Page 53 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I know this.

I absolutely know this.

I live with this child. I have counted her pee diapers like a deranged little accountant. And yet when the question arrives in this clean, clinical room, all I can think is duck sleeper, formula on the second shelf, don’t let her head wobble weird, don’t say something stupid.

“Plenty,” Julian says. “Usually six or more. Stool’s normal too.”

The nurse nods and writes that down while I die a little. When she finally leaves us in the exam room to wait for the pediatrician, I turn to Julian and hiss, “You absolutely cannot keep making me look like I don’t know basic shit about my own daughter.”

He’s standing by the exam table with Mila against his shoulder, patting her back in that absent, competent way that makes everything in me feel complicated. He glances over with one brow up. “You did know it.”

“I froze.”

“Yeah,” he says mildly. “I noticed.”

“That was not supportive.”

He grins. “You want supportive or honest? Because those are different services with different rates.”

Before I can answer, Mila makes a small, offended sound and squirms against him. He adjusts her automatically, one hand cradling the back of her head, and I have the extremely inconvenient thought that he looks too right doing this. Warm. Solid. Built for it in some way that hits me straight in the chest every time. I look away fast enough that my neck twinges.

The pediatrician knocks once and comes in with the kind of brisk, practiced energy I usually find reassuring in adults. Today, it just makes me sit straighter. She’s probably in her forties, maybe a little older, with laugh lines around her eyes and a stethoscope draped around her neck. She introduces herself as Dr. Peters, smiles at Mila, and then smiles at us in a way that instantly tells me she’s seen every possible version of new-parent panic and nothing I do today will even crack her top ten.

“Let’s see this girl,” she says, washing her hands. “How have things been going at home?”

This feels like a trick. Everything feels like a trick.

“She’s good,” I say too quickly. “I mean, I think she’s good. She eats. Sleeps. Cries normal amounts, I guess? Unless there’s a number where it becomes abnormal, and then maybe I need that number because sometimes she seems very committed to the bit.”

Dr. Peters glances at Julian, and Julian, the bastard, actually bites the inside of his cheek to hide a smile.

“She sounds like a two-month-old,” she says kindly. “That’s usually a good sign.”

Then she starts the exam, and I discover I am much worse at this than previously advertised.

I can handle the stethoscope part. Barely. Mila flinches at the cold metal, but the doctor murmurs to her and checks her heart, lungs, and belly with calm efficiency. Then she checks Mila’s hips and eyes and little reflexes, and every tiny reaction makes me feel like I’m holding my own breath waiting for approval.

“What does that mean?” I ask the first time she frowns slightly in concentration.

“It means I’m checking her range of motion.”

“No, I know, but what does the face mean?”

Dr. Peters blinks once and then smiles. “The face means I’m thinking while I do my job. Mila looks healthy, her weight is solid, her tone is good, and her reflexes are appropriate. She’s doing exactly what she should be doing at this age.”

Relief hits me so hard I have to brace one hand on the exam table.

Then she says, “Since she’s a little over two months old, she’ll get her first round of shots today—”

“What?”

The word flies out of me before I can stop it.

The doctor pauses. Julian closes his eyes for one second like he knows exactly what’s coming.

“Today?” I repeat, staring at her.

She nods with the kind of patience usually reserved for unstable people and concussed athletes. “Yes. Two-month vaccines are part of the standard schedule.”