Busy right now.

By the day Marcus came home, an exhausted part of me still wanted an ordinary explanation.

Perhaps he was ashamed.

Perhaps he was overwhelmed.

Perhaps seeing his daughters would make him understand what a phone screen had allowed him to avoid.

I had also learned things that made those explanations insufficient.

I dressed the babies in matching pink onesies and stood at the airport with a cardboard sign that said, “WELCOME HOME, DADDY.”

The sign was not a joke.