Hope could barely manage the snaps on one baby sleeper with her right arm in a cast. One twin was on the floor beside her, the other had started crying, and the tea she had made for herself had gone cold before she took a sip.
That was the scene Derek walked into when he asked what she had planned for dinner.
Hope reminded him that she had fractured her arm after falling on the stairs. The doctor had told her not to lift the twins with that arm, which made ordinary caregiving tasks far harder and less safe. But Derek, who had just come home from a ten-hour workday, said he did not want to come home to “another shift.”
Hope was on maternity leave, but her days were anything but empty. She was handling bottles, laundry, baths, naps, nighttime wake-ups, and the nonstop rhythm of caring for five-month-old twins. It was unpaid work, but it still carried real weight, especially while she was injured.