The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 191

Chapter 172: New Normal-1

Bella POV

Weeks later, I found a rhythm. Caleb had told James to clear his schedule for weeks the day we brought Grace home.

James had complied without a single question, which said everything about how well he read the room. Caleb then proceeded to become the most committed primary caregiver I had ever witnessed-and I had seen Maya with Tom, which had previously held the record.

He was up at five with Grace. He had the morning feed, the diaper, the swaddle, and the settling sorted before I was even fully awake. He handled it simply like a man who had decided this was his job and was doing it thoroughly.

It was a strange, quiet domesticity. The man who could command boardrooms was now obsessing over the perfect swaddle tension and the precise temperature of a bottle, moving through the house with a sleeping infant against his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Watching him with her-and watching Tom shadow his every move, helping with the diaper bag or explaining dinosaur hierarchy to a sleeping baby.

I watched him from the bedroom doorway one morning at five-thirty. Caleb had Grace in one arm while heating a bottle with the other. Tom had appeared behind him in dinosaur pajamas, firing off the kind of questions no one should have to answer before dawn, and Caleb was answering every single one of them.

“But why does she cry when she’s hungry?” Tom was asking. “She knows we’re going to feed her. We always feed her.”

“She doesn’t know that yet,” Caleb said, testing the bottle temperature against his wrist without looking up. “She hasn’t learned that part.”

“How long does it take to learn?”

“A few months.”

Tom considered. “That’s a long time to not know something.”

“It is,” Caleb agreed.

“We should tell her.” Tom looked at Grace with complete sincerity. “Grace. We’re always going to feed you, you don’t have to cry about it.”

Grace looked at him with her profound unfocused expression and made a small sound.

“She heard me,” Tom said.

“She did,” Caleb said, and handed him the bottle. “Hold this a second.”

Tom held it with both hands. “Dad.”

“Mm.”

Chapter 122 Mew Normal 1

“When she’s bigger, can she come to school with me?”

“She’ll go to her own school.”

“But can she come to mine first? Just to see it?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Okay,” he said. “But I think she’d like it.”

“I think she probably would,” Caleb said, and took the bottle back.

I stood there and felt the specific warmth of a life that had turned out better than the version I’d been willing to hope for.

Claim

I went back to work at week seven. Caleb had not objected to this. He had, however, had a conversation about it that I suspected he had rehearsed.

“Part-time,” he said, the evening before I resumed. “From the house.”

“I know.”

“Not full days.”

“Caleb”

“I’m not telling you what to do,” he said, with the careful tone of a man who was aware of exactly where the line was and was trying to stay on the right side of it. “I’m asking. As someone who will be here and who will notice if you run yourself into the ground before Grace is three months old.”

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