It’s almost comical. We wanted a baby more than life itself. When life gave us this beautiful girl, healthy and full of life, and after all we went through to conceive Aspen, Emma completely checked out. She claims it’s because she almost died during childbirth. I sometimes wonder if she blames Aspen for her predicament. We fought so fucking hard for this baby. My sympathy toward my wife teeter-totters from full-blown compassion to absolute blinding rage.

The drugs during the in vitro process made Emma a little hormonal, and at times, a bit unstable. Financially, we struggled. It was more expensive than we thought, and even with the partnership and bonuses, we had to make sacrifices.

I have thought of very little but the recovery of my wife. And with thoughts of Emma come the difficulty of determining the best option. Committing her to a facility will make her buck more than a stallion in captivity. No, she needs to feel as though she has a choice in something that has such an impact on her. Using that reasoning, I decide we will send her to the facility in LA. I want Ems to know I trust her. I can never force anything on her; that is not how she works.

“Tyler?” Emma calls weakly from her bed. “You awake?” I pop my head up. I’m too full of anxiety, dread, and about a thousand other emotions to sleep. I can’t leave her. No, it is more like I won’t leave her.

“Ems? Yeah, baby, I’m here.”

“What is wrong with me?” she asks. She has asked these same questions over the past several months. Being a single parent is tiring. It is all I can do to hold it together for my daughter, but caring for Emma, too, on top of this, has me exhausted. I want our old life back, my old wife back.

“Ems, we are going to get you help.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

Turning from the chair I was certainly not sleeping in to face her, I try not to let the strain show in my face. She doesn’t need to worry about me or if I’m mad at her. “You are borrowing trouble for another day, baby. We can work on this together.”

“But I don’t like the baby, let alone love her as a mother should. I don’t like feeling like this. Why can’t I love our baby? If I could will myself …”

I stop her. “It isn’t Aspen.”

“I was so scared at that moment, but after today, after learning about Rose and her baby, how could I carry on living with a healthy baby I don’t love?”

“You are ill, baby. That is all. You know how you lose your appetite when you’re sick? This is the same thing. We will get you healed, and then your appetite will be back.”

She laughs at me. “That is the stupidest fucking analogy I have ever heard in my life.” Ah, there is a little bit of my Emma. I see a flicker of sparkle return to her eyes with her sass, and it makes me chuckle.

“Sorry. I’m trying, baby.” I smile.

“I know, and I love you for that.” My body stills; that is the first time she has said those words to me. Hearing I love you from my Ems makes me as giddy as a schoolboy. It’s not lost. This is a start, and we can build from it.

I pull the chair to the side of the bed. “But, Ems, you have to promise me you will never pull something like that again. Too many people love you, babe. Don’t ever make me hate you by taking your life.”

“Why are you still so good to me after what I have put you through?”

Lifting her face, I want her to visualize my words as they leave my mouth. “I will always fight for you,” I say when her eyes water. “Do you know why?” When she shakes her head, I simply say, “Because my life doesn’t work without you in it.”

The grief of what she’s been through breaks when tears fall down her face, and they don’t stop. “This is what I signed up for, and I’m with you till the end. And that fucking better be fifty years from now, you hear me?” I watch her faint little smile as she drifts off to sleep. Feeling the enormity of this situation and as though I have failed my two girls, I lay my head on her bed, holding her hands, and fall asleep in peace next to my wife.

* * *

We receive the all clear from the fire department to enter the house. Lila and Jones volunteered to take Aspen for the night. I don’t want to walk back into my house, not when Ems almost died in there, but Aspen needs the stability of her home. After Annette begged me to go home for the night, I pulled into my driveway at one in the morning and walked into the house to the most precious sight. My home should be a disaster with dishes strewn everywhere and Aspen screaming. However, this is not what I see when I walk in. The house is clean, almost spotless, and Aspen is asleep in her Pack ’n Play while Jones is sprawled out on the couch and Lila is curled up on the loveseat. I have a spare room, and Aspen has her nursery, but this is how I find everyone. For the first time in twenty-four hours, a peace washes over me. Aspen is just stirring, and though I know she’ll go back to sleep if I leave her alone, I need to feel my baby in my arms.

Listening to mine and Emma’s favorite group, Van Morrison, I sit with Aspen on my lap on the bed Emma and I shared at one time. After the birth and depression turned her into a manic up and down yo-yo for the first month, Emma moved to the guest room, claiming she was no longer able to sleep next to me. I didn’t push. The more I’d push her, the further she’d turn away from me. However, when I didn’t challenge her, she became withdrawn. When I found her after the first day I returned to work crumpled on the floor while Aspen was crying in a dirty diaper she’d been in for hours, I knew she couldn’t even care for our baby.

Aspen has cuddled up next to me, and I’m almost asleep when a light knock on the door brings me back to the present. I can tell Aspen is tired by the way her fingers find their way to her mouth and the other hand rubs her little ear. I know my daughter so well and hate that my own wife and soul mate doesn’t. Propping pillows on either side of her, I gently tiptoe to the door and see Lila.

“You have Aspen?” she asks, concerned.

“Yes, she was awake, and you all looked too tired. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Holy shit, you really did. Anyway, you want me to go put her in her crib?”

“No, I’m just sitting here watching her sleep. She looks so peaceful and so much like Ems.”

“She really does, and, Ty, she’s such a sweet baby. I have fallen in love with her.”

“It’s easy to do,” I say, wondering why my own wife, Aspen’s own mother, can’t feel the same way.

“Um, Jones and I are heading to the hospital to see Rose and then Ems first thing in the morning. I don’t want to wake Jones now.”

“No, please don’t, but you all would probably be more comfortable in the guest room.” After saying goodnight to Lila, I crawl back into bed with my baby. My thoughts are strictly on Aspen. Emma’s issues will still be here when I wake up.