A car horn sounded outside. Brandon lifted the bag.
“I already committed.”
“To your friends,” I replied. “You committed to them without even speaking to your wife.”
He opened the door.
“I can’t do this right now.”
“If I called tomorrow and said I couldn’t manage, would you come home?”
He hesitated.
That pause gave me my answer.
“I need this trip,” he said.
“And I need a husband.”
Before leaving, he looked at the crying twins and said, “You wanted to be a mother, so act like one.”
For a moment, I could not breathe. We had spent years hoping for children, yet he acted as though the twins were mine alone.
He waited for me to beg him to stay.
Instead, I said, “Go. You’ve already chosen.”
At three in the morning, I sat on the nursery floor with one baby on each side of me and half a granola bar in my hand. Brandon had not called or asked about them once.
