“Cover yourself.”
My husband set a folded white towel on the table next to my lunch.
I glanced up at him.
We were seated in the shaded café area at Splash Cove, the enormous water park just off the interstate. Paige was in a wooden high chair to my left, cheerfully squashing a strawberry in her little fists while red juice slid down her wrists. Her twin, Piper, sat on my right, set on tugging my sunglasses off my head.
Families filled the space under bright blue umbrellas, eating fries and chicken strips. Somewhere close by, a child was sobbing over a lost flip-flop. A lifeguard’s whistle rang out across the park.
“Excuse me?”
Daniel slid the towel closer.
“Put it around you.”
“Why?”
His eyes darted toward the next table.
Just for a second.
But I caught it.
Jane sat beside Daniel’s younger brother, Elliot. She had on a black bikini and sunglasses, and she was eating a salad.
And all at once, I understood.
“Are you embarrassed by me?”
Daniel dropped his voice and leaned in.
“Mona, don’t make this worse.”
For ten months, I had done everything I could to avoid making things worse.
Ten months of trying to need less.
Complain less.
Look less worn out.
Take up less space.
Ten months of trying not to look like a woman who had grown two babies at once.
That afternoon, at a water-park café with strawberry juice on my arm and a towel next to my plate, something inside me finally stopped going along.
I didn’t know it yet, but Daniel had picked the worst possible place to say those words.
His whole family was sitting close by.
Listening.
And within minutes, his father would ask to see a photograph.
One photograph that would change the entire afternoon.
Three days earlier, my kitchen had looked as if a banana had exploded in it.
It was Wednesday morning, about seven-fifteen.
Paige sat in her high chair, spreading mashed banana over her tray like finger paint. Somehow she had banana in her eyebrows and even in one ear.
Piper had pulled off one of her little pink socks, the ones with ducks on them.
She was chewing it.
Again.
“Please stop eating your clothes, Piper.”
She looked right at me and grinned around the sock, showing exactly two tiny teeth.
I laughed and picked up my phone.
The twins were ten months old, and most days had melted together.
That was the part no one warned me about with twins.
Days had no clean beginning or end.
Just bottles, diapers, crying, naps that never matched up, more bottles, more diapers, and sometimes both babies screaming while I had to choose which one to pick up first.
I hadn’t slept more than three straight hours since they were born.
But every so often, a small moment came along that was worth holding onto.
Like Piper grinning with a sock in her mouth.
Or Paige somehow getting banana into her ear.
So I took a picture.
Then Daniel walked into the kitchen.
He was already dressed for work.
Blue button-down shirt.
Hair neatly combed.
Coffee in hand.
Cologne.
Rested.
He looked like he belonged in a commercial.
I looked like I hadn’t slept since Tuesday.
Faded gray college T-shirt.
Baby cereal crusted on one shoulder.
Messy bun.
The same stretchy black pants I’d worn for days.
“Can you take one with me in it?”
I passed him my phone.
Daniel surveyed the kitchen.
The banana.
The high chairs.For illustration purposes only
The mess.
“Now?”
“Unless you know how to make babies this age wait until tomorrow.”
He sighed.
It was a small sigh.
But I heard it.
He took the phone.
I crouched between the twins’ chairs.
Paige instantly grabbed my hair with her banana-covered hand.
I laughed.
Daniel snapped the photo.
Then his expression shifted.
“I’ll take another one.”
“Why?”
“You’re not going to like that one.”
“Let me see.”
“Mona—”
“Daniel. Give me the phone.”
He handed it over.
My hair was a mess.
There was banana in it now.
My eyes looked tired.
My face looked drained.
But Paige was laughing so hard her whole face had scrunched up.
Piper was waving her little duck sock in the air like a flag of victory.
And I was sitting between them, smiling.
“I like it.”
Daniel stared at me.
“Your face looks really puffy.”
My smile vanished.
“Puffy?”
“And that shirt isn’t helping.”
He crossed to the refrigerator and opened it.
“When are you finally going back to the gym, Mona?”
He said it while looking into the fridge instead of at me.
“Maybe when I’m not surviving on broken sleep.”
“They’re ten months old now.”
“I know how old our daughters are.”
He shut the fridge and turned around holding a yogurt.
“You can’t use pregnancy as an excuse forever.”
My jaw clenched.
“I carried twins, Daniel. Two babies. At the same time. For thirty-five weeks. I had a C-section that went wrong, then another surgery the same day. I lost a lot of blood. I spent eight days in the hospital.”
He peeled back the yogurt lid.
“And for ten months, I’ve been waking up for feedings. Two times a night. Sometimes three. Sometimes four. You sleep in the guest room because you need rest for work.”
“That was your idea.”
“Because you asked whether I minded, and I didn’t want another argument.”
I took a breath.
“And somehow the thing you’re worried about is the gym? You’re acting like my body has some deadline.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Daniel nodded toward my phone.
“Just delete that picture. We can take a better one later. After you shower.”
A minute before, I had looked at that photograph and seen my daughters.
Paige laughing.
Piper holding a sock.
Banana everywhere.
Now all I saw was myself.
My cheeks.
My arms.
My stomach straining against the shirt.
The dark circles.
Puffy.
I pressed delete.
Daniel picked up his coffee.
“Oh, by the way, Dad called last night. He and Mom are taking everybody to the water park Saturday for their anniversary.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Elliot and Jane are coming.”
My hand stilled.
Elliot was Daniel’s twenty-eight-year-old younger brother.
The fun one.
He sold boats and wore sunglasses on his head even indoors.
Jane was his girlfriend.
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