“I want to. Sit down.”
Over the following months, I noticed something else.
Whenever Richard made one of his jokes about me, David’s expression would change.
He never argued.
He never caused a scene.
But his jaw would tighten, and suddenly he would become very interested in warming a bottle or cleaning something nearby.
Anything except laughing along with Richard.
I didn’t give it much thought.
I was too occupied with surviving life with triplets.
Then came the night everything changed.
It was the World Cup final, and Richard invited six friends over to watch the game.
I made an enormous pot of chili, filled bowls with chips, and stocked the coffee table with drinks.
“Bel, you’re a queen,” one of the guys said as I carried food into the living room.
“Enjoy it while it’s hot,” I joked.
Richard appeared in the doorway and clapped his hands.
“Gentlemen, my wife feeds you, cleans up after you, but apparently she doesn’t laugh at my jokes anymore!”
Several of the men chuckled.
David didn’t.
I carried the empty tray back toward the kitchen and repeated the same thing I had told myself a hundred times.
It was just Richard being Richard.
Later, I came back to gather the dirty plates.
As I reached the kitchen doorway, the living room suddenly burst into loud laughter.
I turned around.
Richard was no longer sitting on the couch.
He was standing beside the television.
And in his hand was the pastel pink package I had kept hidden upstairs.
My protective underwear.
Six grown men were staring at me.
Richard lifted the package as though he had just won a trophy.
“Look what I found! Our triplets already know how to hold it in, but apparently their mother is still working on it!”
The room erupted again.
My ears began ringing.
The plates suddenly felt impossibly heavy in my hands.
Richard kept going.
“Careful, guys. Don’t make her laugh too much or we’ll have to protect the couch!”
My face burned.
“Richard, please put that away.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Oh, relax, Bel. It’s a joke. If you’re embarrassed, maybe you should’ve fixed the problem by now.”
Someone whistled.
Another man slapped the couch.
I stood frozen in the middle of my own living room.
Richard continued talking.
Mattress covers.
The grocery-store aisle.
More jokes I barely heard because humiliation had reduced everything around me to noise.
I thought about Mandy, Randy, and Tobby sleeping upstairs.
I thought about everything my body had endured to bring them into the world.
I thought about the months I had spent recovering while caring for three infants.
Then I noticed David.
He wasn’t laughing.
