Ry

Nina parks her car in the nearly empty hospital lot, the clock on her dashboard reading 9:47. She’d waited at home for almost three hours, texting half a dozen times, calling twice. Nothing.

She’d already had time to go to the house, change into sweatpants, heat up lasagna from her neglected meal prep service, and try not to check her phone every five minutes. 

He was supposed to be off at 7:00. Same as her. They’d even talked about maybe grabbing dinner that morning.

Her phone buzzes and for a second she hopes maybe it’s him. But it’s just another weather alert. The hospital’s red EMERGENCY sign reflected in the shallow puddles of rain in the parking lot.

That’s when she sees it. The bike. Michael’s bike. Vintage and black, parked right outside the Emergency Department doors.

He’s here. Still.

Nina glances back at the hospital’s entrance. It’s not unusual for Michael to stay late. But  even by his standards this is excessive.

Every step toward the Emergency Department wing peels away some of the day’s exhaustion, replacing it with the thrum of unresolved questions. The last time they’d really talked, not about anything work related, but about the future, she’d ended up crying in the stairwell. Not the full, shuddering sobs, just the quiet kind that sneaks up behind your ribs and waits there. He’d apologized after the fact, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you could apologize for. Not really.

She wonders if maybe she should have just stayed home. Maybe caught up on some Netflix shows and then gone to bed. If he didn’t want to come home, why was she trying to force him to?

She walks past a nurse who gives her a polite smile. Then past a gurney parked against the wall. Nina keeps her head down, her steps quick but not quite hurried. She silently prepares herself for what she’ll say if somebody asks why she’s here. She doesn’t have a good answer.

He didn’t come home. 

That’s all she has.

When she arrives at the triage desk she immediately notices the board is fairly clear. No code blues. No incoming trauma patients they’re gearing up for. She takes this as a good sign, but also a strange one. If there were no trauma calls, if everything’s relatively quiet, why is Michael still here?

She scans the station for a familiar face. No sign of the attending she’s looking for, but Jack is hunched over the computer, squinting at the patient log. He sees her coming and offers a small, distracted nod.

“Hey, stranger,” he says. 

“Hey, yourself.” She leans on the counter, letting her backpack slide to the floor. “Have you seen him around here anywhere?”

Jack smirks. “You mean the guy single handedly trying to break our overtime budget? Last I saw, he was over in the Peds room.” He points his pen in the vague direction of the nursery. “He said he’d only be a minute, but you know how he is.”

She does. She knows exactly how he is. Nina nods, and moves past the station, her body navigating on autopilot while her brain works overtime to process what’s going on.

The way Jack said that Michael’s in the Peds room…there was a hint of something else, like he wants to tell her more but is waiting to see if she’ll ask. She doesn’t. Instead, she rounds the corner and heads in that direction.

As she walks she thinks about that conversation in the stairwell again. How he’d told her, with this certain level of sadness, that he wasn’t sure what he wanted from the future, or from her. She remembers the way his hand hovered between them, as if it wanted to reach for hers but couldn’t quite do it.

If he was going to go home, he’d have done it by now. There’s not really anything tethering him to the job at this point, especially when his sabbatical is set to start tomorrow. She wonders if he’s hiding from something. Her maybe? Or the conversation they’re inevitably going to have to have at some point.

She hesitates outside the room, peering through the glass. The lights inside are dimmed. And there, in the recliner, is Michael.

He doesn’t see her at first. He’s got one knee up, his foot resting on the edge of the seat, and he’s cradling a baby against his chest. He’s talking in this low cadence, so gentle Nina has to lean closer to make out the words. It’s not medical, not clinical. Just soft nonsense sounds, the kind you use to fill space when nothing else will do.

Jack comes up beside her, quiet as a shadow. 

“He’s been in there for a while,” Jack murmurs. “Said she was fussy and that he’d take a shift with her. But she’s been out cold for the last hour. I don’t think he wants to leave her alone.”

Nina nods, not sure how to respond. She feels like she’s watching something she’s not meant to see, something delicate and private.

