The brisket platter trembled in my hands when I heard my husband explain to six men why my life had amounted to nothing.
I stood behind the glass patio door with our seven-month-old son asleep against my chest, his warm cheek pressed beneath my collarbone.
Outside, Mark laughed.
“Adriana’s accomplished absolutely nothing,” he said.
“She wasted her degree, got fat, and let herself go.
Sometimes I wonder why I’m still married to her.”
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
Thirty-one years.
Eleven children.
Thousands of meals, appointments, school projects, fevers, scraped knees, emergency-room visits, college applications, birthday cakes, grocery lists, bills, laundry loads, and sleepless nights.
Reduced to a joke over bourbon.
One of Mark’s friends shifted uncomfortably.
“Come on, Mark.
She raised eleven kids.”
Mark snorted.
“I built a career.
I made something of myself.
She just stayed home having babies.”
Little Leo stirred.
I lowered my face to his soft hair and swallowed the sound trying to escape my throat.
