I leaned back against the couch.
“I didn’t put anything in your suitcase.”
“You know exactly what you did.”
“I really don’t.”
“You—”
He stopped.
I could hear him breathing heavily.
Then he said, much more quietly,
“Why is there a note?”
My heart began beating faster.
I hadn’t put a note in his suitcase.
At least, not one he was supposed to find immediately.
That wasn’t the first thing I’d changed.
The night before Ethan left, I’d opened his suitcase and removed something.
Something he’d packed without even thinking about it.
His expensive noise-canceling headphones.
His silk sleep mask.
The portable white-noise machine he’d bought specifically because the babies’ crying supposedly disturbed his sleep.
I had replaced them with three things.
A bottle of infant formula.
A breast pump.
And a folded photograph.
The photograph was from the day our triplets were born.
Ethan was standing beside my hospital bed, smiling proudly.
One hand was on my shoulder.
The other was resting on one of the babies.
Underneath the photograph, I’d written a single sentence:
“This is what you said you wanted.”
But that wasn’t the note he was talking about.
I hadn’t put that there.
“Read it,” I said.
There was another pause.
Then Ethan’s voice changed.
“It’s addressed to me.”
“Yes.”
“You wrote this?”
“No.”
That silence again.
Longer this time.
Then he whispered,
“Then who did?”
I looked toward the hallway.
The nursery door was open.
Three tiny bodies slept inside.
And suddenly I remembered something.
Three days before Ethan left, his mother had come over.
She had stood in the kitchen watching me struggle to hold one baby while preparing a bottle for another.
She’d asked where Ethan was.
I told her he was working.
She didn’t say anything.
But she’d looked toward the guest-room door.
Then back at me.
And she’d sighed.
At the time, I hadn’t understood why.
Now I wondered.
“What does the note say?” I asked.
Ethan didn’t answer.
“Ethan?”
Finally, he read it aloud.
“Dear Ethan…”
His voice cracked slightly.
“By the time you read this, you’ll probably be angry.”
I closed my eyes.
That wasn’t my handwriting.
“I know you think you deserve this vacation,” he continued.
“And maybe you do.”
He stopped.
“Keep reading,” I said.
“I don’t know who wrote this.”
“I know.”
His voice trembled.
“Then it says… ‘But before you enjoy it, I want you to remember something. Your wife has not had a vacation since the day your children were born. She hasn’t slept. She hasn’t eaten properly. She hasn’t showered without a baby crying outside the door. She hasn’t spent one hour alone.’”
He stopped again.
Then he said,
“Who wrote this?”
I didn’t answer.
Because I knew.
His mother.
She must have written it after seeing me that week.
Ethan continued.
“‘You told everyone you were exhausted. Imagine being exhausted while recovering from surgery. Imagine being responsible for three lives every minute of every day. Imagine having no choice but to keep going.’”
His breathing grew heavier.
Then came the last line.
“‘So enjoy your two weeks. But don’t come home expecting the woman you left behind to still be waiting exactly where you abandoned her.’”
Silence.
I heard something hit the floor.
“Ethan?”
He didn’t respond.
Then, finally:
“My mother wrote this?”
“I think so.”
Another silence.
Then he said,
“You knew she was going to put this in here?”
“No.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You’re lying.”
“I swear I’m not.”
He sounded furious again.
But underneath the anger, I heard something else.
Fear.
“Why did you put my things in here?”
I almost laughed.
“Because you were leaving.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It does.”
I looked at the three bassinets beside me.
“You wanted a vacation from being a husband and father.”