Jack rubs a hand over the back of his neck, a gesture that feels uncharacteristically unsure for him.

“Can I ask you something?”

She nods.

“I’m not asking as his colleague,” he begins. “I’m asking as someone who’s known him a long time. Is he okay?”

“Yeah. He’s…he’s fine. Just tired. It’s been a lot lately.”

She hears herself as she says it. How thin and rehearsed it sounds. She’s used that tone before. On nurses. On friends. On anyone who asks too casually how things are going.

“How are you holding up?”

“It’s just–” she starts, then stops, pressing her lips together. “He’s been staying late. A lot.”

Jack nods once, like that confirms something. “I’ve noticed.”

“Yeah.” She lets out a quiet, humorless huff. “He doesn’t really…” she searches for it, her fingers tightening around her phone. “We don’t really talk anymore. Not…not like we used to. “It’s like–” Nina swallows, her voice catching despite her effort to keep it steady. “It’s like he’s there, but not really there. And when he is, it’s…” She shakes her head slightly. “We just keep skirting around things. Or he changes the subject. Or he goes back to work.” She laughs softly, but there’s no humor in it. “I don’t think he wants to be home right now.”

Saying it out loud makes it real in a way it wasn’t before. The words hang between them, heavier than she expected.

Jack exhales slowly.

“He’s not acting like himself,” he says. “We’ve all noticed it.”

Nina’s gaze flicks up to his.

“He’s taking on more than he needs to. Staying longer than he has to.” Jack pauses, choosing his words carefully. “When Robby starts disappearing into work like this…it’s usually because something’s wrong.”

Something in her chest tightens.

“I know,” she says quietly. “I just–” her voice wavers, and she presses her lips together, trying to steady it. “I don’t know what to do.”

That’s the truth of it. Not the surface level reassurances, not the carefully worded half explanations. Just that.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” she adds, softer now. “I don’t know what he needs from me.” Her eyes burn, and she blinks hard, looking away. “I can’t lose him.”

It slips out before she can stop it. Jack doesn’t react immediately. He doesn’t rush to fill the silence or soften the words. He just stands there with her for a moment, letting it exist.

Then, gently, “You’re not going to.”

Nina shakes her head a little, a shaky breath leaving her. “It feels like I already am.”

She feels Jack put his hand on her arm, grounding her. She looks up at one of Michael’s oldest friends.  Jack’s expression is softer now, the edges of his usual confidence worn down into something more human, more familiar.

“He cares about you,” he says. “You know that.”

“I know,” she whispers. “But that doesn’t mean–”

“I know,” he cuts in gently. “I know.”

Another beat.

“He’s just… stuck,” Jack continues. “And when he gets like that, he shuts people out. Even the ones he shouldn’t.”

Nina lets out a quiet breath, her shoulders slumping just slightly.

“I’ve tried to talk to him,” Jack admits. “He deflects. Changes the subject. Same thing you’re getting.”

A faint, tired smile flickers across Nina’s face. “Yeah. That sounds like him.”

Jack’s grip on her arm loosens, but he doesn’t step away completely. 

“If anyone can get through to him right now,” he says, meeting her eyes again, “it’s you.”

Nina hesitates. “What if I can’t?”

“Then we’ll have to come up with a different plan.”

Nina exhales slowly, nodding once, more to herself than to him. She wipes quickly under her eyes, not quite tears, but close enough.

“Okay,” she says, voice steadier now. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you around. You have my number. If things get too dark with him, you call me, got it?”

She nods and then watches as Jack heads back to his work.She watches Michael for a moment more. His usual edge is gone; he looks impossibly gentle, almost unfamiliar in his softness. The baby’s tiny fist clutches his shirt, and his free hand moves in slow, concentric circles against her back.

Nina swallows. Whatever she thought she’d find here, it wasn’t this.

It’s the way his posture has changed that gets her. The way his shoulders, usually braced for whatever comes next, have unspooled. The baby rests her cheek against the hollow of his collarbone, tiny body rising and falling with each breath. He keeps his head bowed, murmuring nonsense syllables and patient, measured shhhhs.

