REBECCA WAS LEAVING him with the baby. After five months, it was surely time that she went out for an evening with friends, yet despite reassurances that he’d be fine – “The main thing is to put her down by eight, and maybe give her a bath” – Ethan was still nervous. He just hoped he’d steeled himself more than other times; Rebecca was always reassuring him. And Ethan really did want her to have a good time. Seeing her standing at the door of their apartment with her auburn hair looking luminous and her makeup done just so, he was reminded of their first dates. Somehow, he was more nervous than he was back then.

“You don’t want Lacey’s number? In case you can’t reach my cell?”

Rebecca looked at him with a mixture of concern and appreciation. In four years of marriage, it was probably the fiftieth time she’d done so.

“No, that’s fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” Rebecca’s phone dinged. “Alyssa’s in the lobby. We’ll be at Lacey’s for supper and then we’ll see . . . there’s this band at Bud’s on Broadway. If we go, I’ll be back around midnight.”

“Got it,” Ethan said.

Again, Rebecca looked at him. Him and their baby. Sierra. For a moment, Ethan had almost forgotten he was holding her. Rebecca smiled, lips covered with a hint of red lipstick, grey eyes wide in amusement. She leaned in and kissed Sierra on the cheek, gave her little arm a shake. When she gave Ethan a kiss, he thought they should have been lit under a spotlight as a picture of domestic bliss, a perfect triumvirate.

“You two have fun now. But not too much fun.” There it was, that mix of firmness and jest, the main tool in the nurse’s toolkit.

“I’ll do my best.”

“You say it like it’s a test.”

“Isn’t it?” he said with a wry smile.

Rebecca, hand on the doorknob, shook her head. “Oh, Ethan.”

---

HALF AN HOUR HAD PASSED since Rebecca left. Ethan had closed the curtains in the living room, drawn the shades in the bedrooms. In mid-October the sun set as most people were sitting down for supper, and while Ethan had always enjoyed fall, the first couple weeks of this one were different. Encroaching dark, crisp, frost-stricken air, tawny yellow leaves crunching on sidewalks, black-limbed poplars planted in boulevards spearing the sky, all of it suggested an end. He was a dad now. He still struggled to believe it, but it was true. Each day as he drove home from the strip mall where he worked as an insurance agent things got a little darker, and there was a child waiting for him.

But today was Saturday and Ethan was alone with his daughter, wriggling on a Minions rug in a purple striped onesie. He got up from his leather chair and carried his plate and glass to the kitchen sink. Now it was time to feed Sierra. Ethan glanced at her, watching him with those big, curious eyes. Green like his own, yet they had a piercing quality like Rebecca’s. Sierra was relatively quiet, but when she cried, she really wailed. Sometimes it seemed like the screams would perforate his eardrum.

The phone rang and Ethan picked it up, thinking that Rebecca had forgotten something. Nobody responded. Thirty seconds later, he was warming a bottle of breast milk when it rang again. Again, nobody spoke. He slammed the cordless phone down, gave the bottle a vigorous shake. “Can you believe that? I don’t know why we have this set anyway.”

Sierra made a soft grumbling sound. She wouldn’t speak to him either.

Sensing his own annoyance, Ethan took a deep breath.

He walked over with the bottle and knelt down. Sierra was on her stomach with her arms stretched out. How to describe her face? A baby’s face, innocent, pudgy, dimples on each cheek. Still toothless and her skin was smoother than any he’d touched before. There was a small curlicue of brown hair on her head, less than the hair Rebecca left in the shower. He wished that instead of looking at him slack-jawed, she’d smile. In five months, she’d only smiled at him three times, while he’d only quieted her crying twice, both times requiring the assistance of a stuffed rabbit.

Ethan stuck his finger out, hoping she’d grab it, but she didn’t. She gazed at him. Studied him. Who are you? In return, he wondered the same. Where did she come from? How did she get here? He knew the answers to these questions, but that didn’t make her any less strange.

“Hey Sierra. Can you roll over for Daddy?”

Moments earlier it seemed like she was working herself up to this milestone, a purple creature squirming on the sand-coloured rug, but now she kicked her feet and raised her head, cocked as if his voice was nonsense. Maybe it was. Engaging in baby-talk, even with no one here, made Ethan feel like a kindergarten teacher.

“Don’t want to now that Daddy’s watching?”

Sierra made a sound that sounded like “mmma.” Was she trying to say ‘mama?’

