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.
By that evening, we were in.
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