Nina realizes in that moment that she’s never seen him like this before. Not with a patient, not with anyone.

Her hand moves to the doorframe, more for support than anything, and the faintest creak betrays her presence. He looks up, startled but not annoyed. Their eyes meet, and there’s a moment where neither of them blinks. Then, as if caught in something halfway between shame and relief, he gives her a small, almost apologetic smile.

“Hey,” he whispers, voice pitched to not disturb the baby.

Nina steps inside, keeping her steps light, and perches on one of the stools somebody left in the room.

“She’s beautiful,” Nina says.

He nods. “Yeah. She’s something else.” 

Neither of them speaks for a while. They just listen to the soft, unconscious hum the baby makes, a sound that seems to fill the space between them.

Nina watches Michael’s hands. The knuckles scarred from years of bike maintenance and fistfights with jammed trauma cart drawers, now gentled, cradling a living thing like it’s the only way to keep it safe. She wants to say something about it, but can’t trust her own voice.

Michael glances down at the baby girl, then shifts as if waking from a trance. He runs his thumb across her cheek, and then transfers her back into the bassinet.

The baby stirs, eyelids fluttering, but doesn’t wake. Michael hovers his hand over her chest for a beat longer than necessary, then pulls away. He tugs at the hem of his shirt, as if he’s remembering he’s supposed to be someone else now.

“Sorry,” he says, sheepish and soft. “I lost track of time.”

She stands close, catching the tension in his frame, the way his shoulders rise like a breath held too long, and the way his jaw works when he’s sorting words in his head.

“It’s good someone’s here for her.” She almost reaches out, almost rests her hand on his back, but stops herself.

“What are you thinking?” She asks as she watches him stare down at the infant.

Michael’s eyes dart up to hers. He opens his mouth, closes it, then lets out a quiet laugh. It’s not a joyful sound, but it’s real.

“I’m thinking…” He looks down at the baby, his voice gentling again. “I’m thinking she deserves better than this. I’m thinking that if things were different…if I was different…maybe I could do something about it.”

“What are you really thinking, Michael?”

Michael looks up. His eyes are clear, almost backlit, and his mouth sets into a line that’s all stubbornness and hope.

“I think we should adopt her.”

The words hit with no warning. Nina’s breath catches, her pulse loud in her ears. She stands there, not moving, not blinking. She wants to say she didn’t hear him, or that it’s the exhaustion talking, but she knows that isn’t true. He means it.

For a heartbeat, all her thoughts crowd into each other. She thinks about the child, about Michael, about how unprepared they are emotionally, financially, all of it. She thinks about the way he looked at the baby, the way his voice softened. She thinks about the conversation they’d had in the stairwell and wonders if this is his way of answering all the questions she never had the courage to ask.

“Michael…” She lets the name hang between them, the shape of his hope and her doubt. “That’s not how this works.”

He doesn’t flinch. If anything, he looks steadier than he did a minute ago.

“I know,” he says. “But maybe it could be.”

She lets out a breath. “There’s a process. There are rules. You can’t just—” She gestures helplessly at the sleeping infant, at the universe. “—decide, and have it happen.”

He shrugs, and for once, the gesture isn’t defensive. “Somebody has to decide. Why not us?”

The gravity of it sinks in, heavy and undeniable. Nina looks at the baby, then back at Michael. For all the uncertainty, for all the years of hedging and compromise, she’s never seen him this sure of anything. 

It’s terrifying.

She wants to say yes. She wants to be the kind of person who can say yes. But she’s not sure she can. Not to this.

She tries to gather herself, and collect all the sensible objections that would normally tumble out of her mouth. But for a few seconds, all she can do is stare at the baby, then at Michael, then at the speckled ceiling tiles, as if the answer is hiding somewhere up there.

He doesn’t push. He just sits back down in the rocker, letting her process, his hands resting in his lap. That, more than anything, unnerves her.

“Michael…” she starts to say. “We have nothing. No bottles, no crib, not even a spare set of clothes. We aren’t even—” She almost says ‘together’ but swallows it. “We’re not ready. This isn’t just a spontaneous adventure you can take like the goddamn motorcycle, Michael.”

