Invisible String

50

The next morning started off… weirdly calm.

I woke up with Baylor still snoozing in the bassinet beside the bed, his tiny chest rising and falling like nothing in the world could bother him. Mira was asleep in the crib in the corner, thumb in her mouth, one foot kicked through the bars. And somehow, despite all odds, I felt a tiny bit human again.

My body still ached—like I’d been through a car crash and then ran a marathon—but I could move. I could breathe. And for now, both babies were quiet.

When I made my way into the kitchen, I didn’t expect the smell of pancakes, or Travis standing there with Mira strapped to his chest in the carrier, flipping flapjacks one-handed while Lily stirred something in a mixing bowl beside him.

“Morning,” I mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

“Hey,” Travis said, grinning at me over his shoulder. “You got more than three hours of sleep. That’s basically a spa day.”

I snorted and leaned against the counter, watching Mira drool on his shirt while Lily proudly held up a bowl of chocolate chips. “She insisted we make ‘special pancakes,’” Travis explained.

Before I could respond, Kylie waddled in—eight months pregnant and over it—wearing one of Jason’s shirts and holding a giant bowl of cereal. “Okay,” she announced, “still pregnant, which is shocking, considering the way this kid karate-kicked my bladder all night.”

“You’re really holding out on us, huh?” I teased, settling into a kitchen chair.

“If I go into labor in this house full of newborns and toddlers, I might actually run away,” she deadpanned.

“You’re too pregnant to run,” Travis added helpfully.

“Which is exactly why you two are on baby duty for the next twelve hours.” She plopped into the chair across from me with a dramatic sigh.

I smiled, more genuinely than I had in a while. It still felt like everything could fall apart at any second—but this morning? With pancakes, puff crumbs, a husband who remembered how I took my juice, and a sister-in-law who never made me feel like a burden?

It felt like maybe we were gonna be okay.

I leaned against the doorway of the bathroom, towel in one hand, my body still stiff and sore in all the places no one warns you about. Travis was on the bed burping Baylor, Mira curled next to him like she belonged there—which, of course, she did.

“I think I’m gonna take a shower,” I said, trying to sound casual even though the idea of standing upright for more than five minutes felt a little ambitious.

Travis looked up immediately. “Yeah? You want me to get the water going?”

I nodded, then hesitated. “Can you maybe… help me in there? Just in case?”

He shifted Baylor to his other shoulder and tilted his head. “Of course. You feeling dizzy?”

“No, not really,” I said, stepping closer. “I should be fine. I just… you know. Just in case. I promise there isn’t as much blood as last time.”

Travis grimaced but gave me that soft half-smile I knew so well. “Good to know. Not that the last time scarred me or anything.”

I smirked, even as my cheeks flushed. “Hey, you married me. You signed up for all of it—delivery room trauma, postpartum diapers, mysterious tears in the closet.”

He stood up, still holding Baylor against his chest. “And I’d sign up again. Now give me two minutes to hand off this little guy to Aunt Kylie and I’m all yours.”