He rubbed his hand across his jaw.
“So what do you want me to do? Quit my job?”
The question was sharp, almost sarcastic.
I shook my head.
“That’s exactly the problem.
You hear me saying I can’t carry everything, and you turn it into an impossible demand I never made.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying your time is not automatically more valuable than mine.”
Silence.
From down the hallway came the sound of one of our children calling for me.
Automatically, I started to stand.
Then I stopped.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
The child called again.
He hesitated for one second, maybe two.
Then he got up.
“I’ll go.”
It was a tiny thing.
So tiny that three years earlier I might have thanked him for it.
That night, I didn’t.
I stayed seated.
When he returned, his phone buzzed on the table.
One of the people waiting for him, probably wondering whether he was still coming to the game.
He reached for it.
I put my hand on the folder.
“We’re not finished.”
His shoulders tightened.
“I know.”
He sent a short message and turned the phone face down.
That small action did not repair anything.
I refused to let myself make it bigger than it was.
For years, I had survived partly by accepting crumbs of consideration and calling them progress.
I was finished doing that too.
I turned to the next section.
This one was not a record of the past.
It was a list of what would have to change.
First: no more last-minute recreational plans that automatically became my childcare responsibility.
Either of us could ask.
Neither of us could simply announce.
Second: if he chose to expand the driving school, the added hours could not come entirely from my life.
We would have to decide together what childcare, household work, or outside help would cover that time.
Third: nights and mornings had to become shared responsibilities instead of mine by default.
Fourth: I needed protected time every week when I was not running the daycare, supervising our children, cleaning, or waiting to be needed.
Not time to grocery shop alone.
Not time to attend an appointment.
Time that belonged to me in the same way his games, boating, projects, and hobbies belonged to him.
Fifth: there would be no serious discussion about another child until our current parenting responsibilities were actually shared.
His expression changed at that one.
“So that’s what this is really about.”
I almost laughed.
“No.
That’s what all of this is about.”
I gestured at the folder.
“You keep talking about another baby because you experience having children differently than I do.”
“That’s not fair.”