He nods, as if he’s already had this argument with himself. 

“There’s time. There’s a process. We could—” He trails off, hands opening and closing.

“What if we’re not enough?” Nina says, and it’s so small, so unprotected, that she almost wants to take it back. But she doesn’t.

He looks her dead in the eye. “Nobody’s ever enough, not at first.” A pause. “But we can learn.”

The word ‘we’ does something funny to her heart.

Nina presses her palms to her knees, fighting the urge to pace. “What about all the other stuff? The agency, the paperwork, the home checks? You know how this goes. It’s not a Hallmark movie, Michael. They don’t just hand you a baby.”

He huffs a laugh, but doesn’t argue. “I know. But I also know you. And me. And I think we’d be good at it.”

“Last month you couldn’t even say if you wanted to stay in this city. And now you want to—” She gestures again, helpless. “You want to adopt a kid?”

He shrugs, unbothered. “Maybe she’s the reason to stay.”

The silence after that is thick. Nina looks away, focusing on the gentle rise and fall of the baby’s chest, the perfect curl of her fingers. She thinks about all the months of infertility treatments, the appointments, the bruised veins and bruised hopes. How close she came to giving up, and how little they ever talked about what came next. This isn’t the way she imagined parenthood would arrive, and she’s not sure she believes it could work. But the image of Michael, holding that baby like she’s the most important thing in the universe, refuses to leave her.

She wants to say more, to argue the point until it’s dull and safe, but she knows it would just be noise. Instead, she sits until the silence is almost companionable.

Finally, she clears her throat. “We should go home, Michael. Maybe we can talk about this tomorrow. But I just don’t see a way.” 

The words come out flat, practical, but she means them. They can’t live in this suspended moment forever.

He nods, but makes no move to stand. His eyes are on the baby again, like he’s worried that if he looks away, she’ll vanish. After a second, he leans over the bassinet, tucks the edge of the blanket under her arm with more care than he’s ever shown to anything breakable.

They make their way out of the room and head back towards the triage desk. 

“Hey, Jack?” Michael says, voice low.

Jack swivels, takes them both in. “You two finally heading out?”

“Yeah, but do me a favor…” Michael hesitates, chews the inside of his cheek. “Could you keep Baby Jane Doe for observation? Don’t let social services take her yet?”

There’s a beat of silence. Jack looks at Michael like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. 

“Robby…what are you thinking?” He asks.

Michael glances at Nina, then at the nursery door. 

Dr. Michael Robinavitch's shift ended at 1900, but he's still at the nursing station at 1948, finishing out a chart note with his thumb on the edge of the keyboard. The station is a bright pool of fluorescent light, the hospital's nervous system slowing for a short time before the next rush of patients flood in. The sound of a printer spitting out discharge papers, someone's low laughter from a few chairs over, the soft clatter of a med cart. These are the leftovers of chaos, the bones of the day shift, the things Robby has learned to find comfort in.

He signs his last order and lets his hands fall flat against the counter, palm down, like maybe he's bracing himself against a wave that isn't coming. His badge dangles from his lanyard, photo askew, a tiny version of his own tired face staring up at him with its best attempt at a smile. The new nurse, Carly was it, gives him a sidelong glance as she stacks labs, then slides a sticky note toward his elbow.

"A nurse from peds called and asked for you by name. Twice," she says, as if he isn't acutely aware of the phone in his pocket and the text that vibrated an hour ago and again ten minutes later.

He's learned to nod without making promises.

"Thanks," he says.

He plucks the note, reads the extension number even though he knows it by heart, and pockets it. For a second, he lets his thumb hover over his phone screen. Nina's name bright against a black background. He knows what the text will say. Or more accurately, he knows what it won't: nothing about frustration, nothing about how he was supposed to be on his way home by now. Just a gentle question: let me know when you're leaving. Which is her way of saying she misses him without making it a big deal.

"Hey Robby," Whitaker calls from the other side of the desk. "You got a second to check the vent in four?"

