He learned how to warm bottles without wasting gas.
He learned which baby cried because she was hungry, which one because she was wet, and which one simply needed to be held. He learned how to tie ribbons, how to fix hems, how to untangle hair, how to tell fever from exhaustion by touching a forehead in the dark. He learned to cook simple meals that stretched impossibly far. Beans. Rice. Eggs when they could afford eggs. Tortillas with salt for himself when they could not.
There were nights when one daughter coughed, another had colic, and the third would not sleep unless she felt the vibration of his voice in the room. So he slept sitting against the wall with one child on each side and another in his lap, waking before dawn because the day’s labor did not care how much rest he had lost.
People in the town watched him with that look people reserve for what they do not understand.
Some pitied him.
