Then back at him.
“She asked you to stop.”
Silence.
Richard said,
“She’s sensitive.”
David’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
“You’re being cruel.”
The room froze.
Richard stared.
“Excuse me?”
David stepped closer.
“Your wife carried triplets.”
“Three babies.”
“At once.”
“She went through pregnancy.”
“Birth.”
“Recovery.”
“And you are standing in front of six grown men making fun of a medical consequence of that pregnancy.”
Richard’s face turned red.
“It’s not that serious.”
David laughed once.
Not happily.
“It is serious.”
Richard shook his head.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
That was when David surprised all of us.
“Yes.”
“I do.”
Richard frowned.
David said,
“I treat postpartum pelvic-floor injuries.”
Silence.
“I have for thirteen years.”
He pointed toward the package.
“You think that’s funny?”
“You know how many women cry in my clinic because they think their bodies failed them?”
I stopped breathing.
David continued.
“Women who carried babies.”
“Women who tore during labor.”
“Women recovering from C-sections.”
“Women with prolapse.”
“Incontinence.”
“Pain.”
“Women who are terrified their husbands will stop finding them attractive.”
Richard looked away.
David did not stop.
“And then some of them tell me their husbands joke about it.”
“My favorite part is when those husbands call it harmless.”
Nobody moved.
David’s voice became quieter.
“That package is not proof Claire failed.”
“It is proof her body went through something enormous.”
“And if you have one ounce of gratitude for the three children sleeping upstairs, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
My eyes filled.
Richard stared at David.
Then said,
“Are you done?”
David nodded.
“Almost.”
Then he looked around the room.
“At the rest of us too.”
Mark’s face changed.
David continued.
“If you laughed, apologize.”
No one spoke.
Then Mark cleared his throat.
“Claire.”
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
Jason nodded.
“Me too.”
Greg whispered,
“Same.”
Anthony looked embarrassed.
“I shouldn’t have laughed.”
Colin said,
“I’m sorry.”
I could barely respond.
“It’s okay.”
David turned to me.
“No.”
He said it gently.
“You don’t have to make it okay for everyone.”
That sentence hit harder than everything else.
Because that was exactly what I always did.
Made it okay.
For everyone.
I looked at him.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
Richard stared at us.
He looked humiliated now.
Angry.
Cornered.
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