8. Nora
NORA
The coffee maker beeps, and I begin pouring my first cup. Harper slept in four-hour stretches last night, the longest she’s managed, and I woke up this morning feeling almost human again.
Almost.
The coffee is still the thing standing between me and being fully functional.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
Email notification. Subject line:
Paternity Test Results, Harper Rose West.
I set the mug down.
Tyler added me to his account last week, so I'd see medical appointments and anything else that shouldn't wait once training camp starts. I knew this email was coming, but I still feel it when I see it.
I open it. Skim past the official language.
Probability of Paternity: 99.9%
She's his. Officially, legally, scientifically, his.
I'm still holding the phone when I hear footsteps on the stairs. Tyler comes in with Harper against his shoulder, both of them rumpled from sleep. His hair is doing several things at once. His hold on her is confident, head supported, body settled, nothing like that first day.
"Morning," he says. "She's been awake for a while. We've been in the nursery discussing things."
I hold out my phone without speaking.
He transfers Harper to his other arm and takes it. I watch him read it once, then again. His hands start to shake on the second pass.
"Ninety-nine point nine percent," he says, quietly.
"As certain as these tests get."
He reads it a third time, and I don't look away. I watch the emotions cross his face, the way weather crosses an open field: relief, fear, joy, and terror, all of it visible, none of it performed. He's not managing it. He's just feeling it.
"I knew," he says finally. Harper has a fistful of his shirt. "I knew she was mine. But seeing it like this—"
"Different," I say.
"Yeah."
He hands the phone back and calls Emma. I take Harper so he can pace.
Emma answers on the second ring and starts crying immediately, the happy kind, loud enough that I can hear it through the speaker.
Tyler laughs through it, his voice sounding unsteady, and Harper watches his face like she's trying to understand what laughing means.
They talk for ten minutes. He tells her about the routine, Harper sleeping better, the diaper changes under two minutes now, and the feeding yesterday that didn't end in spit-up on him.
Emma laughs through the tears and asks about milestones, Harper's weight, and when they can visit.
Tyler tells her soon, definitely; his voice has a warmth in it I've been trying not to catalog.
When he hangs up, he calls his lawyer. I feed Harper and catch pieces of the conversation: paternity established, documentation in order, custody rights, and what happens if Jessica resurfaces.
Tyler takes notes, jaw tight, asking precise questions about legal precedent.
He's thinking about the long game. He's thinking about keeping her.
"Okay," he says finally. "I'll send the results over today. Thank you."
He hangs up and stands there for a moment with both hands shoved through his hair, then lets out a long breath.
"She's mine. Legally, officially mine. No one can take her now."
"Partially." I burp Harper over my shoulder. "But it means you have more protection.”
He looks at me, and his expression does something I'm not ready for, soft and open and completely unguarded, the way his face gets when he's not trying to be anything.
"Thank you," he says. "For all of it. For being here. For teaching me. I don't know what I'd have done without you."
"It's my job, West."
Something flickers across his face when I say it. Quick and gone. He nods once.
"Right. Your job."
The day passes in our rhythm. Harper eats, sleeps, gets changed, and has tummy time. Tyler fills in the charts—all of them, every time—his neat handwriting in each column, and it strikes me every time I look at the fridge. This is the person who couldn't even make a bottle.
Four days in, and while it’s been the three of us, I’ve started to notice things.
His coffee is black with one sugar, and it never varies.
He stress-cleans the kitchen when he can't sleep—I've come down twice to find the counters spotless at midnight.
He narrates everything to Harper, explaining how to make a bottle and describing what's outside the window, once spending twelve minutes detailing hockey positions to a baby who found this riveting.
He's gentle with her in a way that doesn't come automatically to everyone. Some people have to learn gentleness. Tyler handles her like he's already afraid of his own size and has redirected that care into something softer.
I still call him West.
It's deliberate. A small barrier I've put between us.
Something that says “professional, working relationship,” not whatever else it might be starting to look like when we're both on the living room floor at tummy time laughing because she spat up on his hand.
West puts distance in it. He's never questioned why, and I think that's because he understands exactly what it's doing, the same way I do.
Some things don't need to be said out loud to be an agreement.
At lunch, we're at the kitchen table, Harper’s asleep, and Tyler is filling me in on what the lawyer said about documentation and custody rights. He's thought through contingencies. He's already prepared for Jessica possibly coming back, which means some part of him believes she will.
I listen, make a mental note of something I can help with, and try not to think about the fact that a week ago I didn't know this man existed.
At dinner, he orders Thai because neither of us has the energy to cook.
We eat straight from the containers while Harper plays in her bouncer, and we talk about things that aren’t important.
Whether Harper prefers the green giraffe toy or the yellow one.
Whether we should buy more burp cloths or just do laundry more often. Normal things. Comfortable things.
"I keep meaning to fix that fan," he says, looking up at it.
"I know," I say. "You mention it every time you notice it."
He looks back at his food. "I'll get to it."
When Harper goes down, I go up to my room, close the door, and lean against it.
Three weeks was what I said when I took this job, a few months, maybe a year.
I'm eight days in, and this house already has a shape I recognize: the ceiling fan ticking, the kitchen at midnight, the sound of Tyler checking on Harper one last time every night before he goes to bed.
West. Not Tyler.
It matters. It has to.