“We don’t have to know how to do everything today,” I said. “We’ll figure it out together. One day at a time.”
She shook her head. “No, Arthur. I can’t.”
“You’re frightened. So am I.”
She turned toward the window and wouldn’t look at me. “You’re not listening. I can’t do this.”
For illustrative purposes only
The Days That Followed
For the rest of that afternoon, she wouldn’t hold him. I handled every bottle, every diaper, while she sat a few feet away, barely acknowledging either of us. I told myself she was struggling to absorb the diagnosis. I was struggling too, but she’d just been through labor, and I thought stepping up was simply what a husband did in that moment.
I believed, foolishly, that she’d come around.
That night I woke up in the chair beside her bed and found her standing over Leo’s bassinet, her back to me. One hand hovered just above his blanket, like she wanted to touch him and physically couldn’t make her fingers finish the motion.
I closed my eyes before she noticed I was awake.
The next morning she was distant again. Out of nowhere she asked, “Could you raise him alone?”
I assumed she meant if something ever happened to one of us. “I wouldn’t have to,” I told her. “He has both of us.”
