I’d assumed he was checking on the babies.
Richard stood beside the television, grinning as if he’d just won something.
In his hand was the pastel pink package I kept buried beneath the folded towels in the upstairs bathroom.
“Look what I found,” my husband announced, shaking it above his head. “Our triplets can already hold it in, but apparently their mother still hasn’t finished potty training!”
Richard shook the package like a trophy!
The laughter came in a wave. Loud, coordinated, almost rehearsed.
“Look what I found.”
My ears started ringing. The plates in my hands suddenly felt as if they weighed 50 pounds each.
“Careful, gentlemen,” Richard went on, waggling the package. “Don’t make her laugh too hard, or we’ll need to cover the couch!”
My face burned.
“Please put that away,” I whispered.
My husband rolled his eyes at me as if I were the one ruining the night.
“Don’t make her laugh too hard.”
“Oh, relax, Bel. It’s just a joke. If you’re embarrassed, maybe you should have fixed yourself by now.”
Somebody whistled. Somebody else slapped the armrest.
I stood there in my own living room holding two plates of chili, and I couldn’t remember how to move my feet.
Richard kept going. Something about waterproof mattress covers. Something about diaper aisles at the grocery store. I couldn’t hear him anymore, not really. The words were reaching my ears through cotton.
“It’s just a joke.”
I thought about the triplets asleep upstairs.
Mandy, Randy, and Tobby, tucked into their cribs, oblivious. I thought about how many hours I had spent working to help my body heal for them.
And I thought very clearly that I should set the plates down before I dropped them.
But that was when I noticed David.
He hadn’t laughed. Not once.
I thought very clearly.
David was sitting in the armchair closest to the window, his beer paused halfway to his mouth. His jaw was set in a way I had never seen before. His eyes were on the package in Richard’s hand, and then they slowly moved to me.
Something in his face changed. It wasn’t pity. It was something older, harder, and closer to grief.
“Rich,” David said quietly.
Richard didn’t hear him. He was still riffing.
Something in his face changed.
