9. Joseph
CHAPTER NINE
JOSEPH
My first day off since she moved in, and I don't know what to do with myself.
That's the problem with days off. The hospital gives me a rhythm. A purpose. Someone to be. At home, I'm just a guy standing in his kitchen at seven in the morning, wondering if it's too early to make noise.
It's been a week since Millie moved in. I've been at the hospital for most of it, long shifts, back to backs, which wasn't entirely accidental.
I wanted to give her room. Time to settle in without me hovering.
I know what it's like to have someone in your space who doesn't belong there yet.
The tension of it. The performance of pretending everything is natural when nothing about it is. I didn't want to be that for her.
So I worked. I came home late. I left early. I gave her the apartment and hoped that by the time I actually spent a full day in it with her, it would feel less like an intrusion and more like a choice.
Millie's door is closed. I don't know if she's sleeping.
She's quiet even when she's awake, which means there's literally no way to tell whether she's unconscious or doing a crossword puzzle in there.
Tofu is sitting outside her door like a small white security guard, staring at me with her one blue eye.
"Morning, Tofu," I whisper. "Is she up?"
Tofu blinks at me. Nothing.
"Are you hungry?"
Still nothing. She doesn't even twitch an ear.
I stare at her. She stares back. I wonder if I should move to her right side since she's deaf in her left ear, but then I think, don't animals have better hearing than humans anyway?
Would it even matter? I'm an orthopedic surgeon, and I don't know the answer to this.
I fix human bones. I didn't sign up for feline audiology.
Tofu watches me like she can read every thought passing through my head and is deeply unimpressed by all of them.
"Look, I'm trying," I say, keeping my voice low. "I'm new at this. Give me a break."
She blinks slowly, then looks away. Deliberately. Like she heard me, considered my case, and dismissed it.
"Yeah. Okay. Got it. I'll learn more about cats." I stand there, defeated by an animal that probably weighs eight pounds. "This is a great start to my day."
I make coffee as quietly as I can, which for me is a heroic act of restraint.
I'm a noisy person. Even when I'm alone.
I hum, I narrate what I'm doing, I play music while I shower and sing along badly.
It's how I fill the space, how I make it feel less empty.
The silence in this apartment used to be fine.
Now it feels loaded, because there's someone behind a door who lives inside silence all the time, and I don't want her to think I'm trying to drown hers out.
She emerges around eight. Hair messy, hoodie over her pajamas, Tofu in one arm and her phone in the other. Her gaze travels from me to the coffee and back.
I pour her a cup without asking. She takes it and sits at the counter instead of the couch, which feels like a small vote of confidence.
"So," I say, leaning against the opposite counter, keeping a comfortable distance. "It's been a week. How are you holding up? And I mean honestly. Not the polite version."
She types for a moment. It's good. Really. Your apartment is nice. More space than mine. Tofu's obsessed with the living room window. She sits there for hours watching pigeons like it's her personal TV.
"The pigeons on that ledge are very dramatic. There's a turf war happening between the fat one and the gray one. I've been following it for months."
She chuckles. It's soft, barely there, just a rush of air and her shoulders shaking—the breath behind where a voice would be. It escapes before she can catch it, and I don't think she knows it happens. I like it. I like knowing what her laugh sounds like, even when it doesn't technically make one.
"And the ribs? How are they feeling?"
She tilts her hand side to side. Then types: Better than last week. I can get dressed without wanting to cry now. So that's progress.
"That is progress. Seriously. Week one is the worst. It gets easier from here."
She nods, then takes a sip of her coffee. Tofu jumps up onto the counter between us and settles there like she's mediating a negotiation. Millie scratches behind her right ear, the one that works, and Tofu closes her eyes.
I cook breakfast for us. "Eggs are going in. Little bit of butter. We're looking good. Oh, that one broke weird. That's fine. We don't judge in this kitchen." I flip the toast, plate everything up, and turn around to bring her a plate.
She's watching me from the counter, a smile already on her face.
"What?"
She types: You really like talking, huh?
I laugh. "Yeah. I guess I do. I can't help it. When I cook, I pretend I'm on a cooking show. It makes the eggs taste better. That's a scientifically proven theory, by the way. I'm the scientist. I'm also the peer reviewer. Unanimous approval."
She just looks at me. Then laughs, shaking her head.
"I promise I'm not crazy." I pause. "Actually, this is the second time I've tried to convince you I'm not crazy, which is starting to sound crazy. But I'm glad you're still here."
Her shoulders shake, her face scrunching up, and she looks so cute that I have to look away and focus very hard on the toast.
We eat together. She doesn't type anything.
I don't say anything. It's just two people eating breakfast at a counter, and the quiet between us is the most comfortable I've had in this apartment in three years.
I keep glancing at her. She eats slowly, carefully, because deep breaths still catch her ribs.
She looks different in the morning. Softer.
Her lashes are long and straight, easy to miss until the light catches them sideways.
The freckles across her nose are more visible without makeup, and I'm counting them before I realize I'm doing it.
Her hair looks lighter in the sun coming through the kitchen window, and her bangs are messy, falling into her eyes in a way she doesn't seem to care about.
She catches me looking and raises her eyebrows. I look away fast. Very smooth. Very convincing.
She types: You're staring.
"I was looking at Tofu."
Tofu is behind you.
I turn around. Tofu is, in fact, behind me, sitting on the counter by the fridge, staring at me with judgment.
"I have eyes in the back of my head. I was looking at her through those."
She types: And you say you're not crazy?
"Nope."
She shakes her head. But she's smiling into her coffee.
After breakfast, I try to give her space.
I really do. I go to my room and read, or try to.
