Page 207 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

“Promise?”

I sit on the edge of his bed. Promises are dangerous things. Pilots know that. Engineers know that. Widowers know it best.

But he’s five.

And I’m his father. “Promise.”

He yawns. “Don’t be sad, Daddy.”

I go still.

Children shouldn’t have to notice their parents’ grief. They shouldn’t learn the shape of it, shouldn’t recognize its footsteps in a room. Oliver has known too much loss by proximity, too much quiet, too many adults lowering their voices as if volume could keep pain from entering.

I smooth his hair back. “I’m all right.”

He gives me a look that’s so Megan’s that for one terrible second, I can’t breathe.

“No, you’re not,” he whispers.

Then he falls asleep.

I sit there long after his breathing evens out.

Captain settles by the door with his chin on his paws, watching me. The room is dim except for the night light on Oliver’s dresser. It throws a soft blue glow over the walls, over the shelves lined with model aircraft, over the photographs I sometimes still can’t look at for too long.

Megan holding Oliver as a baby. Megan in a flight jacket, laughing into the wind. Megan with her hand on the side of an aircraft, head turned toward me, smiling as if the sky belonged to her.

My phone vibrates in my pocket.

I ignore it.

It vibrates again.

Then again.

Work doesn’t care about personal catastrophe. Code doesn’t pause because a woman fainted. Investors don’t soften because a test came back positive. Sabotage doesn’t become less urgent because my life has detonated in a hospital room.

I take the phone out.

Sara: Board wants a private call first thing. Press asking why you left before remarks.

Jeffrey: Demo team found another anomaly in the patch behavior. Call me when you can.

Sara: Bryce was seen speaking to two reporters before he left. I’m trying to contain it.

Jeffrey: Seriously, Ethan. This isn’t right.

I stare at the screen until the words blur.

This isn’t right.

No. None of it is.

I stand, leave Oliver’s room, and walk to my office because motion is easier than thought. Captain follows.

The apartment feels different without Addy in it. Her absence is loud. It presses against the walls, against the kitchen island where she left a mug this morning, against the folded throw on the couch, against the ridiculous warmth she has somehow threaded into every sterile, expensive corner of my home.

I should go back.