After everything we had gone through to have those babies, hearing those words hurt more than I know how to describe.

And so I did the thing that surprised us both.

I did not argue.

I did not beg him to stay.

I simply looked at him, and let the silence sit, and let him leave.

Because in the space of that single sentence, something had crystallized in me, cold and clear and final, and I already knew, watching him zip his bag, exactly what I was going to do with the four days he had so generously given me.

I did not know it in detail, that first night; the plan came later, in pieces, over the four days.