Finn snorts. “She’s letting it cool because she forgot to grease the pan, and we had to excavate it in chunks.”
Mikaela gasps. “Traitor!”
I look at the cake that’s sitting at the far end of the counter. “So, it’s a…deconstructed cake?” I fight a smile.
Finn grins. “Exactly. Like on those fancy shows where they pretend it’s on purpose.”
Mikaela recovers fast. “It’s rustic. Like your pancakes.”
“And you both were giving me a hard time about my onions.” I shake my head in mock disgust.
They both roll their eyes in perfect sibling harmony.
Six months back at Camden, and somehow the four of us are still doing this—bickering, laughing, cooking in the same room without it turning into a war zone.
It’s not magic.
It’s boundaries.
It’s logistics.
I only take one weekend a month on-call now.
No more back-to-back seventy-hour weeks.
No more “I’ll just swing by the hospital” on a random Tuesday night unless it’s atrueemergency.
If I’m in the OR late, it’s because something is truly on fire. Not because I couldn’t say no to a committee meeting.
As I told Paul, there are other cardiologists, but I’m the only father my kids have, and the only husband my wife has, and I’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much.
That is why we now schedule time together as a family on Sunday evenings at the kitchen table.
Jayne, with her laptop open to her firm’s calendar, me with my Camden schedule, Mikaela adding sticker stars to the whiteboard for anything involving gymnastics, Finn showing off that now that he has a learner’s permit, he doesn’t need one of us to pick him up, he just needs one of us to give him our car.
We check in with each other. We actually talk. We’re honest with one another.
It’s wild.
And, yes, the whiteboard is still in the kitchen. Still color coordinated. The team members are now mostly compliant.
“Dad?” Mikaela says, dragging me out of my head. She points to the tapered candles on the dining table. “Can I light the candles?”
“On the table, yes,” I say. “On your brother, no.”
Mikaela sticks her tongue out at me. “You’re not funny.”
“Yes, I am,” I protest. “Your mother thinks I am.”
“Mom laughs at your jokes because she loves you,” Finn says mischievously. “We laugh because we’re worried.”
Mikaela snickers and ducks back toward the living room.
“Frost the damn cake,” I repeat, pointing the spoon like a weapon.
“It needs to cool down,” Mikaela insists.
Finn pauses, expression softening for a second. “She’s gonna love this, you know.”
