Rowan
I don’t bring food or laundry. I bring myself and a book of poetry, which feels like too much and not enough.
She’s propped on her side in bed when I arrive, book face down beside her, tea cooling on the table. The light through the blinds slices her into stripes. She looks at me like she’s not sure if I’m a ghost or a mistake.
“Rowan,” she says finally, neutral.
“Willow.” I sit in a chair in her bedroom, only feet from her bed. Only light-years from a good place with her.
She watches me like I might vanish again, then shakes her head and picks up her tea. “I thought you weren’t going to come back here.”
My hands won’t stay still; they drum once against my knee, then curl into fists. “I heard you were on bed rest and thought that I could come read to you or something. Do you like poetry?”
She stares at me like I’m an alien. “Poetry?”
“I’ll just read you whatever you’re reading now,” I mumble, standing up and walking to the bedside table to the book she has face down. I’m gutted to see it’sFinnegan’s Wake, another James Joyce book.
She sees that I clock the meaning, why she’s reading it, but she keeps her face stony, her lips pursed.
“I’m sorry, Willow. I think we both know that I’m doing my best and that it isn’t good enough.” I want to ask if she’s still angry, if she meant the things she said to me that day. I want to say I meant every word and none of it. I’ve surprised myself by saying even as much as I have.
She surprises me by answering, “I’m scared.”
The words hit me harder than any accusation she’s ever thrown. I look at her hands twisting the blanket, her jaw working to hold itself firm.
My throat tightens. For a second, the wall I’ve built cracks, and I see myself sitting on the other side of it, useless. “Aye,” I say, low. “Me too. I lied before. Iamscared, Willow, I’m really fucking scared. I never—” I start to say more, that I never have been a son or a brother, let alone a father. That I’ve loved and lost more than I’ve loved. Instead, I just say it again, relieved to hear it from my own voice. “Jaysus,I’m just scared.”
Her eyes lift, green and sharp and searching. Something thin and real passes between us. I don’t move to touch her, but shereaches out and grabs my hand. And I, like a demon possessed, pull her hand closer to me and kiss her warm palm.
She doesn’t push, and neither do I. We agree to let it be enough, for now.
Declan
I come late, after rounds, when Willow’s house is quiet and she’s long since fallen asleep, hopefully.
I let myself in and check every corner before I sit down. Old habit. The lock on the door, the windows, the shadows in the hall. My eyes sweep the nursery—unfinished, boxes stacked in the corner, a crib half-assembled on the dresser. I run my hand along the edge of it as if my touch could make it sturdier.
When I get to her bedroom, she raises an eyebrow, ramrod straight in the dark. Definitely not asleep. “You casing the place?”
“Ensuring perimeter security, sure,” I say evenly, half joking.
“This isn’t Alcatraz, Declan.”
“It’s your home. That’s enough for me to take it seriously.”
She looks at me then, properly looks, and her expression softens. “Thank you.”
I offer her a smile in the dark and move over to the crib, looking at what still needs to be done. I pick up the instruction booklet and a screwdriver. I can feel her eyes on me. “The first time I ever saw a crib, I was sixteen.”
“Oh yeah? Whose baby?” she asks happily, adjusting pillows behind her.
“Mine.” The word is out before I can stop it. I don’t know why I’m letting it slip except that I want her to know I wasn’t always like this—that the fortress came later. Willow’s face freezes, and my jaw tightens. “I was only sixteen, and the girl I got pregnant—well, her family wasn’t happy, obviously. But I was going to do the right thing. And she lost it. Not quite a stillbirth, but he was barely alive. He only made it three days.” My voice roughens. “His lungs just couldn’t.”
The memory rises sharp—alarms blaring, my girlfriend’s face draining, the silence that shouldn’t follow a birth. I pause, screw poised above the lacquered board, but my hand trembles once before I drive it home.
“So, you know, now I hardly ever lose a baby. Not in regular births, not in high-risk births. None of us do. It’s why they started this whole program.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “They started it just because of you three?”
