I clawed my way back to the sound of my husband’s voice in my ear: “Stay with me, Julia.

I can’t do this without you.”

When I woke, Ryan’s face was wrecked—red-eyed, ten years older. “She’s here,” he whispered. “She’s perfect.” A nurse placed our daughter, Lily, in my arms. Seven pounds, two ounces, impossibly whole. I asked if he wanted to hold her. He nodded, took her carefully, and then something in his expression shifted—joy into a shadow I couldn’t name. He handed her back too fast. “She’s beautiful,” he said, but his voice felt borrowed.

I blamed exhaustion. We both had been through hell. But at home it only deepened. He fed her and changed her without ever really looking at her—his gaze hovered just above her face like he was afraid to meet it. When I tried to take those sweet newborn photos, he found reasons to leave the room. Around week two