Six months after our divorce, my ex-husband showed up at my door with his fiancée and a wedding invitation in hand—but the second he saw the newborn in my arms, all the color drained from his face, and the perfect life he thought he’d built started falling apart right in front of me.

I nodded slowly.

Reasonable. Documented. Impossible to paint as unstable.

That became the rhythm in my head.

By the time the call ended, my coffee table was covered in forms, discharge papers, appointment cards, receipts, and a spiral notebook Maya had found in my junk drawer.

Across the front, in thick black marker, she wrote:

LEO — DAILY CARE LOG

The first entry read:

6:10 a.m. — fed 55 ml
6:45 a.m. — diaper wet
7:00 a.m. — temperature normal
7:15 a.m. — jaundice appears slightly improved in natural light

I stared at my own handwriting.

It looked absurdly small and tidy beside the enormity of what it was trying to hold together.

But I kept writing.

Because when you are trying to protect a child, the tiniest facts become bricks.

That night, at 10:43 p.m., Ethan texted.

We should combine the pediatric follow-up and paternity test. Efficiency matters.

I read it twice, then handed the phone to Maya.

She made a face. “He texts like a man billing by the hour.”

I typed carefully.