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“She Fell and Broke Her Arm While Caring for Their Five-Month-Old Twins Alone, and When She Finally Asked Her Husband for a Little Help, All He Told Her Was That Moms Don’t Get Sick Days — So Every Day Since, She’s Kept Caring for Two Babies by Herself, Cooking, Cleaning, and Getting Up Every Single Night, All With a Broken Arm She Never Once Complained About”
Part 2 — What the Night Taught Derek
Derek called me four times between 7:00 PM and midnight.
The first call was at 7:12 PM. Twelve minutes after the feeding was supposed to begin. The twelve minutes were the interval between the scheduled feeding and the call, and the interval told me Derek had spent twelve minutes looking for the bottles and the formula before concluding the looking was not going to produce what the looking was looking for because the thing the looking needed was at my mother’s house.
He told me he could not find the formula.
I told him the formula was in a box in the pantry. Third shelf. Behind the cereal. I told him the box was labeled because the labeling was part of the nothing I performed and the nothing included the organization of supplies and the organization included the labeling and the labeling was the particular, alphabetized, dated, expiration-checked, inventory-managed system I maintained so the household’s supplies were accessible and the accessibility was the thing Derek had never noticed because the noticing would have required the observing and the observing was not performed because the observing was the nothing’s responsibility and the nothing was invisible.
Derek found the formula. He told me he did not know the ratio of water to powder.
I told him the ratio was on the container. Printed. In large letters. The letters were the manufacturer’s contribution to the nothing, the particular, product-labeling, how-to-prepare, every-parent-reads-this-except-the-ones-who-don’t instruction that the formula company provides because the company assumes the parent preparing the formula will read the instructions the company printed.
Derek had never read the instructions because Derek had never prepared the formula because the preparing was the nothing I performed while Derek sat on the couch and the couch was the location from which the nothing was not observed.
The second call was at 8:45 PM. The bedtime routine. Derek told me both boys were crying and he could not get either one to stop.
I told Derek the bedtime routine took forty-five minutes. I told him the routine required the sequential, alternating, one-baby-at-a-time process because two babies cannot be rocked simultaneously by one person and the person must choose which baby to rock first and the choosing produces the crying of the unchosen baby and the crying is the sound the unchosen baby makes while waiting for the rocking the chosen baby is receiving.
I told Derek to start with Oliver. Oliver was the easier settler. Oliver’s settling took approximately twelve minutes. The twelve minutes would produce the silence Oliver’s sleeping provided, and the silence would reduce the ambient noise James was absorbing, and the reduced ambient noise would make James’s settling, which typically took twenty minutes, slightly shorter because the shortness was the product of the quieter environment the sleeping Oliver provided.
I told Derek this was the system. The system was the nothing. The nothing had a methodology. The methodology was developed across five months of nightly trial and error by a woman who performed the nothing every evening while the man on the couch did not observe the methodology because the not-observing was the couch’s contribution to the evening.
Derek told me he did not know Oliver settled first.
I told him the knowing was the nothing. The knowing was five months of the nothing. The knowing was accumulated through the particular, nightly, repeated, exhaustion-refined, this-works-and-this-doesn’t process that a mother performs when the mother is the only person performing and the only-person status means the learning is hers alone because there is no other person to share the learning with.
The third call was at 10:30 PM. Derek told me James would not stop crying. He told me he had been rocking James for forty minutes. He told me his arms were tired.
I told Derek my arm was broken.
The sentence was not delivered with anger. The sentence was delivered with the particular, factual, comparative, your-tired-arms-versus-my-broken-arm, you-have-been-doing-this-for-three-hours-and-I-have-been-doing-this-for-five-months precision that the sentence deserved. The precision was the lesson. The lesson was the comparison. The comparison was the thing Derek’s sentence about nothing had prevented him from making because the nothing had eliminated the comparison by eliminating the acknowledging that would have made the comparison available.
Derek was quiet.
He told me he did not realize.
I told him the not-realizing was the nothing. The not-realizing was the product of the not-observing and the not-observing was the product of the not-participating and the not-participating was the arrangement Derek had constructed and classified as normal and the normal was the delegation and the delegation was performed by a man who told his wife with a broken arm that moms don’t get sick days.
