

In my head, I started counting how many times he'd been up to the pool lately.

I was reminded of something else. Something stupid I'd ignored at the time. A woman at the hospital had told me that this was her 3rd baby and she never lets her husband attend the birth because it puts men off sex with their wives.

And I thought how my husband had witnessed every gory minute of the birth of our son.

I felt so frightened. Cold, shivering, sickening fear.

Don't know how long I stood there before he saw me. He waved from the water. I didn't wave back. Just stood there staring, while he got out of the pool and walked over.

He looked so worried. And I found myself thinking why? Why was he worried?

I couldn't say anything to him. At that moment, I was afraid of him, of what I was thinking of him, of the horrible visuals I was suddenly having. And then I couldn't even look at him anymore. I had to turn around and get out of there.

I was practically running back to the apartment - and back into the safety of my bed. I just hid under the covers.

I heard him come into the bedroom and check on the baby.

And then he asked me what was wrong, if I was feeling ok.

I didn't want to tell him. Some things you fear so much that you can't bear to say out loud because saying them might make them feel more real.

So I just didn't say anything.

He went and woke Mama up and told her to come and see what was wrong with her crazy daughter, I guess.

I didn't tell my mother either.

He went swimming again this morning.