I pick up a medical journal, get through the same paragraph three times, and retain nothing.
I reorganize my nightstand. I check my phone, put it down, pick it up again.
Then I just stare at the wall and think about whether it would be weird to go back out there.
I last eleven minutes before I'm back in the living room.
She's on the couch with her laptop, looking at something. She glances up when I appear, and there's the slightest curve at the corner of her mouth, like she's not surprised. Like she timed it.
I sit on the other end and pretend to check my phone. The couch is not that big. There's one cushion between us and Tofu is on it like a feline demilitarized zone, ears twitching between us.
"Do you want to watch something?" I ask, trying to sound as casual as I can. I'm just a guy who wants to watch TV. No other agenda.
She gives a sure-why-not shrug. I scroll through options and pick a cooking competition show because it requires zero emotional investment, and the commentary is ridiculous. Safe ground.
Within ten minutes, I'm yelling at the screen. "No. No. He did not just put pineapple on a beef Wellington. Someone needs to call the authorities. This is unacceptable."
Millie picks up the whiteboard from the coffee table. She writes something and holds it up: He should be arrested.
I turn to her. She's completely straight-faced. Dead serious. Not a flicker of a smile. I laugh so hard Tofu jumps off the couch and gives me a look of pure contempt from the floor.
That's when it really hits me. She's funny.
I knew it from the date, from the texting, but living with her is different.
She's not politely funny or trying-to-be-liked funny.
She's sharp, dry, perfectly timed. It sneaks up on you, because her face gives nothing away, and by the time it hits, she's already moved on.
The delay is part of it. She has the timing of a comedian who never breaks.
We watch three episodes. I do most of the talking.
She does most of the reacting. Quick dry observations that land harder every time.
A contestant drops a cake, and she writes thoughts and prayers.
A judge says something pretentious about "flavor profiles," and she writes he definitely calls his mother by her first name.
One contestant presents a dish that's supposed to be "deconstructed" and she writes that's just broken food on a plate.
Each one catches me off guard. Each one is funnier than the last.
Somewhere around the third episode, she writes something and instead of holding the board up for me to read, she just slides it across the cushion. I pick it up. You yell at the TV the same way you yell at the microwave. Have you considered that you might have anger issues with kitchen appliances?
"First of all, the microwave deserves it. It heats everything unevenly, and I take that personally." I look at her. "Second of all, have you been judging my relationship with my microwave this whole week?"
She holds up her thumb and index finger about an inch apart. A little.
"Now I know where Tofu gets it." I look over at Tofu, who's back by the window watching her pigeons. "You're just like your mother!"
She smiles. A real one. It reaches all the way up, crinkling the corners of her eyes, pushing her cheeks round, tilting her whole face toward the light like it can't help itself. I file it away, because I'm keeping a mental catalogue of things that make her do that, and I'm not ashamed of it.
It's a rhythm I've never experienced before. Conversation with built-in pauses. I keep waiting for the silence between her messages to feel heavy the way silence does when I'm alone. But it doesn't. It feels full. Like she's talking the whole time, just not out loud.
Later, the cooking show is over, and we're sitting in the quiet aftermath of three hours of television. She's scrolling on her phone. Tofu has forgiven me and is back on the couch, curled up against Millie's leg.
"Hey," I say. "So I wanted to mention something. I booked us an OB appointment. First official one. At Brookfield Medical, across town."
She looks up from her phone. The words register. OB. Appointment. The reality of it settling in.
I thought about doing it at St. Aldric's.
For about five seconds. Then I imagined walking into OB with Millie and every nurse on the floor knowing my name.
The gossip would spread faster than a code blue.
By lunch, the whole hospital would know, and Millie would be walking through halls where people were already watching, already talking.
She doesn't need that. Neither do I. Not yet.
"Sorry it took a while. I wanted to find a good doctor, someone I trust. And I wanted to schedule it on my day off so I can be there with you."
She nods.
"Is tomorrow good for you?"
She nods again, then types: You've thought about this a lot.
"I think about everything a lot when it comes to you." It's out before I can catch it. I don't take it back.
She smiles, but then her face shifts. A tightness around her eyes that wasn't there a second ago. She's nervous. Tomorrow she'll be lying on a table, looking at a screen, and what was a line on a lab result will become a shape. A sound.
I reach over. I take her hand. Gently, the way I've learned to with her, giving her time to pull away if she wants to. She doesn't.
"Hey. It's going to be fine. We'll go together. I'll be right there with you the whole time. Like I promised. And if the doctor says anything confusing, I'll translate, because doctors are terrible at explaining things. I should know. I am one."
She almost smiles. Her fingers squeeze mine once, lightly, before she lets go and turns back to her phone.
Later that night, I'm in my room staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow is the appointment. I was calm earlier. Even voice, reassuring words, her hand in mine. I'm good at that. I've spent my whole career being the calm one in the room.
But lying here in the dark, I can admit it.
I'm nervous. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel when I see that screen.
I don't know what fatherhood looks like from the inside.
I know the medicine. I could recite the milestones in my sleep.
But knowing the science of something and living it are completely different things.
Then I think about Millie. If I'm feeling this, she's feeling it twice as much.
She's the one carrying it. She's the one whose body is changing.
She's the one who made the decision to keep this baby while lying in a hospital bed with broken ribs and no voice to talk it through with anyone.
She did that alone, inside her own silence, and came out sure.
So all I can do is be there for her. Show up. Be steady. Be the person she can lean on, even when I don't have the answers.
I'll be calm. I'll hold her hand. I'll sit in that chair next to her and look at the screen and be whatever she needs me to be.
I'm terrified.