Peace did not arrive like sunlight.
It arrived like routine.
Ethan began showing up exactly when scheduled. He washed his hands without being told. He no longer reached for papers on my table or tried to rearrange logistics from my living room. He asked before touching things. He learned the difference between a sleepy whine and a hungry cry. He got spit up on one dark blue shirt and didn’t even seem to notice until Maya pointed it out and laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Mrs. Gable adapted too. She stopped saying little master. She stopped reporting side observations to anyone, at least as far as I could tell. Mostly she folded laundry, sterilized bottles, and made sure I ate lunch before two in the afternoon.
Carol stayed away.
Robert didn’t.
He never came unannounced. He never pushed.
Instead, once every couple of weeks, a delivery would arrive: homemade stew, a small bag of pears, a set of soft washcloths, a knitted blanket that was clearly too simple to have been chosen by Carol. No grand note. Sometimes just a card that read, For the baby.
I never thanked him extravagantly.
But I did text: Received. Thank you.
It felt important not to make war out of every gesture.