The nurse checking my IV paused with her hand on the tape. She looked at Eric, then at me, and her mouth pressed into a thin line. Another nurse near the monitor caught her eye across the room.
“Can you try to be a little quieter?”
I didn’t have space to react. Another wave was already climbing up my back, and the doctor was walking in with the delivery team behind her. My babies were coming whether Eric was comfortable or not.
It seemed that as the reality of three babies approached, my husband’s initial excitement had faded.
A few days later, we brought our triplets home.
I was completely exhausted and just trying to figure out a basic routine.
I didn’t have space to react.
Five days later, my whole world was measured in two-hour windows.
Feed. Burp. Change. Rock. Set down. Pick up the next one.
My body hurt. My hair hadn’t been washed since the hospital. Somewhere around the 90-minute mark of sleep, I stopped being able to tell which baby I was holding without looking at the little bracelet on her ankle.
Eric had been “helping” by handing me clean burp cloths and going back to bed.
My hair hadn’t been washed since the hospital.
I was warming a bottle when I heard the wheels of a large suitcase on the hardwood.
My husband rolled it into the kitchen as if he were innocently going to catch a flight for work.
“What’s that?” I asked.
He wouldn’t quite look at me. “So. I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few days.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
I heard the wheels of a large suitcase.
“Well, you see, the crying, the schedule, waking up every two hours. It’s honestly kind of wrecking me, Layla. My mental health is in a really dark place.”
I stared at him. One of the babies started fussing.
“Eric, I haven’t slept in five days.”
“I know. I know.” He held up his hands as if he were calming a stranger.
I stared at him.
“That’s why I think it’s better if I take a step back for a minute. Just to reset. The guys and I booked a place in Cabo. Two weeks. I’ll come back and I’ll be a way better dad, I promise. I just can’t be useful to anyone right now.”
“Cabo?”
“It’s already paid for.” He winced, apologetic, as if the money were the tragic part. “Luke’s picking me up in five.”
“You booked a trip?”
“I need this, baby. For us. For the girls, honestly.”
“It’s already paid for.”
The fussing turned into a full cry. Then a second one joined in.
“Eric, you can’t be serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious.” He crossed the kitchen and kissed the top of my head as if I were a niece he was proud of. “You’re so strong. You’ve got this. Naomi’s around, right?”
“She works. She has her own life.”
“Eric, you can’t be serious.”
“Buuut…she loves the babies.”
“Eric, please.”
My husband was already wheeling the suitcase toward the front door. A car horn tapped outside, short and cheerful.
“Two weeks,” he said. “I’ll bring you back something nice!”
“Don’t do this.”
He opened the door. Sunlight cut across the entryway. He didn’t turn around.
“You’ll thank me later!”
The door clicked shut.
“Don’t do this.”
I stood in the doorway with a warm bottle in one hand and Ava, our loudest, screaming against my collarbone. Down the hall, her sisters answered her, one after the other, until the whole house was crying in a jagged chorus.
I looked at the closed door.
Fourteen days. I had no idea how I was going to survive 14 days.
I looked at the closed door.
I thought it was hard before Eric left, but those two weeks were the hardest I’d ever been through.
Night three broke me.
All three babies wailed at once, a wall of sound I couldn’t climb over. I sat on the kitchen tile with a warm bottle in my hand and cried harder than any of them.
I called Naomi at 2 a.m., barely able to form words.
Night three broke me.
“I’m coming,” my sister said. “I’m packing a bag right now.”
Naomi showed up before sunrise with an overnight duffel and a stack of legal pads.
“Okay,” she said, kneeling next to me on the floor. “We’re going to survive this, but we’re going to do it with a system.”
By the end of that first day, we had color-coded bottles and a shared spreadsheet on my phone. It sounds small, but it saved my life.
“I’m coming.”
My sister helped whenever she could, but most of the feedings, crying, and sleepless nights fell on me.
I hadn’t heard from Eric once.
On day six, my phone buzzed while I was burping Mia. It was a text from a number I recognized as Luke’s.
“Yo, you want me to cover your share of last night’s bar tab on the kid-free Finsta, or you still keeping that one locked down from the wife?”
I read it several times.
I hadn’t heard from Eric once.
Then I read it aloud to Naomi when she returned from work.
“Kid-free Finsta,” my sister repeated slowly. “That means a private Instagram, Layla. He’s been running a second account!”
My hands started shaking.
“Help me find it.”
It took her about 20 minutes.
“That means a private Instagram.”
Luke’s public profile linked to a tagged photo, which linked to a private handle, which Naomi requested to follow from a burner account.
