Chapter 1: Night Feedings and Whispered Promises
The only sound was the soft, sticky pull of skin against skin as Aoife rocked back and forth, back and forth. AJ was a warm, milky-damp weight against her bare chest, his breathing finally easing into the deep, shuddering sighs of sleep. Her own sweat had cooled, leaving a clammy film between her shoulder blades, her hair stuck to her neck in damp strands. The nightlight cast the room in a sickly amber, making the painted woodland animals on the wall seem to shift and watch.
She heard the creak of the floorboard behind her before she felt him. Joey’s presence was a solid warmth at her back, a change in the air. He pressed his lips to the knob of her shoulder, a kiss that was more exhaustion than passion, yet it held a claim all the same. His hands, calloused and familiar, slid down her sides to settle on her hips. He didn’t pull, just held. His thumbs made small circles on her skin.
“Out like a light,” he murmured, his voice raspy with tiredness.
“Took his time about it,” Aoife whispered back, not stopping her rhythmic sway. The scent of him—laundry soap and the faint, metallic tang of the garage where he’d been working earlier—mixed with the room’s other smells: powdered baby, the faint sweet-bitter note of spilled breast milk, and underneath it all, the musky, intimate scent of their own spent bodies. It was a smell that lived in their sheets now, in the very air of their small, shared world.
Joey’s hands tightened for a second, a possessive squeeze, before relaxing again. He rested his forehead between her shoulder blades. “Shannon called again. Your phone lit up while you were in the shower.”
Aoife stilled for a half-breath, then forced the rock of her hips to continue. AJ whimpered softly in his sleep. “What did she want?”
“Dunno. Didn’t answer it.”
“Good.”
It wasn’t harsh, just final. A boundary drawn in the quiet dark. Shannon, with her loud laugh and louder opinions, didn’t understand the fragile ecosystem of these night hours. She’d want to dissect their parenthood, Aoife’s choices, Joey’s quietness. She’d call it advice.
Joey shifted, turning her gently by the shoulders until she faced him, the baby a sleeping bundle between them. In the low light, his face was all shadows and tired lines. The boy who’d fought everything was gone, sanded down by a grief Aoife could only hold, not erase. What was left was quieter, more deliberate. He looked at AJ like he was memorizing him, then lifted his gaze to hers.
“You’re amazing,” he said, the words simple and worn, but in his mouth they felt new.
A laugh bubbled up in her throat, husky from disuse. “I’m sticky. And I think he puked in my hair.”
“Still amazing.” He leaned in and kissed her, slow and deep, a conversation without words. It tasted of shared tiredness and the toothpaste they’d both used hours ago. When he pulled back, his eyes were darker, less haunted. “Put him down. Come back to bed.”
“He’ll wake up.”
“He might not.”
It was the gamble they played every night. She leaned forward, careful not to jostle, and lowered AJ into the crib. His arms flung out in a starfish, then settled. The paper stars above him twisted slowly in some unseen draft. They held their breath, a united front of hope. Ten seconds. Twenty.
Aoife stepped back into Joey’s waiting arms. He folded her into him, his chin on top of her head. They stood there in the amber glow, a statue of tangled limbs and shared fatigue. She could feel the steady thump of his heart against her cheek.
“I keep thinking,” he said into her hair, “that I’ll do it wrong. Say the wrong thing. Be my dad.”
She pulled back just enough to see his eyes. “You’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re thinking it,” she said, touching the line between his brows. “He never did.”
He caught her hand, brought her knuckles to his mouth. His lips were chapped. The gesture was so tender it made something ache in her ribs. This was the work, she thought. Not the nappies or the 3 AM feeds, but this—holding a person together while they learned how to hold someone else.
From the other room, the phone started buzzing again, a frantic insect hum against the wood of the nightstand. The screen would be lighting up their dark bedroom, casting crazy shadows.
Joey’s body went rigid against hers.
Aoife listened to the buzz. She watched the shifting shadows the mobile cast on AJ’s sleeping face. She felt the warm, solid reality of Joey’s hands on her back.
“Leave it,” she said, her voice clear in the quiet.
And for now, in the fragile sanctuary of the nursery, he did.