“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 started crying before I’d even finished warming her bottle.
I lowered the volume with sticky fingers. “What did I do, Ethan?”
“You emptied my suitcase!”
A door slammed somewhere behind him. Then I heard a man ask, “What is all that?” Ethan had opened the suitcase in front of his friends. Exactly as I’d planned.
“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,” I said.
“You made me look like a liar.”
Tessa’s cries grew louder. I shifted Tara to my shoulder and reached for the warm bottle. “No, Ethan,” I said. “I stopped helping you look like a good husband.”
“We’re Going to Be a Team”
Six months earlier, I wouldn’t have believed those words could ever come out of my own mouth. Back then, Ethan was the man who rubbed my swollen feet every night, brought me toast in bed, and talked to my stomach before falling asleep. He’d begged for a big family. When we learned I was carrying triplets, he cried harder than I did.
“We’re going to be a team,” he’d promised. “Every feeding. Every diaper. Every terrible night, together.”
I believed him completely.
At a barbecue during my seventh month, his friends Marcus and Ben handed him a gift bag. He pulled out a black T-shirt that read: WORLD’S MOST EXHAUSTED FATHER.
“I think I’m the one who’s going to be exhausted,” I said from my chair, laughing.
Ethan pulled the shirt on and posed for a picture. “Diapers, bottles, laundry, night feedings,” he announced grandly. “I’ve got it all covered.”
I took the photo. “I’m saving that speech to memory,” I told him.
He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Save it. I’ll prove it, my love.”
The First Three Nights
Then Tara, Timothy, and Tessa arrived, all at once, the way triplets do. The C-section left me moving like every part of my body had been stitched too tightly. Sitting up hurt. Laughing hurt. Even coughing felt like it might tear something open again.
Our first night home, all three babies started crying within minutes of each other. I reached for Tara and gasped at the pain in my side.
“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 her over, and set her in my arms — then climbed straight back into bed.
“Timothy needs his bottle,” I whispered.
“You’re already awake.”
“So are you.”
“I’ve got work tomorrow,” he mumbled into the pillow.
I looked at the three bassinets lined up beside our bed. “And I’ve got three babies who can’t survive without us. Both of us.”
He turned toward the wall and said nothing else.
On the third night, he walked into the room carrying his own pillow. “I’m moving into the guest room.”
Tessa was pressed against my shoulder, Timothy had milk running down his chin, and Tara had started crying all over again. “For how long?” I asked.
“Until they sleep through the night.”
“They’re newborns, Ethan.”
For illustrative purposes only
“I need eight hours of sleep if I’m going to function at work.”
“I need more than forty minutes at a stretch if I’m going to function here.”
“You don’t have meetings.”
I looked down at our children. “No. Just tiny human beings whose entire lives depend on me right now.”
Ethan rubbed his face. “Why do you always have to make me feel guilty?”
“I thought guilt came after doing something wrong,” I said.
His mouth tightened. “I’m not arguing about this, Kyra.” Then he left.
Twenty-Three Diaper Changes
During the day, he started counting every small thing he did like it was owed a medal. “I changed two diapers,” he announced one afternoon, proud of himself.
I checked the care sheet taped beside the fridge. “There have been twenty-three today.”
“You don’t need to keep score.”
“I started writing things down because I genuinely can’t remember what hour it is anymore,” I said. “You always make it sound like I’m doing nothing.”
I was washing bottles while rocking Timothy’s carrier with my foot at the same time. “You held Tessa for six minutes,” I said.
“I work all day.”
“So do I.”
“You’re home.”
My hands went still in the soapy water. “So are the babies.”
