Page 57 of His Holy Chaos

They go back to work.

At two in the morning, Angel wakes.

I hear her through the monitor before Jude does. I'm on my feet before I fully register moving.

And then I hear Jude's chair scrape back.

"I've got her," I call down.

"Let me…"

"Work. I've got her."

But the way he was fully intending to go get my baby and help her sleep again, even when it isn't his job, even without being asked…

I realize I might be in love.

Chapter 26. Ford

Friday is perfect until it isn't.

The morning unfolds like every morning that week. Mom arrives with her canvas bags and her cardigan. Friday is burgundy, embroidered with small owls. Angel eats her breakfast with more enthusiasm than accuracy, and Jude sleeps until ten because his shift doesn't end until four and I physically barred him from setting an alarm. I cancel choir with an excuse because I don't want to leave him, and I don't have the heart to wake him. Mr. Terrier, a man in his eighties, is usually my substitute when I can't go, so they'll be fine. Jude stumbles downstairs at ten fifteen with pillow creases on his cheek, and Martha slides a plate of eggs in front of him without comment. He thanks her with a grin and eats all of it. Marianne is there to help with Angel.

By noon, the house has settled into its rhythm. Angel napping, Martha gone for the day with a kiss and a casserole. She leaves early, church meeting on Fridays. Jude is on the couch with his laptop, watching funny videos. I'm at the kitchen island reviewing contracts.

At one thirty, I make lunch. Nothing elaborate. Just sandwiches, cut fruit, the last of Martha's soup from Wednesday. I bring Jude's to the couch on a tray, and he takes it with that look he gives me sometimes: the one that's half gratitude and half something wounded, like kindness is a language he's still learning to trust.

"Thank you, Daddy," he says, quiet, almost absent, already looking back at his screen.

"Eat all of it."

"Yes, sir."

He eats all of it. No bratty comment back. Which is strange.

Angel wakes at two, and Jude takes her while I finish the contracts. I hear them in the living room, his voice narrating everything he does like a nature documentary. And now the baby approaches the block tower. She studies it. She calculates the optimal angle of destruction. And… yes! Total devastation. The crowd goes wild. Angel shrieks with laughter. I sign a document worth four million dollars and I'm thinking about block towers.

At three fifteen, I close my laptop and go to relieve him so he can nap before his shift. The living room is a disaster. Blocks everywhere, a blanket fort that's collapsed into a soft mountain, a trail of animal crackers leading from the couch to the window like breadcrumbs in a very low-stakes fairy tale. Angel is on the floor, gnawing on a rubber giraffe with the focus of a jeweler appraising a diamond. Teretha is with her.

Jude is not on the couch.

His laptop is there, open, the screen dark, the cursor blinking on a half-typed message to Alfie. His shoes are by the door. He hasn't left. But he's not here.

"Jude?" I call.

No answer.

I check the kitchen. The dining room. The back porch, where he sometimes sits with his legs pulled up to his chest, staring at the yard. Empty. All of it.

I go upstairs.

The guest room door is closed. Not unusual. He closes it when he naps, blocks the light with one of my throw pillows over his face. But I hear something.

Crying.

I open the door very slowly.

He's on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest, his face buried in his arms. He's wearing my sweatshirt, the sleeves pulled over his hands so only his fingers are visible, curled white-knuckled into the fabric. His shoulders are shaking. Not dramatically. Small, tight tremors, controlled and suppressed. The crying of a person who learned early that if you make noise, someone will hear you, and if someone hears you, it gets worse.