Hopefully, that’s the last one. I lean my head against the toilet’s cool lid, willing the nausea to subside. Surely, there can be nothing else.

“Crap. It’s real bad today, huh?” Waylon says from the bathroom floor. “No wonder you called me all pissed off. I should be happy you’re not threatening to divorce me like when Toni was in the oven.”

His empathy immediately dissolves all the hate I carried in my heart when I called him after the first round of throwing up to let him know we were never having sex again.

“Yes, I’m so sick of being sick all the time,” I tell him, letting a note of self-pity enter my voice. “I’m sorry for calling.”

“Don’t you apologize to me for reaching out when you’re feeling awful,” He answers in that particularly grumpy-but-sweet way of his. “What did you eat this morning? You sticking to the BRAT diet like we talked about?”

“No, because it sucks,” I answer, even though I’ve recommended a bland breakfast diet of bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast to many women in my same position. “I have so much to do today, and I really needed a cup of coffee. Plus, I wanted bacon, eggs, and toast this morning because I miss you.”

No one on Earth would call our marriage egalitarian. But we’re pretty good at splitting household chores. Usually, Waylon makes us all breakfast before I rush off to work. And after two days of avoiding morning sickness by only eating boring things that wouldn’t upset my stomach, I thought it might be safe to make myself a typical Waylon breakfast of eggs scrambled in grease from the bacon and toast slathered in butter and jam.

Big mistake. I reach up with a weak, shaky arm to flush my second deposit down the toilet.

“I get it, angel. I wish I was there to make you eat right,” Waylon answers from the floor. “This being on the road business is for the fucking birds.”

“Dada, no cuss!”

Our daughter Antonia chooses that moment to toddle into the bathroom with a dripping wet hand towel in her little hands.

“Sorry, Toni,” Waylon says with a chagrinned wince from the floor. “Still working on that.”

I never thought I’d hear Waylon apologize for cussing—much less attempt to stop. But we’re still not sure how to handle our one-year-old, who’s turning out to be a combination of his commanding and my nurturing and sweet.

Plus, she’s got him wrapped around her little light brown finger. Hence the fully-functional child-sized kitchen he built for her just because she said, “Want wawa” when we gifted her with a normal toy one for her birthday earlier in the month. That’s probably where she made the wet towel. Speaking of which….

I raise my head and wrinkle my forehead. “What are you doing with that, honey?”