The fourth call was at midnight. Derek was not asking for instructions. Derek was sitting on the nursery floor between two cribs. I could hear his breathing through the phone. The particular, exhausted, five-hours-of-solo-parenting, I-understand-now breathing of a man whose body has performed the nothing for one evening and whose body is now experiencing the nothing’s physical cost and the cost is the breathing that indicates the body has been used in a way the body was not accustomed to because the using was previously performed by another body and the other body’s performing was invisible.
Derek told me he was sorry.
I told him the sorry was received.
He told me he did not know it was this hard.
I told him the hardness was the nothing. Every day. With a broken arm.
He told me to come home.
I told him I would come home in the morning. I told him the morning was the extension. The extension was the lesson’s second half. The first half was the evening, which taught Derek what the nothing contained. The second half was the morning, which would teach Derek what the nothing required before the day began.
The morning required the preparation of bottles for the day. The washing of the previous night’s bottles. The loading of the diaper bag. The checking of the diaper supply. The assessment of the formula inventory. The particular, logistics-level, supply-chain, operational management that a household with infant twins requires before the household’s day can begin, and the management was performed every morning by a woman with a broken arm before the man in the house woke up and went to work at the job that was the reason the man could not help.
The morning would teach Derek what the broken arm had been doing at 5:00 AM while the man was sleeping.
Part 3 — What Derek Found in the Morning
Derek called me at 5:47 AM.
He told me both boys were awake. He told me they were crying. He told me the bottles from the previous night were still dirty because the washing was part of the nothing he had not performed because the performing was the part of the nothing that occurred after the settling and before the sleeping and the sleeping was the thing Derek’s body chose over the washing because the choosing was the exhaustion’s instruction and the instruction overrode the washing.
I told Derek the morning began with the washing. The washing of the bottles was the first act. The first act preceded the feeding. The feeding required the clean bottles the washing produced. The washing required approximately twelve minutes and the twelve minutes were the interval between the waking and the feeding and the interval was the time the nothing occupied before the day’s nothing began.
Derek washed the bottles. He prepared the formula. He fed the boys.
He called me at 7:15 AM. He told me both boys needed changing. He told me the diapers were not beside the changing table.
I told him the diapers were in a box in my car’s trunk.
He was quiet.
I told him the quiet was the lesson. The diapers being in the trunk was the nothing’s absence. The nothing’s absence was the diaper supply being unavailable. The unavailability was what the household would look like if the nothing stopped being performed.
I told Derek the nothing included the purchasing of diapers every week. The stocking of diapers beside the changing table. The monitoring of the diaper supply so the supply did not run out and the not-running-out was the condition the nothing maintained and that the maintaining was invisible because the visibility was prevented by the nothing’s consistency and the consistency made the supply seem automatic rather than managed.
The supply was not automatic. The supply was managed. By a woman with a broken arm. Who drove to the store. Who carried the boxes. Who stocked the station. Who monitored the inventory. All with one arm. All while doing nothing all day.
Derek drove to the store. At 7:30 AM. With two five-month-old boys in the back seat. In car seats the nothing had installed and the nothing maintained and the nothing’s installation required the reading of the manual and the manual’s reading was performed by the woman whose reading was the nothing’s contribution to the boys’ safety.
Derek purchased diapers. He returned to the house. He changed the boys.
He called me at 8:20 AM.
He asked me to come home.
The asking was different from the previous night’s telling. The telling was the instruction of a man whose authority was being challenged and whose challenging required the instructing. The asking was the request of a man whose understanding had been restructured by twelve hours of the nothing’s absence and whose restructuring produced the asking because the asking was the only response the restructuring permitted.
He told me he was sorry. He told me the sorry was not the sorry from midnight, which was the tired sorry, the I-am-exhausted-and-I-want-this-to-stop sorry. The morning sorry was the real sorry. The sorry produced by the morning’s evidence that the nothing was everything and the everything was performed by a woman whose arm was broken and whose broken arm did not produce the sick day the nothing’s performer deserved because the performer’s husband told her moms don’t get sick days.
