Then I asked, “Do you think he means it?”
Rose squeezed my shoulder.
“That is not for us to decide tonight,” she said. “Let him prove it tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.”
So that’s what I did.
When the baby cried at night, he got up.
When I was too exhausted to think, food appeared.
When laundry piled up, he handled it.
He stopped saying, “I’m helping you,” and started saying, “I need to do this for her.”
That mattered.
Months passed.
I still did not forget what he missed. I don’t think I ever will. He wasn’t there when I needed him most. He wasn’t there when our daughter took her first breath.
Nothing changes that.
But one afternoon Rose came over with a small velvet box.
“For the baby,” she said.
Inside was a tiny gold bracelet.
I turned it over and saw four words engraved on the inside.
Loved from the start.
I started crying immediately.
Jack read it over my shoulder and covered his mouth with his hand.
“I should have been there,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” I said. “You should have.”
He nodded. No excuses. No speech about panic or fear.
