That night, Gerald did every wake-up. By dawn he looked wrecked, shirt inside out, changing pad soaked from a missed diaper tab. At breakfast, he stared at the coffee maker like he’d forgotten what the buttons did.
“Long night?” Robert asked.
Gerald dragged a hand over his face. “How do you do this every day, Jennie?”
I looked down at my plate.
“How do you do this every day, Jennie?”
By the second night, my husband was slower.
By the third, he was quiet. He stopped mentioning water bills, stopped counting minutes, and started sounding like a tired father learning his child.
On the fourth night, I woke to Maisie fussing and Gerald’s footsteps crossing the nursery floor. I lay still, old habits pulling at me. Then I heard him pick her up.
“Hey, hey. I’ve got you.” A pause. The creak of the rocking chair. Then Gerald’s voice again, so low I almost missed it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was like this.”
Tears slipped sideways into my hairline. He wasn’t exactly talking to me. Maybe to Maisie. Maybe to the version of me he’d ignored all those weeks.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was like this.”
