Chapter 5 - A Father for Two Hours
“You moved $3,600 without telling me, and I'm too emotional to ask why?”
Derek stood across from me in Carol's kitchen, looking as though I had accused him of stealing from strangers.
“It's savings, Hope.”
“Then why didn't we discuss it?”
“Because every conversation lately turns into an interrogation.”
I wanted to tell him that ordinary questions only felt like interrogations when someone refused to answer them.
Instead, I opened my notebook.
“I'm asking about money because you keep saying we can't afford help.”
“We can't afford to hire somebody every time you feel overwhelmed.”
I held up my cast.
“This isn't a feeling.”
His eyes briefly dropped to my arm.
Then he looked away.
That was becoming familiar.
Derek could look at our mortgage payment.
Our grocery bill.
His work calendar.
But he couldn't look at the physical evidence of what I was carrying.
“Here's what I need,” I said.
I slid a handwritten page toward him.
Two supervised visits with the twins that week.
A commitment to learn their evening routine.
A shared plan for caregiving once I could return home safely.
And an honest discussion about paid leave.
Derek read the page.
“You're giving me assignments?”
“I'm giving you an opportunity to participate.”
He laughed without humor.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes. For the first time in weeks.”
He pushed the page aside.
“I'll spend time with my sons. But I'm not signing some ridiculous parenting contract.”
“You don't have to sign it.”
“Good.”
“But I won't change our living arrangement until there's dependable help.”
That was when his expression changed.
“You're serious about staying here?”
“Until it's safe to go home.”
He looked toward the living room.
Miles was lying on a play mat beside Frank, kicking at a hanging yellow toy.
Luke was watching his brother with enormous, curious eyes.
“They're forgetting me,” Derek said suddenly.
I hadn't expected that.
It was the first time he'd sounded genuinely frightened.
“They're five months old,” I replied. “They need you to keep showing up.”
Derek swallowed.
“Everyone thinks I'm a terrible father.”
“Then show them something different.”
He stared at the boys.
After a long silence, he agreed to stay for two hours.
Priya remained nearby in case he needed help.
I sat in the adjoining room, answering work emails while keeping the door open.
For the first fifteen minutes, everything went well.
Derek sat beside Miles and shook a rattle.
Miles smiled.
Derek smiled back.
Then Luke began crying.
Derek immediately looked toward the kitchen.
“Hope?”
I didn't move.
“You can check his diaper,” I called.
He looked offended.
“I'm just asking what he needs.”
“That's how you find out.”
He hesitated, then carefully picked Luke up.
My chest tightened.
He supported Luke's head and carried him to the changing table.
It wasn't graceful.
He fumbled with the snaps on the sleeper and used three wipes where one would have worked.
But he did it.
He changed his son's diaper.
Then he prepared a bottle from the instructions Priya had left on the counter.
Twenty minutes later, Luke was asleep in his arms.
I watched Derek look down at him.
Something softened in his face.
For a moment, I saw the man who had cried when our sons were born.
The man who had kissed my forehead and whispered, “We did it.”
I wanted that man back.
But wanting him back wasn't enough.
After his visit, Derek sat beside me on the couch.
“See?” he said. “I can handle them.”
“I know you can.”
“Then why are you acting like I can't?”
I looked at him.
“Because until today, you kept refusing.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“They're so little.”
I waited.
He glanced toward the nursery.
“Sometimes when they cry, I can't tell what they need. I worry I'll do something wrong.”
It was the closest he'd come to admitting fear.
“Everybody worries,” I said. “I worried constantly when they were born.”
“You always seemed to know what to do.”
“I didn't. I learned because there was nobody else to hand them to.”
He looked down.
For one hopeful moment, I thought he understood.
Then he said, “Maybe you could just tell me exactly what to do until your arm heals.”
I felt the familiar weight settling back onto my shoulders.
Even when he agreed to help, he wanted me to manage every movement.
“Derek, I can show you their routine. But I cannot be responsible for remembering everything for both of us.”
He stood abruptly.
“Nothing is ever simple with you anymore.”
He left fifteen minutes before his agreed visit ended.
That evening, Frank found me sitting alone with the household budget.
He placed a small silver watch on the table.
Its leather strap was worn.
“I gave Derek this when the twins were born,” he said.
I recognized it.
Derek rarely wore it.
Frank turned it over.
On the back were three engraved words.
TIME IS GIVEN.
“I thought I was giving him advice,” Frank said. “Maybe I was trying to apologize for my own mistakes.”
He closed his fingers around it.
“I can't make him understand what matters. But I can stop excusing him.”
After Frank went upstairs, I returned to the shared household folder.
I wanted to prepare a revised budget that included temporary childcare.
While searching for an older spreadsheet, I noticed another file.
It had been saved six weeks before my accident.
Household Transition — Working Draft.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw my name in the preview.
I opened the spreadsheet.
There were columns for mortgage payments, food, insurance, and childcare.
And halfway down the page was a row labeled:
HOPE — EXPECTED EMPLOYMENT END DATE.
Beside it, Derek had entered June 1.
I stared at the screen.
I hadn't requested a leave of absence.
I hadn't applied for another job.
May you like
And I certainly hadn't agreed to resign.
Yet my husband had already entered the date he expected my career to end.