He has more than a second, or that's what he tells himself, so he nods and heads down the hallway. The hospital is quieter than it was a few hours ago: fewer voices, more machine noise.  They pass the pediatric pod, where a cartoon lion on the wall is missing half its mane. Nobody's fixed it, and maybe nobody cares enough to, but Robby notes it every time. He steps into the room and glances at the baby, at the vent, and at the sprawl of wires and tape.

He can do this with his eyes closed. But he doesn't. He never does.

"Settings are good," he says after a quick review. "She'll hold until rounds."

Whitaker grins, relief flooding his face, and for a second Robby sees the echo of himself twenty-five years ago, when each decision felt like life or death instead of just routine.

"You're a machine," one of the nurses say. "Don't you ever go home?"

Robby shrugs, a maneuver he's perfected. "Only when they make me."

Another nurse in the room looks up and adds, "His girlfriend must be a saint for putting up with him being gone all the time."

It's a nothing comment, a throwaway, but it lands sharper than intended. Not because it's untrue, but because Nina would probably laugh and say she is. Because Robby thinks she actually is sometimes, and it makes him want to go home and also want to stay here, in this humming, antiseptic place, where nobody asks him to be better than he is.

He catches himself, stares a second too long at the oxygen saturation numbers, then leaves the room with a "Call me if anything changes."

He walks slower back to the station, feeling the drag in his calves and the grit in his eyes. He tells himself he'll finish his note and then go home. But when he sits down, his hands hesitate over the keyboard.

His phone vibrates again: another text from Nina. Asking if he's left yet. He doesn't answer.

A pair of nurses at the far end of the desk are trading stories about their kids, one of them showing a photo on her phone. The other says, "You've got to have one, Dr. Robinavitch. The way you hold the babies? You're a natural."

She means it as a compliment. She doesn't know the hell he and Nina have gone through to have one.

Robby grins, but it's thin.

"I like giving them back," he says, which is partially the truth and also partially not the truth.

He waits until their backs are turned, then deletes the last three lines of his own note and rewrites them. He checks Nina's text again. 

He should get up. He should put on his jacket, peel off his badge, drive home to the warm light in the front window and the smell of home.

Instead, he sits, hands loose in his lap, letting the hospital's low electric hum fill the space where his brain should be. The screensavers flicker. A code blue echoes from down the hall, but it's distant and muffled. He waits for his pager to go off, to be needed. He waits for any reason not to go home.

By the time Robby remembers to check the clock again after being flagged down several times, it's 2056 and the halls have gone from dim to nearly deserted. He can hear his own footsteps as he rounds the corner to the locker room, echoes pinging off the tile.

He's the only one in the men's side, which suits him. Robby likes the hush in here after a shift, the way the air is thicker and somehow less urgent. The space smells like hand sanitizer and something vaguely metallic. He sits down heavily on the bench, stares at the metal lockers lined up.

He goes through the ritual: peel off the scrub top, unclip the badge, then finally, the stethoscope, which he coils carefully and tucks into his bag.

He rolls his shoulders. He takes a second to just breathe, eyes closed, letting the clamor of the day recede to a faint white noise. But then the silence settles in, and it's too much. He opens his eyes, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular.

His phone chirps. This time he checks it. Just a "?" from Nina.

He can picture her expression, the one she wears when she's trying to be patient: eyebrows arched, mouth drawn, not angry but not amused. He closes the notification and pulls up the messages she sent earlier. She's trying, he knows. He doesn't know why he finds it so hard to reply.

He stuffs his phone in his pocket and stands, staring at his own reflection in the metal locker door. The light overhead shows all the gray he's accumulated over the last few years, and highlighs the lines at the corners of his eyes. He looks tired, but not old. At least he doesn't think so. He wonders if Nina would say the same.

He rememberssuddenly and with a sharpness that borders on pain, the way Nina hand shook at their last appointment. It was nothing, the doctor said. Just nerves. But Robby's never been good at not noticing things. He'd wanted to reach for her hand, to say something comforting, but all he could do was nod and let the silence fill up the exam room like anesthetic gas.

