7. Liv
Chapter seven
Liv
The schedule is taped inside the cabinet door.
I made it before dawn, when the apartment was quiet and Iris had been asleep long enough for me to believe in systems again.
Fourteen days of PTO were supposed to be Barcelona. They are now this.
It is 6:57 AM. Josh will be leaving shortly.
A noise comes from the nursery. The small, fussy one I have learned means I have four minutes. Maybe five.
I stay at the counter. At 6:15, she made the same sound. I went in. She cried anyway. I picked her up, tried one shoulder, then the other, then a slow walk from the window to the dresser and back.
Eventually, she stopped. I don't think I had much to do with it. I put her back in her crib, and created the schedule.
I write the current time in the log.
Josh appears in the kitchen doorway in his coat, hospital bag over one shoulder, already three minutes behind. He stops when he sees the cabinet door.
“Is that—”
“Feeding log.” I hand him the summary sheet. “Two AM went to completion. She burped at the third attempt. How did the five-thirty go?”
He takes the sheet and reviews it. “Full feed. One burp. She went down at five fifty-two.”
I write down the time.
He said five fifty-two.
I write six fifty-two.
I rub my eyes and cross it out.
“Liv.”
“I’m writing it while I remember it.”
He doesn’t argue. He crosses to the coffee maker and fills a travel mug. He does not ask if I want any. He fills a second mug—three-quarters full, a splash of oat milk, exactly the way I like it—and sets it down to my left without comment.
I stare at the mug.
He made it the way I like it without asking. That should be a small thing. With Josh, small things have always been the problem.
“Guardianship paperwork came through,” I say.
“I hope you don’t mind I gave them your email address,” he says. “I wanted someone with a legal brain to review it.”
“It’s fine.” I am way too tired to care about inbox boundaries.
He sets down his travel mug. “Is there a problem with it?”
“No,” I say. “Fourteen-day guardianship. Binding from signature.” I take a sip of the coffee. It is stronger than mine, which is exactly what I need. “The signature sets the clock in motion.”
He watches me. “We knew the timeline, Liv.”
“A verbal agreement is just a framework.” I straighten the summary sheet so it is perfectly parallel with the edge of the counter. “A document is something else. Documents are how things become real."
His eyes move to my hand on the paper.
I keep it there.
"For the next three hundred and thirty-six hours, we are legally responsible for a human life.”
“We’re going to be fine,” he says quietly.
Before I can answer, Iris skips the quiet complaint and goes straight to an urgent wail.
I drop the pen.
Josh shifts his hospital bag higher on his shoulder. “I can get her.”
His grip tightens on the strap.
“No.” I step away from the counter. “You have surgery.”
“Liv—”
He looks toward the nursery.
“Go.” I am already moving down the hall. “I’ll get her.”
“I have three minutes—”
“You have a surgery.” I am already moving. “Go.”
Her face is blotchy and her tiny fists are bunched when I lift her up. She doesn’t stop crying, but she presses her face so hard into the crook of my neck I can feel her tears soaking into my shirt.
I rub her back, easing one of those tiny, furious fists flat against my collarbone. “I have you, little fighter,” I tell her, moving toward the kitchen.
But my grip on her is wrong. As I walk, she arches her back and pushes away from my chest. I try to shift her higher, but she slips down a fraction of an inch, her crying pitching into a sharp, frustrated wail.
I stop walking.
I manage hostile courtrooms for a living.
I have stood across from partners who use silence like a weapon and judges who can take a person apart with one question.
But standing here with this squirming, unhappy baby in my arms, I am completely out of my depth.
I am petrified I am going to drop her.
Josh is still here, standing across the kitchen, watching me.
“Josh.” A beat. I try another angle. Iris is unimpressed. I stop adjusting. I look at him. “I’m terrified I’m going to drop her.”
The kitchen is quiet.
He sets his bag on the floor. He crosses to where I’m standing but doesn’t take Iris from me.
He comes in close at my right side—close enough that I am aware of the space between his shoulder and mine. He looks at my hands, then up at my face.
“You’re fighting her,” he murmurs. His voice is pitched low and calm. “Drop your shoulders, Liv.”
I let out a breath and my shoulders sink.
He covers my hands with his. I look up at him. He isn’t looking at the baby, or even at our hands; his eyes are locked entirely on mine.
“Slide this one down,” he says gently, guiding my palm lower on Iris’s back to stop her from arching. “Don’t try to hold her up. Just tuck her against your hip. Let your body take the weight.”
He shifts my arm an inch inward, pressing my elbow closer to my side.
Iris makes one more sound. Then settles.
His hands don’t move right away. One stays lightly over my wrist; the other rests over my fingers on Iris’s back. He is no longer adjusting my grip.
I hold his gaze. His hands stay for one more second before he slowly steps back.
“You had it the whole time,” he says. “You were an inch off.”
I finally look down at Iris. She has arrived at a position she finds acceptable. She is chewing on her fist, looking exactly like someone who has tabled her grievances pending further review.
“Josh.”
“Yeah.”
I argue for a living, but looking at him right now, my mind is totally blank. I just shake my head.
He picks up his bag from the floor. He looks at me once more. “I trust you, Liv. I always have.”
He walks out. The front door closes with a soft click.
I carry Iris to the counter. I tuck her against my left forearm—the angle that works, her weight anchored securely against my side—and lift the pen with my right hand. I uncap it.
6:58 AM. I write the time in the log.
The entry is slightly cramped. Legible enough.
I look at the rest of the page. It is blank until 7:00 PM tonight.
The apartment is silent. I am standing in my ex-boyfriend’s kitchen, holding a baby I didn’t know existed twenty-four hours ago, and Josh just left for a twelve-hour shift.
Iris turns her head, breathes against my neck, and starts to cry.