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“You know cribs aren’t measured based on feelings, right?” I teased him.
“They should be,” he replied without even looking up.
That was James.
He researched car seats like his life depended on it.
He packed my hospital bag before I even entered the third trimester.
Then repacked it twice.
One evening, he held up a pair of socks as though he had discovered some vital secret.
“Nobody tells you how important the socks are.”
I laughed.
But secretly, I loved how prepared he was.
I loved his steadiness.
I had grown up in a house where uncertainty could ruin an entire day.
My mother, Valentina, used to freeze every time she heard a car pull into the driveway because she never knew whether my father was coming home angry—or coming home at all.
James was the opposite.
He planned.
He prepared.
He stayed.
At least, that was what I believed.
When my water broke late Tuesday night, he had been perfect.
For fourteen hours, James barely left my side.
He fed me ice chips.
He counted through contractions.
When I cried and told him I couldn’t do it anymore, he squeezed my hand.
“You can. You already are.”
I believed him.
Because James had never been the kind of man who made promises casually.
Then our son arrived.
The nurses checked him, weighed him, wrapped him in a hospital blanket, and placed him on my chest.
Everything felt right.
For a few beautiful minutes, it was just the three of us.
And then James whispered that strange request and disappeared.
The only thing that suddenly seemed suspicious in hindsight was his laptop.
For weeks, he had been staying awake late at night in the kitchen.
Whenever I asked what he was doing, he said,
“Baby budget stuff.”
One night I walked in for water and caught him shutting the laptop too quickly.