He kissed my forehead. He brought me coffee. He apologized for snapping and said we were both overwhelmed.
“Max is just adjusting,” he said. “He’ll come around.”
Then he looked me dead in the eye and added, “You know I’d never do anything to hurt this family.”
Families like mine are built on those sentences. Not truth. Just sentences.
For two days, I tried to pretend everything was normal.
It wasn’t.
Max refused to enter the nursery. If I asked him to hand me a diaper while I changed the baby, he’d leave the room. If relatives came over and cooed, “Don’t you love your baby sister?” he would go silent and stare at the floor.
On the third night, I woke up at 2:14 a.m. and found Daniel not in bed.
The baby wasn’t crying.
His phone wasn’t on the charger either.
I went downstairs and saw light spilling from under the office door.
He was inside, whispering.
When I pushed the door open, he jerked so hard he nearly dropped the phone.
“Who are you talking to?” I asked.
He stood up. “Jeez, Hannah.”
There was a woman’s voice on the other end before he ended the call.
Not old. Not work. Not family.
A woman.
