Today's writing

She and Gary locked glances, held. He was her partner in this, always would be. He was half of that little boy sitting there, half of the endeavor that it took to raise this child. No one else so clearly understood the rigors of her pregnancy, the toll it took on the mind and body. When she was five months along, she’d gone out with a friend who was maybe a month or so behind. Men don’t get it Friend said. They don’t know.

Ruth thought about the previous night, how Gary had rubbed her back when the pain grew to exist throughout her body, radiating. I’m here he said. I’m here.

Yesterday she betrayed him. A breach in their marriage, a dropped stitch in the quilt, unraveling. And he didn’t even know it.

Now she looked at them both. Her boys. To be without them in any way would be to walk on hot lava without shoes, the burn a malignant quickening beneath her soles. Good morning, baby, she said, speaking to them both.

The rest of the morning felt more low-key, running along the river of tasks at hand. While usually this annoyed her, today she was grateful for the mundanity. She made it a game, a meditative practice: packing Lennon’s lunch, the leftovers in the blue Tupperware, the one with his name on the lid. She hadn’t written it, neither had Gary; Carol Vulture labeled everything. She was lucky her kid didn’t come home with his name written on his schlong.