We spoke for almost an hour, working through custody considerations, financial arrangements, what a fair separation might actually look like given both girls were still nursing part-time and required considerable coordinated care.
⸻
By the fourth day, my mother had helped me set up a proper rotation for the twins' feeding schedule, something I'd been managing entirely by exhausted instinct for six months without ever once writing it down clearly. She'd also convinced me to book two mornings a week with a local postpartum doula service, something Carter had dismissed months earlier as "an unnecessary expense" when I'd first brought it up.
⸻
"You're allowed to ask for help that isn't him," my mother told me, packing her own bag to head home before Carter returned. "I should have said that to you months ago."
⸻
By the time Carter came home, I'd already made a decision.
⸻
He unlocked the front door like he was returning to the exact same life he'd left behind four days earlier, sunburned and relaxed, a cooler of fish tucked under one arm.
⸻
Then he stepped inside.
And stopped dead in the doorway.
⸻
The living room was clean, organized in a way it hadn't been in months, baby swings and bouncers arranged neatly instead of scattered wherever exhaustion had last dropped them. Wren and Sadie sat contentedly in their playpen, freshly bathed, cooing at each other instead of crying.
⸻
And beside the front door sat his own suitcase, packed, along with a folded piece of paper resting on top of it.
⸻
"Vivian?" he said carefully, setting the cooler down slowly. "What is this?"
⸻
"Sit down," I said, my voice steadier than I expected it to be after four days of very little sleep. "We need to talk before you unpack anything."
⸻
He sat, glancing nervously between me and the suitcase, clearly working through several possible explanations before I gave him the chance to hear the actual one.
⸻
"I spent four days completely alone with our daughters," I said. "I want you to understand something clearly before we go any further. I managed it. I proved to myself I could, if I absolutely had to. That's not the part I need you to understand, though."
⸻
"What's the part?" Carter asked quietly.
⸻
"The part is that I shouldn't have had to prove that," I said. "Not to you, and not to myself. We had twins together, Carter. We both wanted this. I don't understand when you decided that meant I was supposed to want it enough for both of us."
⸻
"I know I've been struggling," Carter said. "I didn't expect it to be this hard."
⸻
"Neither did I," I said. "The difference is I didn't get to book a four-day trip to process that struggle somewhere else while you handled everything alone."
⸻
Carter looked down at the suitcase again. "Are you asking me to leave?"
⸻
