Mikaela prances around the living room in her sparkly turquoise leotard, arms slicing through the air as she practices the opening pose of her floor routine.
Her ponytail bounces with every step, and she keeps whispering, “Stick the landing, stick the landing,” like it’s a magic spell.
Her performance starts in an hour.
Rhys is tying the ribbon on her warm-up jacket when his phone buzzes on the counter.
He looks at the screen and pauses.
That’s all it takes, a single beat of hesitation, which I can read like a second language. The tiny shift in his shoulders, the soft exhale.
The hospital.
He picks up the phone.
My chest tightens, the old reflexive fear creeps in,the one born from years of him being yanked away at the slightest emergency, leaving me to smile at the kids and cover the disappointment with a thousand excuses.
“It’s a post-op issue,” Rhys reads the message out loud. “One of my old patients. They want my opinion. Paul is on vacation, and the cardio on call is down with a fever.”
He doesn’t move toward his keys.
He doesn’t slip into surgeon mode.
He just looks at me.
Is he asking for permission? I don’t want that. I don’t want to control his life.
“What are you thinking?” I keep my voice steady.
He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “I want to go in. I’ll always want to go in if it’s a patient. But I told Mikaela I’d be there tonight. And I don’t want to break that promise.”
It feels like a miracle, not because he’s torn, but because he’s telling me he’s torn.
Because he’s not deciding alone.
Because he’s letting me in.
“What if,” I say gently, “you do both?”
His brows lift.
“You go to Camdenafterher routine,” I continue. “You show up for her. Then you go help them. You don’t have to choose between being a surgeon and being a dad tonight.”
He studies me, like he’s trying to decipher whether I actually mean it.
“You’d be okay with that?” he asks softly.
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “I know how much you care about your patients, Rhys. But…if it’s an emergency and the patient is?—”
“It’s not,” he cuts me off. “It’s a consult.”
“Then if no one’s life is on the line….”
Relief flickers through his eyes. “After her routine,” he decides. “After bedtime.”
When he calls Camden back. I stand in the doorway and listen—his voice calm, respectful, boundary-clear.
“Is this emergent?”
