PART 7
“We’re waiting for June to see the doctor.”
Sylvia looked at me as though that were obvious but irrelevant.
“He’s exhausted. He cannot sit here all night.”
“So am I.”
Her expression hardened.
“You’re her mother.”
Then, right there in the waiting room, Sylvia finally said out loud what she had been communicating for years.
“He didn’t sign up for this much stress. You’re the mother. Figure it out.”
The room became silent.
Not ordinary silence.
The uncomfortable silence that falls over a public space when everyone suddenly realizes they have become witnesses to something private.
I looked at Sylvia.
Then Ethan.
He was holding his coat.
And waiting.
That was the moment everything became clear to me.
Ethan had learned to wait.
Wait for someone else to decide.
Wait for someone else to handle things.
Wait until discomfort disappeared.
He had learned that if he waited long enough, another person—usually a woman—would eventually take responsibility.
Sylvia had arrived to continue that lesson.
I stood.
Adjusted June against my chest.
Then looked directly at my husband.
“Ethan.”
“Rachel.”
“I need you to listen carefully.”
“I know. I’m sorry about Mom.”
“I’m not talking about your mother.”
He stopped.
“June has a temperature of 104 degrees.”
“I know.”
“She is four months old.”
“I know.”
“Do you understand why we are here?”
“We’re waiting for the doctor.”
“No.”
I kept my voice calm.
“We are here because our infant daughter has a dangerously high fever. We need to determine whether she has an infection and make sure she is not at risk of complications.”
He looked at me.
“This is a medical situation that requires both of her parents.”
“Rachel—”
“Not because I can’t handle it alone.”
He said nothing.
“I can.”
I looked down at June.
“But she deserves both parents.”
Then I looked back at him.
“And you stood in the delivery room holding her and promised you would be here.”
“I am here.”
“You called your mother from the ER and asked her to come take you home.”
Silence.
“When did you call her?”
“When I stepped away.”
“So while your daughter was screaming with a 104-degree fever, you called your mother to rescue you because you were tired.”
“My presentation is at nine.”
“I know.”
I shifted June slightly.
“But June does not know about your presentation.”
He looked down at her.
By then, June had exhausted herself.
Her screaming had faded into a smaller, tired cry.
Somehow, that sound hurt more.
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