18. Josh
Chapter eighteen
Josh
The conversation did not happen.
The meal did.
At ten-fifteen. After Iris finally went down and Carter finally stopped calling. Liv and I standing at the counter with cold lamb ragu.
“The reason I asked didn’t.”
Those were the last words before Iris woke against my neck, furious and sweating. By the time she settled, Liv was back on the phone with Carter standing at my counter in her socks, voice low and exact. I told myself it wasn’t the time.
Which is accurate.
Also convenient.
I have seen enough emergencies at the hospital to know you can’t wait for perfect conditions. Somehow, I forget that the second I’m in my own kitchen.
The window I keep waiting for doesn’t exist.
Now it’s morning.
Iris finishes the last ounce of her bottle, and I move her to my shoulder. My phone buzzes on the counter.
Social Services Department.
I read the full email with Iris still tucked against me.
My cousin’s recovery has been extended. Iris staying in my care needs a formal review before the emergency two-week period can continue. Reyes wants to meet at my earliest convenience.
I run through the possible outcomes.
Most likely, they come, they see the system and the equipment we have, they file the paperwork, and the arrangement continues. Formal now.
We have the letter from my cousin. We have medical records. We have nine days of feeding logs in two handwritings and a pediatric consult from the fever night. What other conclusion could they come to?
Maybe they have questions. Maybe they need to come back and document more before they close the file. Routine. Not the end of anything.
I can live with that.
Or they look at this apartment and this setup and decide Iris is not in the right place.
They move her.
To whom, I don’t know.
I can’t go there.
I set Iris in the bouncer. She goes without a fight, which means she’s still in the morning slow period. I stand in the middle of the living room and survey the apartment the way a stranger would.
Systems.
Documentation.
Proof of care from the door.
I know what a child welfare review looks for. I work in a hospital. I have filed child welfare concerns.
But how can they know? How can any stranger know that Iris’s hunger signal is different from her nap signal? That she makes the working-it-out sound when she’s deciding whether to be angry. That she likes the bottle angled a few degrees higher when she’s tired.
None of that shows up in a doorway scan.
The guest room door opens.
Liv steps out in yesterday’s socks, hair still loose, and takes one pass of the room—Iris in the bouncer, me standing by the couch with the burp cloth going nowhere, phone on the counter.
“What’s going on?”
I hold out my phone. She takes it and reads it once. Her face gives me nothing. Her shoulders pull back, then up — half an inch, if that.
She hands the phone back. “Call her.” She goes back to the baby bag.
I pick up my phone and dial the social worker, Reyes.
She schedules a home visit for Friday. Two days from now. Morning. Two hours. She tells me what to have ready: the guardianship letter, medical records, the logs. Anything that shows the care is real and steady. She asks how long the arrangement has been in place. I tell her. She pauses.
She asks who else has been in the care arrangement.
Liv is at the kitchen table with the baby bag open. She is not looking at me.
“A friend,” I start.
The word covers coffee. Maybe dinner. Maybe a ride home from the hospital.
It does not cover fourteen PTO days, nine nights of feeding logs, or Iris turning her head when Liv speaks from the hallway.
“Someone who’s been helping with care,” I say. “From the first day.”
Liv’s hands still on the baby bag zipper.
“Liv has been here from the first day,” I say. “She handles feeds, logs, appointments, and overnight care with me.”
Reyes asks one more question. I answer it.
Liv closes the baby bag pocket.
Reyes wraps up the call by confirming Friday morning and my address.
I turn to Liv. “Friday morning. Home visit. She wants the guardianship letter and the logs.”
“We have all of that.”
“When Reyes is here on Friday and asks about you —”
I stop.
“If she asks who you are—”
Liv’s eyes come to mine.
“You’ve been my partner in caring for Iris.”
Liv doesn’t answer.
She looks toward the window.
“It’s a nice day.” A beat. “Why don’t we take her to the park? Since you’re off.”
She didn’t say no.
I smile. “I like that idea.”
I get the stroller from the hall closet and unfold it. Liv lifts Iris from the bouncer and lays her on the couch. The snowsuit goes on in stages.
One arm. Iris pulls it back out. Liv tickles her ribs, Iris shrieks, and while she’s distracted, Liv gets the arm back in.
Then the other.
The legs are harder...One arm. Iris pulls it back out. Liv tickles her ribs, Iris shrieks, and while she’s distracted, Liv gets the arm back in. Then the other.
The legs are harder. Iris twists, trying to roll over. Liv holds her steady with one hand, works the fabric over a kicking foot with the other. When the zipper finally closes, Liv taps Iris’s nose. “Done. You’re welcome.”
I take my jacket from the hook by the door, hand Liv hers and we’re out the door.
The morning is clear and sunny. We take the long way around, down through the south end of the park where the path widens. Iris watches the bare trees the way she watches ceiling fans, with total focus.
Neither of us is talking.
That’s not unusual. We’ve done this before — the early walks when Iris wouldn’t settle, both of us too tired for words.
This is different.
I know it. I think Liv knows it.
We’re coming back through the main path when an older woman stops ahead of us. She has the look of someone who has been stopping to admire babies for fifty years and sees no reason to break the habit.
“Oh, she’s beautiful.” She leans in slightly toward the stroller. “How old?”
“Four months,” Liv says.
The woman studies Iris, then Liv, then me.
Then Iris again.
“She looks like both of you.” A warm smile. “What a lovely family.”
Liv’s hand tightens on the stroller handle. “We get that a lot.”
The woman beams and moves on.
I turn to Liv.
Her eyes stay on the path ahead. On Iris. On anywhere that isn’t me. I know this version of her. The one who goes quiet when things move faster than she is ready for.
We keep walking. Ten steps. Fifteen.
Liv looks down at Iris. “She looks like both of us?”
I don’t know if she’s asking me or the air. I don’t answer. The path curves back toward the building. Iris is still watching the trees, completely untroubled.
We reach the building. I hold the door and step aside. Liv wheels the stroller through.
As she passes, I put my hand on her lower back.
Her breathing changes — just for a second — then evens out. She keeps walking.
I drop my hand. “Almost there.”
She stops. Turns halfway. Looks at me for the first time since the park. I can’t read her face. It's somewhere between don’t push and keep going.
I follow her to the elevator. The doors open. We step inside.
Liv looks at me. “She’s going to wake up the second we get upstairs.”
There’s the smallest smile at the corner of her mouth. Her voice is light, almost teasing.
“Probably,” I say.
The elevator doors close.
She’s still looking at me.