“Gee, I wonder why,” I said, letting out a humorless laugh. “Maybe because I was up half the night walking the halls with a crying baby?”
He finally looked up, his lips twitching into a smirk.
“Actually, you kind of look like a scarecrow that’s been left in the rain. You’re all… saggy.”
“Excuse me?” I gasped, the napkin in my hands slipping through my fingers.
“You heard me, Lila,” he said with a shrug, already reaching for his travel mug of coffee.
“That’s what you have to say to me right now, Dorian?” I asked, my voice sharp with disbelief. “Not ‘thanks for getting the kids fed and washed, Lila,’ not ‘can I help you with anything, Lila,’ but that I look saggy like a rain-soaked scarecrow?”
Dorian lifted his shoulders again as if the matter were trivial.
“I’m just saying that maybe you could try a little harder to take care of yourself. If we’re standing together, you look so much older and frumpy than me.”
I stared at him, my chest tightening. In that moment, I wanted to throw my cup of coffee at him. I wanted to see the brown stain on his white shirt. I wanted him to feel the heat of the liquid against his chest.
As always, my kids needed me.
Emma tugged on my arm for help, Marcus started roaring again, and Finn wailed against my shoulder. I wanted to scream at Dorian. I wanted to force him to see me — to see the pain behind motherhood, the anxiety behind every decision regarding my children, and to see the exhaustion that gave me migraines about four times a week.
Instead, the door slammed behind him, leaving his words echoing in the kitchen like a curse.
That afternoon, standing in the cereal aisle with three restless children, my phone buzzed with a message that nearly made me drop the Cheerios.
The message glared at me in bold letters.
“I really wish you would dress more like Melinda did when we worked together, Lila. She always looked so good. Those tight dresses, high heels, perfect hair, and flawless makeup… Wow. You always look like you just rolled out of bed. I miss being with a woman who actually tried.”
Melinda — Dorian’s ex-girlfriend. The woman he had sworn meant nothing to him.
“It was just physical, Lila,” he’d told me once. “There was nothing sustainable about that relationship. Nothing at all.”
I read the message once. Then again. My hands shook so violently that I had to grip the shopping cart to keep myself from falling. Emma tugged at my coat, her little voice full of concern.
“Mommy, why are you crying?” she asked. “Did you get hurt?”
How could I explain to a seven-year-old that her father had just compared me to another woman, that he missed the version of me who didn’t exist anymore?
“It’s nothing, sweetheart,” I said, kneeling down and brushing her hair back with my hand. “Mommy’s just… tired.”
“Are you being cranky like Marcus gets when he doesn’t nap?” she asked innocently.
“That’s exactly it,” I said.
That night, after the chaotic routine of bedtime stories, glasses of warm milk, and negotiations for one more cuddle, I finally stood alone in front of the bathroom mirror.
The house was quiet except for Finn’s occasional whimper from the crib.
The reflection staring back was unrecognizable. I had dark circles smudged beneath my eyes like bruises. My shirt was stiff with dried formula. My hair hung limp despite my desperate reliance on dry shampoo.
“When did I disappear from my own life?” I whispered to the woman in the mirror.
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