But she meant auditions. Roles. Cameras. The kind of “more” that doesn’t fit inside a crib or a sleepless night.
The morning she left, our apartment smelled like formula and exhaustion. Emma was in my arms. Clara was crying in the bassinet. Lauren stood by the door in a red coat she’d bought when we were still dreaming together, her makeup too perfect for someone who had supposedly been up with us all night.
“I can’t do this, Mark,” she said, adjusting her purse strap.
I remember blinking at her, waiting for the rest. Waiting for, but I’ll come back. Waiting for her to laugh and admit she was scared.
“Do what?” I asked. My voice cracked. “Be a mother?”
Her eyes flicked to the girls. For a second—just a second—I saw something like guilt. Then it hardened into annoyance, like guilt was an inconvenience.
“I’m meant for more than diapers and… this,” she said, waving a hand at the bassinet like it was clutter.
“They’re blind,” I whispered, because I didn’t know what else to say. Like that should change something in her. Like that should pull her back into the room.
She exhaled sharply. “Exactly. I didn’t sign up for a life where everything is harder.”
Then she opened the door.
And walked out.
No dramatic goodbye. No kiss on their foreheads. Just the click of heels down the hallway and the sound of our lives splitting in half.
Those years nearly broke me.
People love to say, “You’ll figure it out,” like figuring it out is a cute little puzzle. What they don’t tell you is that figuring it out feels like drowning while you’re holding two babies above the water.
I learned to heat bottles with one hand. Learned to rock two cribs at once by wedging myself between them. Learned to nap sitting up. I learned the difference between Emma’s cry and Clara’s cry the way other people learn music.
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