I set the phone down on the nightstand.
Downstairs, I could hear Richard making coffee, humming as if the ground beneath us hadn’t already split open. He’d slept in the guest room.
***
I spent the day upstairs with the triplets, avoiding my husband.
He left twice, and during that time, I prepared food for the triplets and myself.
He’d slept in the guest room.
I also bathed the babies and myself.
When my husband came back, he knocked on the bedroom door once, then gave up.
***
The following evening, I printed the screenshots and laid them across the kitchen table in a neat row.
Richard walked in, saw them, and stopped.
He knocked on the bedroom door once.
“Belinda, listen. It wasn’t like that.”
“Sit down, Richard.”
My husband sat.
“I’m not asking you to explain,” I told him. “I’m not asking you to fix yourself either.”
“Baby, please, I can apologize. I’ll do anything.”
“I’m telling you I’m done shrinking to fit the space you left me.”
“Sit down, Richard.”
