“We don’t have children,” he said.
“It’ll be easy,” he said.
Now the dog is essentially a small horse with separation anxiety.
And yes, I got to pick his name.
I thought Roger was fitting.
Partly because I miss Mr. Rogers, who shuffled quietly above me for two peaceful years. Partly because if I wasn’t having children, I wanted my dog to have a solid, sensible, human name.
We decided not to have children a long time ago. We revisited it every year or so and checked in just to make sure neither of us had changed quietly.
There was a wobble once during year four.
Everyone around us was pregnant, or trying, or announcing something with pastel cupcakes and coordinated outfits. I remember standing in a baby store buying a gift and feeling something twist in my chest. It wasn’t longing exactly. It was more like a question.
Are you sure?
I brought it home with me, sat at this very counter, and asked him.
Beckett didn’t panic or try to convince me either way. He just said, “If you want that life, we’ll build it. If you don’t, we won’t. I just don’t want you choosing out of fear.”
That was the moment I knew the wobble wasn’t about wanting a child. It was about wondering if I was allowed to choose differently.
Our life is full.
It’s full in the way people don’t always understand because it’s not loud in the expected way.
It’s full of late-night ER stories and early-morning board meetings. Full of nieces and nephews who descend on this house every other weekend and occupy the spare bedrooms.
I am still the best babysitter in the family.
I do crafts. I make pancakes shaped like dinosaurs. I referee sibling wars. Then, at the end of the weekend, I hand them back to their exhausted parents.
The doubt passed because I examined it and made sure it wasn’t regret in disguise.
It wasn’t.
It was just noise.
Our house has laughter. It has tiny sneakers by the door some weekends and silence on others. It has a dog with a human name and a husband who loves me loudly.
It has more than enough.
I take a sip of my coffee and lean against the counter, watching my six-foot-three trauma doctor pinned to the hardwood floor by unconditional love.
Ten years.
Ten years since hot yoga tried to murder me.
Ten years since I climbed the stairs in granny slippers to scream at the cardio demon upstairs.
Ten years since that cardio demon opened the door shirtless and changed my life in the best way.
“Are you going to help me?” Beckett asks.
“Roger,” I repeat. “Get off your father.”