He told me he understood. Not the word understood that a person says to end a conversation. The word understood that a person says when the understanding has been produced by experience and the experience was twelve hours and the twelve hours contained the feeding and the rocking and the crying and the not-sleeping and the bottle-washing and the diaper-purchasing and the particular, compressed, accelerated, one-night-version of the nothing his wife had been performing every day for five months.
I went home.
Part 4 — What Derek Did the Following Week
Derek took three days off work.
Not because I asked. Because the asking was no longer the mechanism. The mechanism was the understanding. The understanding produced the days off the way the understanding produces every behavioral change that is genuine rather than performed, through the internal decision that the behavior needs to change rather than through the external request that the behavior should change.
Derek took three days off. He told his manager his wife had a broken arm and he needed to help with the twins. He told his manager the helping was not optional. He told his manager the telling was a notification rather than a request.
The notification was the first change. The particular, work-level, I-am-telling-you-not-asking-you, my-family-requires-my-presence change that a man performs when the man has decided the family’s needs are the priority and the priority is communicated to the workplace through the notification rather than through the request because the notification does not accommodate the denial the request permits.
Derek came home. He performed the nothing.
The performing was imperfect. The performing was the particular, learning-curve, this-is-harder-than-it-looks, two-armed-man-discovering-what-one-armed-woman-has-been-doing performance of a man who is entering the nothing for the first time as a participant rather than as a resident and whose entering produces the mistakes the entering requires.
He made the formula too thick. The first bottle. Too much powder. The particular, proportion-error, I-did-not-read-the-instructions-carefully-enough mistake that a person makes when the person is performing a task for the first time and the first time does not include the practice the previous times would have provided.
He dressed Oliver in James’s onesie. The onesies were labeled. The labeling was the nothing. The labeling was performed by the mother who knew which size fit which baby because the knowing was the nothing and the knowing was five months old and the five months were the credential the labeling represented.
He put the diaper on backwards. Once. The once was the learning. The learning was the mistake. The mistake was the nothing’s education, delivered through the backwards diaper’s evidence that the nothing contained skills the performing required and the skills were not intuitive. The skills were learned. Through the nothing. By the woman whose nothing was now being performed by the man who classified it as nothing.
Derek learned. Over three days. The formula ratio. The onesie labels. The diaper orientation. The bedtime routine. The Oliver-first methodology. The bottle-washing sequence. The diaper-supply monitoring. The particular, comprehensive, operational-knowledge, this-is-how-the-household-runs education that a man receives when the man enters the nothing as a participant and the participating produces the learning the nothing requires.
On the third day, Derek told me something.
He told me the nothing was a job. He told me the job was harder than his job. He told me his job had a lunch break and the nothing did not. He told me his job had colleagues who covered tasks and the nothing did not. He told me his job ended at 5:00 PM and the nothing did not end at 5:00 PM because the nothing’s hours were the hours the babies were awake and the babies’ wakefulness did not observe the 5:00 PM boundary the job’s schedule imposed.
He told me the nothing was a twenty-hour-per-day job performed by one person with a broken arm and the performing was the most demanding work he had ever witnessed and the witnessing was produced by the participating and the participating was produced by the night I drove to my mother’s house and left the nothing for the man who classified it as nothing.
He told me moms deserve sick days.
The sentence was the revision. The particular, direct, three-words-replacing-the-previous-three-words correction that a man performs when the man’s previous sentence has been shown to be wrong by the experience the man’s wife designed and whose designing produced the twelve hours and the twelve hours produced the understanding and the understanding produced the revision.
Moms don’t get sick days was replaced by moms deserve sick days. The replacement was the lesson’s completion. The completion was not the sentence. The completion was the behavior that followed the sentence.
Part 5 — What the Nothing Became
Derek adjusted.
Not temporarily. Not for the three days and then the reverting. Permanently. The particular, sustained, behavioral, this-is-the-new-arrangement adjustment that a man performs when the adjustment is produced by understanding rather than by request and the understanding is permanent because the understanding was produced by experience and the experience does not expire.
The experience was one night and one morning. Twelve hours. The most concentrated education Derek had ever received, compressed into the interval between 7:00 PM and 7:00 AM, delivered through two crying babies and an empty counter and a missing diaper supply and a 5:47 AM phone call in which a man who told his wife she did nothing all day was washing bottles at dawn because the washing was the nothing’s first act and the first act preceded the feeding and the feeding could not wait.
