“Never,” I whisper, pressing a soft kiss to her collarbone. “We don’t have to talk about it.”Kiss.“But I do think…”Kiss.“...we need to bebettera little while longer before we add to this.”Kiss.
She hums. It’s low and unreadable. Agreement maybe, or exhaustion, but she doesn’t say anything else.
The silence stretches, thick enough to press on my chest. It fills the room until I can’t take it anymore. The need to explain myself, to fill the quiet with reassurance, overtakes me.
“If you want another baby…” I start, but my words trail off, unfinished. Whatever was going to follow would’ve been a lie anyway.
I exhale slowly. “What if we talk about it after the summer?” I finally say. “The boys will be starting school in the fall. We can see where we’re at then, see how we’re feeling.” I try to make my voice sound hopeful, steady, something she can hold on to. The last thing I want is for Emma to think I don’twantanother baby—or worse, that I don’t think she can handle it.
Because I do. I know she can.
It’s me.
I’m the one who’s not ready.
We just got back into a rhythm. Being a dad feels good now—manageable most days. But it didn’t always, and I don’t know if I’m ready to go back to the early days of feeling helpless. The nights where Emma cried for hours, drained from the fluctuating hormones. The days I’d leave work mid-shift because she couldn’t breathe through a panic attack. Those first months where I couldn’t even tell my boys apart. The nights I’d fall asleep holding one of them in the recliner and wake in a panic, terrified I’d dropped him. The sense that I couldn’t keep anything together, and I was failing at every aspect of my life.
I can’t go back to that. Not yet.
Chapter twenty
Emma
Therearemomentsinyour life you never want to forget. It makes sense why technology has become a pillar in our society. The ability to take pictures and videos, even of the most monotonous things, like children picking up leaves, can be kept forever. I am that annoying mom who is always reaching for her phone, constantly purchasing more cloud storage, and grumbling when I miss the moment.
But then there are moments that I don’t need any tangible help in remembering.
I can replay the moment Steven held our babies for the first time with no effort at all. I remember his chocolate eyes filling with tears and his shaking hands as the nurse handed him Easton. Then when she swapped him with Sawyer from my chest. But those moments don’t hold a candle to the moment he laid eyes on Josie.
The father-daughter connection is something so beautifully innate that no force, even from a helicopter mother like myself, can break it.
I never considered that moment, as perfect and magical as it was, might happen a second time.
Steven’s hands shake as Ellie approaches him with the baby.
Josie reaches for him, but he clutches his fists, uncertain if he should take her. His eyes are sad as he watches her expectantly. He’s probably asking himself if this is okay, if it’s okay to hold his own daughter.
“I know it’s a lot,” I try to explain, but his face falls. His heart is breaking right here in the middle of our messy living room. Ellie continues holding Josie as I brush her curly hair out of her face.
“You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
I’m trying to be encouraging, but I see the slight tensing in Steven’s jaw, the disappointment he must be feeling that he’s having to endure this. That he can’t remember his baby. He forces a smile, not once taking his eyes off of Josie.
“You can do this.” I squeeze his bicep, and the simple touch must be enough to change his entire mood. His eyes light up, and a big smile splits across his face.
“Are you sure?” he asks when Ellie holds Josie out for him. His voice is so hopeful and excited it makes me ache.
“I’m positive.”
He finally scoops her up—effortlessly, I might add. Because holding his daughter isn’t something he could forget. It’s engrained in him.
“Hi there, sweet girl,” he coos, and she giggles, grabbing his face with force. He doesn’t flinch. Of course he doesn’t. They laugh and bounce together as we make our way back to the couch. When she tries to gnaw on his finger, Benny passes him a teether toy, and Steven takes it without missing a beat, already lost in the rhythm of entertaining a squirmy baby.
Her gummy smile stretches wide, and her cheeks pinch as she gazes up at her daddy. I’m overwhelmed with emotion as I watch them. And the sob that claws its way out of me because of that is so unexpected it startles the room.
Steven’s eyes whip to me, but before I can reassure him I’m fine, I run to the kitchen and dry heave into the sink. My stomach goes hollow and sour. Air can’t get to my lungs quick enough, my neck is blazing, and the room is fuzzy in the corners. I heave out breaths, gripping the edge of the counter for balance.
The sink is suddenly turned on, drowning out the ragged breaths coming out of me, followed by Ellie’s hand on my back. As she rubs back and forth, she reminds me to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. She names the time blinking on the microwave, the smell of the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches sitting on the counter, the sound of the rain trickling down the windows outside.
