I believed my husband when he promised we would raise our triplets together. Six weeks after their birth, I was still recovering, barely sleeping, and doing everything alone. Then he announced that he had earned a two-week vacation, and I decided he wouldn’t leave with his perfect-father image intact.
“You really did this to me?!”
Ethan’s scream burst through my phone at four in the afternoon.
Tara startled against my chest. Timothy kicked inside his bassinet, and Tessa began crying before I’d even finished warming her bottle.
I lowered the volume with sticky fingers.
“You really did this to me?!”
“What did I do, Ethan?” I asked.
“You emptied my suitcase!”
A door slammed behind him.
Then I heard a man ask, “What is all that?”
Ethan had opened the suitcase in front of his friends.
Just as I’d planned.
“What is all that?”
“My clothes are gone, Kyra,” he snapped. “You packed diapers, feeding charts, that stupid shirt, and a baby book.”
“The book you promised to read.”
“You made me look like a liar.”
Tessa’s cries grew louder.
I shifted Tara to my shoulder and reached for the warm bottle.
“My clothes are gone, Kyra.”
“No, Ethan,” I said. “I stopped helping you look like a good husband.”
***
Six months earlier, I wouldn’t have believed those words could come out of my mouth.
Back then, Ethan had been the man who rubbed my swollen feet, brought me toast in bed, and talked to my stomach every night.
He’d begged for a big family.
Six months earlier.
When we learned I was carrying triplets, he cried harder than I did.
“We’re going to be a team,” he promised. “Every feeding. Every diaper. Every terrible night.”
I believed him.
At a barbecue during my seventh month, Ethan’s friends, Marcus and Ben, handed him a gift bag.
Ethan pulled out a black shirt that read:
“WORLD’S MOST EXHAUSTED FATHER.”
“We’re going to be a team.”
“I think I’m the one who’s going to be exhausted,” I said from my chair.
Ethan pulled it on and posed.
“Diapers, bottles, laundry, night feedings,” he announced. “I’ve got it all.”
I took his picture.
“I’m saving that speech to memory.”
He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
“I’m saving that speech to memory.”
“Save it. I’ll prove it, my love.”
***
Then Tara, Timothy, and Tessa arrived.
The C-section left me moving as though every part of my body had been stitched too tightly. Even sitting up hurt. Laughing hurt. Coughing felt impossible.
Our first night home, all three babies started crying within minutes of one another.
“Save it. I’ll prove it, my love.”
I reached for Tara and gasped.
“Ethan, can you bring her to me?”
He opened one eye.
“I just lay down.”
“I can’t lift her from here.”
He sighed, carried Tara over, and placed her in my arms.
“I can’t lift her from here.”
Then he got back into bed.
“Timothy needs his bottle,” I whispered.
“You’re already awake.”
I stared at him.
“So are you.”
“I’ve got work tomorrow.”