He snaps his locker shut with more force than necessary. There's no reason to linger in the hospital now. But he does: re-checks his bag, double checks he has the badge, smooths the inside of his jacket even though he won't wear it out. He moves with the precision of a man stalling for time.

If he goes home, it's just him and Nina and the million things they never say out loud. He knows the feel of their kitchen table, the shape of their silence. He knows how Nina asks about his day, how she waits for him to bring up the next step, the next hope, the next round of something. Sometimes he imagines telling her he wants to quit, to run, to do anything other than try again, but he can't.

He's the guy who fixes things. Or he used to be.

His hand tightens on the locker handle.

He should go home.

Robby lets his feet carry him, not thinking about where he's going, just following the rhythm of the place. He passes the closed doors of patient rooms, some with nightlights glowing behind privacy glass, others completely dark.

In one, he glimpses a woman sleeping upright in a recliner, blanket pulled to her chin, hand resting on the rail of the bed beside her. Her kid is out cold, mouth open, hair stuck to his forehead in damp little spikes. Robby feels a pang he can't name. He moves on, footsteps muffled by linoleum and fatigue.

The farther he gets from the main hub, the quieter it becomes. It's like walking underwater, pressure building around his ears. He thinks of Nina, the things they don't say, the way she sometimes watches him with this hopeful dread like she wants to believe him when he says it'll be okay, but she's old enough now to know that sometimes it won't be.

Then he stops in front of a door. One with just a single bassinet occupied. Baby Jane Doe. He reads the whiteboard despite knowing all the information already. Female, estimated 6 weeks, no known allergies, surrendered via Safe Haven.

He stands there, hand on the doorframe, not moving. She's not his patient, not anymore. But she's still here, a loose end he keeps circling back to.

He should go. He knows it. The night is almost over, and there's nothing here for him for the next three months.

But he stands there anyway, watching through the glass as the baby shifts in her sleep, her tiny hand curling into a fist before relaxing again. He lets himself rest his forehead against the door for a second, just long enough for the cold to seep through his skin and into his head.

He doesn't know what he's waiting for.

Maybe just a sign.

He opens the door quietly, letting it click shut behind him. The air inside is warmer than the hallway, thick with the scent of formula, latex, and the indefinable powdery smell of newborn. The overheads are set to a low, amber night mode, and the only sounds are the hum of the machines and the faint wheezy exhale of the baby.

Despite him opening and closing it softly, the movement of the door wakes her. Her little eyelids flutter open, tracking him as he moves into the room, every movement exaggerated by the stillness. Robby stands a moment just inside the threshold, waiting for her to cry or to close her eyes. She does neither. Instead, her gaze follows him, steady and unblinking, as he approaches the bassinet.

He checks the chart out of reflex. Vitals logged, last feed recorded. She's stable. He sets the tablet down and looks at her. Really looks.

Up close, Baby Jane Doe is less remarkable than most of the infants he's seen in his ER. No tubes. No burns or bandages. No obvious signs of trauma. Just a baby, too small for her onesie, fists like dandelions at her chest. Her hair is a darj shade of brown, glossy and wild. Her skin is slightly mottled, but otherwise clear.

He reaches down and lays two fingers on her sternum, gentle as a breath. Her heart flutters under his touch, a syncopated percussion. He counts, not because he needs to, but because it's something to do.

She stares back, lips parted, a single string of spit bridging her lower lip to her chin.

"You're not even trying to make this difficult for me are you," he mutters.

She kicks her legs once, then settles. He slides his fingers away and watches as her eyelids drift down, then snap open again, indignant at the threat of sleep.

He's not supposed to pick her up. Not unless she needs it. But after a minute, she lets out a high, breathy whine, an indignant complaint, nothing urgent but enough to set him moving. He scoops her up with more hesitation than he'd ever admit. Left hand behind the head, right under the butt, a move so ingrained it's automatic.

She weighs nothing. The warmth of her soaks instantly through his sleeve. He holds her at arm's length for a beat, then draws her close, settling her against his chest.