The adjustment included the following.
Derek came home from work at 5:00 PM. Not 6:30. Not whenever-I-feel-like-it. 5:00. The time his work day ended. The ending was now the boundary rather than the suggestion, because the boundary communicated to the household that the man’s arrival was the beginning of the shared shift and the shared shift was the arrangement the understanding produced.
The shared shift was 5:00 PM to bedtime. Three hours. During the shared shift, Derek performed half the nothing. He fed one baby. He changed one baby. He performed the bedtime routine for one baby while I performed the bedtime routine for the other. The performing was divided. The divided was the partnership. The partnership was the thing the nothing had been missing and the missing was the thing the sick-day sentence had prevented and the preventing was now ended by the understanding the night produced.
Derek woke for the night feedings. Not every night. Every other night. The alternating was the system the understanding designed, and the system provided the thing the previous arrangement had denied, which was the sleep. The particular, sustained, uninterrupted, four-consecutive-hours, restorative sleep that a body requires when the body has been performing the nothing for five months without the interruption the sleeping provides because the interruption was not available when the interrupting was the nothing and the nothing was performed by one person.
I slept. Every other night. The sleeping was the healing. Not just the arm. The particular, total, body-and-mind, exhaustion-recovering, capacity-restoring healing that a mother performs when the mother’s body is finally permitted to perform it because the permitting is the participation of the partner and the participation was the thing the sick-day sentence denied.
The arm healed. Dr. Padilla removed the cast six weeks after the fracture. The healing was on schedule. Not extended. On schedule. Because the schedule required the resting the doctor prescribed and the resting was performed during the alternating nights when Derek’s participation permitted the resting the doctor required.
The resting was the nothing’s gift. Not the nothing I performed. The nothing Derek’s sentence denied. The denial was the obstacle. The removal of the denial was the participation. The participation was the resting. The resting was the healing. The healing was the arm. The arm was the thing that started the lesson and the lesson was the thing that produced the participation and the participation produced the healing the denial had been preventing.
The cycle was complete. Broken arm. Sick-day denial. One night of the nothing’s absence. Understanding. Participation. Healing.
On quiet evenings, Derek and I sat on the couch.
Both boys were asleep. The bedtime routine was performed. The bottles were washed. The diapers were stocked. The formula was prepared. The particular, evening, everything-is-done, both-people-contributed quiet of a household whose evening has been managed by two people rather than one and whose two is the number the household requires and whose requiring was the thing one night at my mother’s house proved.
Derek told me once, during one of these evenings, that the couch felt different.
I asked him how.
He told me the couch felt earned. He told me before the night, the couch was the place he arrived after work and the arriving was the resting and the resting was the reward for the working and the working was the thing the resting was earned by.
He told me the couch felt different now because the earning was different. The earning was not just the working. The earning was the working and the feeding and the changing and the rocking and the bottle-washing and the diaper-checking and the particular, shared, both-people-contributed, partnership-produced evening that preceded the couch and whose preceding made the couch the reward for the partnership rather than the reward for the working alone.
He told me the partnership’s couch was more comfortable than the working’s couch.
I told him the partnership’s couch was the same couch.
He told me the couch was the same. The sitting was different.
The sitting was different because the sitting was earned by both people rather than by one, and the earning by both was the comfort the earning by one could not produce because the comfort was the equality and the equality was the thing the broken arm revealed was missing and the missing was the thing one night of the nothing’s absence repaired.
The couch held two people now. Not a man who worked and a woman who did nothing. Two parents. Two participants. Two people whose evening was produced by the labor both of them performed and whose labor was acknowledged by both of them and whose acknowledging was the thing the sick-day sentence had denied and the denial had been reversed by a woman who packed the nothing into her car and drove to her mother’s house and told the man who said moms don’t get sick days that she was taking one.
The couch was the same. The sitting was different. The difference was the lesson.
The boys were sleeping. The bottles were washed. The diapers were stocked. The arm was healed. The cast was off. The partnership was on.
