And for the next few days, I kept waiting for her to crack. To break down behind closed doors. But she didn’t. Not once. She really does seem okay. And I’m grateful. I feel like I can breathe again.
Of course I want a baby. I’d be thrilled if she walked downstairs tomorrow waving a positive test. But the pressure? The timing charts? The way everything became scheduled and monitored and forced? It was a lot.
And yeah, I’m a guy. My wife tells me to meet her upstairs, I go. But the motive behind it…the countdown…the expectation… It messed with me more than I thought it would. It stopped feeling like two people making love and started feeling like a test I kept failing.
Now, the house is finally quiet. Both kids are still asleep, the sun just starting to climb over the horizon. There’s a haze of light spilling through the blinds and the faint hum of the baby monitor on the counter.
I’m on my second cup of coffee, sitting at the kitchen table like I’ve aged a decade overnight. My back hurts. My brain hurts. My respect for Cody and Karissa has tripled.
Megan was up with Gage three times last night, rocking him, humming under her breath, whispering softshhs. I took the middle shift, sometime around three, when he decided crying was better than sleeping. Then Emma woke up coughing, asking for water, and insisted it had to be in the pink cup, not the blue one.
I don’t think either of us slept more than two hours straight. And I only got uponce.
Megan tiptoes out of the bedroom a few minutes later. Her hair’s in a knot, her silk pink-and-white pajama set buttoned incorrectly. It looks like she’s one of the survivors from whatever explosion hit this house.
She doesn’t say anything, just pours a large cup of coffee and joins me on the couch. “Huh, this better do the trick,” she says with a tired smile.
I reach for her, rubbing my hand against her back. “You didn’t have to get up yet.”
“I wanted to have a few minutes of peace before all hell broke loose.”
I can’t help but laugh and kiss her cheek.
We sit there for five minutes, just listening to the sound of the baby monitors and the quiet before Megan clears her throat.
“When do you think they’ll be home?”
I lean back against the couch. “Not sure. I don’t know how they do this every day.”
Megan shakes her head, looking down into her coffee. “Me either.”
And then, right on cue, the baby monitor crackles to life. Gage’s cry starts small, soft and whiny at first, but within seconds it’s a full-on wail.
Megan’s already on her feet before I can move. She starts toward the stairs, and as soon as her hand hits the railing, Emma’s voice joins in—high-pitched, loud, demanding.
I groan and push myself up after her. “And there goes the peace.”
Megan glances back at me with a tired grin.
The next few hours blur together in a haze of noise, crumbs, and tiny demands. Emma’s three, which means she’s part angel, part dictator. One minute she’s giggling and showing me her new dance moves, the next she’s crying because I cut her sandwich into squares instead of triangles. Gage is everywhere—straight for the dog bowl, the stairs, basically anything he shouldn’t play with. He’s got two teeth coming in and a temper to match, sucking and chewing on anything he can put in his mouth.
Megan’s hair’s falling out of her bun. She’s exhausted, but she keeps going, kneeling on the rug to stack blocks, wiping away Gage’s drool, and fixing Emma’s butterfly wing costume every time it shifts.
Watching her like this, I realize again just how good she is with kids.
Emma squeals the second she sees Cody and Karissa pull in, running full speed into her mom’s arms. Gage lights up the minute Cody gets ahold of him. All smiles, pointing and babbling about who knows what.
Once they bring their stuff in and get settled, Cody laughs and claps me on the shoulder. “You two look like you’ve been through basic training.”
“Felt like it,” I mutter, scrubbing a hand over my face.
They thank us at least fifteen times, shoving cash in our pockets even though we try to hand it back.
The second my truck doors close, the silence hits me smack in the face. No more crying. No singing. No clatter of toys hitting the floor. Just quiet.
Megan leans her head against the seat, sighing hard. “I can’t wait to go to bed tonight.”
“Same,” I mutter, glancing over at her. Her eyes are half shut. She looks so wiped yet so beautiful at the same time.