She fusses for a second, a twist of legs and a sniff, then goes completely slack, her cheek pressed against the fabric of his top. She smells like milk and antiseptic and the ghost of whatever detergent the hospital uses.

He stands, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and lets the minutes stretch. He feels the rise and fall of her breaths, hears the little noises she makes: a click in the throat, a barelythere wheeze. He's cataloging, he knows. It's what he does.

But there's a point when he stops thinking about her lungs and her pulse and the fact that no one is coming to pick her up and take her home. Instead he just thinks about how small she is, and how she fits against him like she's always belonged there. Like maybe she recognizes something about him, something he's forgotten how to give.

He isn't sentimental, not really. He's never been the type to get choked up by the sight of a baby, not even in residency, when the other interns would get glassy eyed over the success stories of the NICU. But he stands there, rocking gently, and feels something thud heavy and insistent in his chest.

He knows what this is. He knows why he's here, and why he's stayed so long.

He thinks of Nina, of the two of them sitting at their kitchen table after the last appointment. The way she stared at her mug, not drinking, not talking, just tracing the rim with her finger. The way the silence pooled between them. The way he tried to fill it with jokes, with medical statistics, with anything but the truth.

He looks down at the baby again. She's asleep now, mouth slack, one hand curled around the collar of his shirt. He puts his palm over her back and just holds her, the way he wishes someone would hold him.

He stays like that for a long time. Longer than he should. When he finally puts her down, she doesn't stir. He tucks the blanket around her, smoothing it with a careful hand. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to.

On his way out, he dims the light even further, until the only illumination is the soft green from the monitor and the pale halo from the hallway. He stands in the doorway and watches for a second, as if waiting for her to wake up and demand something of him.

He circles the hallway once, twice, like a satellite unable to break orbit. He tells himself he'll go home after this. He'll let Nina know he's on his way, pick up something for dinner on the way, and go home.

But then his feet carry him back. He slips back into the room. The baby is awake again, this time more alert, eyes black and shining as beetles in the low light. She doesn't make a sound as he approaches, just watches, lids heavy but determined not to close.

Robby hesitates a moment, his hand on the edge of the bassinet. He could leave. He could walk away and she wouldn't remember any of it, wouldn't remember him.

Instead, he scoops her up again, this time slower, almost reverent. She fits into the cradle of his arm as if she's always belonged there. She's so impossibly light. He doesn't understand how someone could just leave her like that. But then again he can only imagine what a person must be facing in their own life to surrender such an innocent child.

He sits in the ancient rocking chair wedged against the far wall. The vinyl is cracked, the armrest sticky with years of gentle abuse, but he hardly notices. He settles her against his chest, palm pressed firm to her back, and lets his own head tip back.

He thinks about all the times he's been handed a newborn: delivery rooms, NICU consults, friends at dinner parties shoving a wrapped bundle into his arms and saying, "You're a natural, Robby!" He thinks about the way he always held them like borrowed property, like something he'd have to hand back before it broke or soiled itself or reminded him too much of everything he didn't have.

This is different.

He realizes his thumb is stroking the baby's head, slow and rhythmic, the way Nina pets their cat when she can't sleep. The baby sighs, a soft, snuffling exhale, and fumbles her fist into the crook of his neck. He smiles, not because it's funny, but because it's the only thing left to do.

He wants to tell her something—something real, not the usual doctor patter, not the jokes he uses to fill up the space at home. He doesn't know what, exactly. She wouldn't understand, anyway.

So he hums. Low, under his breath, the first tune that comes to mind: "Oyfn Pripetshik," the lullaby his grandmother used to sing when he was sick or scared or couldn't sleep. He hasn't thought of it in years, but the melody arrives whole and undiminished, old words clinging to the music like dust to wool. The baby stirs, just a little, then settles again, her breathing syncing to the rhythm.

He hums until he runs out of melody, then just sits, listening to the silence. It feels like something inside him is rearranging itself, quietly, cell by cell.

He checks the baby's face one more time, memorizing the shape of her nose, the quiver of her lips, the improbable lashes dusting her cheeks.