My face burned.
“Please put that away,” I whispered.
My husband rolled his eyes at me as if I were the one ruining the night.
“Don’t make her laugh too hard.”
“Oh, relax, Bel. It’s just a joke. If you’re embarrassed, maybe you should have fixed yourself by now.”
Somebody whistled. Somebody else slapped the armrest.
I stood there in my own living room holding two plates of chili, and I couldn’t remember how to move my feet.
Richard kept going. Something about waterproof mattress covers. Something about diaper aisles at the grocery store. I couldn’t hear him anymore, not really. The words were reaching my ears through cotton.
“It’s just a joke.”
I thought about the triplets asleep upstairs.
Mandy, Randy, and Tobby, tucked into their cribs, oblivious. I thought about how many hours I had spent working to help my body heal for them.
And I thought very clearly that I should set the plates down before I dropped them.
But that was when I noticed David.
He hadn’t laughed. Not once.
I thought very clearly.
David was sitting in the armchair closest to the window, his beer paused halfway to his mouth. His jaw was set in a way I had never seen before. His eyes were on the package in Richard’s hand, and then they slowly moved to me.
Something in his face changed. It wasn’t pity. It was something older, harder, and closer to grief.
“Rich,” David said quietly.
Richard didn’t hear him. He was still riffing.
Something in his face changed.
“Richard!” David said again, louder this time.
The room shifted. A few of the guys glanced over, sensing something they hadn’t planned for.
“What?” my husband laughed. “Buddy, don’t tell me you’re about to lecture me. It’s a bit. She’s fine! Right, honey?”
Richard looked at me for confirmation, the way he always did when he needed me to smooth things over.
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t find any words.
“She’s fine! Right, honey?”
David set his beer down on the coaster beside the table.
He didn’t slam it. He placed it there deliberately, as a man making a crucial decision.
Then he pushed back his chair and stood up.
“Sit down, man,” Richard said, still smiling, but his voice had thinned at the edges. “Come on. Sit down. It’s the second half.”
David didn’t listen.
He didn’t slam it.
I stood and watched as he walked past the coffee table. Past the bowls of chips I had arranged so carefully. Past two of the guys who suddenly found their phones very interesting.
