Carter listened—actually listened—his attention fixed on my face as I walked through differential possibilities. “Five weeks. Girl. No fever, but some spitting up after feeds. She’s breastfed exclusively.”
“Could be reflux,” I said. “Could be a structural issue with the palate or tongue. Could be an allergy, though that usually presents earlier.” I paused, sorting through the possibilities. “Any chance I could take a look at her? Even if it’s just to confirm what’s going on?”
The question was out before I’d thought about its implications—the assumption that I’d be here long enough to seethis through, that I had something to offer besides questions and theories.
Carter’s face lit up. “That would be amazing. They’re pretty worried. I could take you over, if you’re up for it.”
The awkwardness in my chest cracked open a little—a door not quite opening, but no longer fully closed either.
Macon said nothing throughout this exchange, his silence clearly his natural state rather than hostility. He nodded once when I caught his eye—acknowledgment rather than agreement—then turned his attention back to the middle distance.
I was in the middle of suggesting some immediate interventions for the family when the kitchen door opened and Decker stepped in, bringing with him the smell of cold air and honest work. He stopped just inside the doorway, eyes doing a quick read of the room—Burke’s loud voice, Danny’s quiet attention, Carter’s focused engagement, Macon’s steady presence.
His eyes found mine across the space and held for a beat—not relief, just registering it, the way a person looks when something they were quietly worried about has resolved itself. No questions about whether I’d slept or how my ribs felt or if I was planning to run. Just the simple acknowledgment that I was here, still here, and apparently settling in.
I looked away first.
* * * *
The afternoon hit me the way the aftermath always does—the adrenaline fully gone, nothing left underneath it but the full inventory of what’s missing. I’d spent the morning in a kind of suspended animation, moving through conversations and coffee and introductions without fully inhabiting my body.
Now it all caught up at once—my apartment, my job, six months of my grandfather’s kitchen and his voice, the comfort of being useful to someone who needed me. The version of my life that had existed before it was taken from me.
I didn’t cry. Crying was for people who still had the luxury of breaking down—people with somewhere safe to fall apart, someone waiting to catch them. I’d left that option behind in Nebraska, along with everything else.
Instead, I took my second cup of coffee out to the east-facing porch steps and sat down, the wooden planks cold through the seat of my jeans. The mountain—Black Butte—cut the horizon to the west, enormous and indifferent, its slopes still carrying patches of snow that caught the afternoon light.
Now, sitting on the steps with cold coffee between my hands, I did the thing I’d learned in the NICU when a shift went bad: I inventoried what was still functional.
I am alive.
My ribs hurt, but nothing is broken that won’t heal.
I have a place to sleep tonight.
My nursing license is still valid.
My hands still work.
My grandfather is safe.
I am not in Nebraska.
The coffee in my cup has gone cold.
The mountain is still there.
I went through it methodically, the way I would go through a patient chart—each line item a data point, none of them more important than the others. By the end of it, I was still sitting on the steps and the mountain was still there and the coffee had gone cold in my hands.
The front door opened behind me. I didn’t turn—my body recognizing the timing of the footsteps before my brain had processed who they belonged to.
Decker came down the porch steps and sat near me—not close enough to crowd, not far enough to signal indifference. Two steps away, close enough that conversation wouldn’t require raised voices, far enough that our shoulders wouldn’t touch if we both leaned the same way.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask how I was doing or if I needed anything or what I was thinking about. Just sat with his forearms resting on his knees, watching the same piece of horizon I’d been staring at.
We stayed like that without talking, long enough that the silence stopped feeling like something that needed to be filled. In the NICU, I’d learned that the most useful thing you could sometimes offer was just presence—the simple acknowledgment that someone wasn’t alone with whatever was happening. Decker seemed to understand that without being told.
Eventually, he said, “You don’t have to have a plan yet.”