“Are you hungry? Do you want some milk?” Ethan held the bottle in front of her; she reached for it, eyes crossed, tongue protruding from mouth. “Alrighty,” he said, placing the bottle on the end table beside his chair. He picked her up and as he stepped back his foot bumped the coffee table that had been moved to make room for the rug. The table was pushed against the red and blue playpen. For some reason, one of Rebecca’s hoodies was draped over the playpen. Near his right foot, which had bumped the table, there was an orange ball with weird indentations on it, like craters of the moon. Sierra liked to squeeze and suck on this ball. It made a terrific squealing sound. Ethan kicked the ball and it ricocheted off the playpen towards the kitchen. Their cramped living room was overrun with infant paraphernalia – a car seat, stuffed animals, blocks, blankets – and the chaos often made Ethan want to scream himself.

Falling into the chair, Sierra cradled in his left arm, Ethan snorted out a breath like a bull.

Then Ethan looked at Sierra and the indignation drained from his body like pus from a sore. She gurgled and he began to feed her. He recognized that she was lovable. So what was wrong with him? He couldn’t say that he was unprepared. He and Rebecca had had discussions about children for a year, and while he wasn’t bouncing off the walls, he felt a muted sense of anticipation. And he was thirty-two. Fifty years ago most men were dads at twenty-two. There was a time when he thought his childhood interest in geography would translate into a life of backpacking through the Alps or even safaris in the Serengeti, but when he reached the age where he could do these things, he either didn’t have the time, funds, or nerve. Instead of adventuring himself, he insured other people’s adventures. But then he’d met Rebecca, life changed, they had traveled – mostly to the U.S., once to Italy and Greece – and he told himself he’d be happy if he never traveled again.

Sierra touched Ethan’s right hand with her tiny left hand. Fingers groped like claws of a blind kitten. Did she want to touch him, or was it simply a reflex, reaching for the bottle from which she greedily drank? They locked eyes and her face relaxed, mouth and cheeks moving in synchronized rhythm. Ethan wanted to stroke the smooth, delicate skin of her head, but couldn’t take his hand off the bottle.

He and Rebecca knew they were having a girl from twenty weeks on, and unlike some men, Ethan was not disappointed; though largely restrained, his joy burst through in bashful smiles and pacing around the apartment. Rebecca would call out in a teasing voice: “It’s okay to be excited, but we don’t want the neighbours to think we’re a herd of elephants. Why don’t you sit down?” When he did sit down, Rebecca would press his hand to her stomach, and he would feel their daughter kicking and punching as though she was a miniature martial arts instructor. No matter how many times he felt Rebecca’s stomach, he continued to be amazed, and slightly unnerved. Something growing inside of him would have freaked him out.

One evening, Rebecca pierced him with one of her loaded looks. “So, is she going to be Daddy’s little girl?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“Just wait,” she said with a tap of his chest. “There’s a very tender soul in here. I know, I’ve seen it.”

Ethan assumed that Rebecca would choose the name of their baby, so he was startled when she told him that he could choose the name. Startled and burdened with an awesome responsibility. “You sure? What if I pick a stupid name?” “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said. So he’d combed through websites, downloaded an app, thought about it at work, while driving, even in the shower. All rather cursory. Because in the back of his mind, for a long time, there’d already been a name. Sierra. Perhaps he’d first become aware of it in grade nine. There was a pretty girl a year older than him named Sierra. Or was it earlier, studying his atlas, coming across Sierra Nevada? Funny enough, as a belated honeymoon, Ethan and Rebecca had spent three weeks driving across the western United States, which included three glorious days in Yosemite National Park.

While hiking the Yosemite Falls Trail, in the heart of the Sierra Nevada, Ethan had been struck by an overwhelming emotion. As mist wafted over them, the scent of sequoias rode the breeze, and a meadowlark churned out a song, Ethan felt like he’d plunged forty fathoms down a chasm. His love for Rebecca was unconditional, he could never live without her. He’d voiced his love many times, but this was a new intensity; noon sun burst through the heavy cumulus clouds and its heat had only one target, one focus, in the whole primeval landscape.

Sweating through her blue shorts and Roughriders T-shirt, hair frazzled by humidity, Rebecca had gone on ahead, but then she stopped and looked back at him. “What is it?”

“Just . . . admiring the view.”

Clumsily, Ethan finally told Rebecca about this overwhelming emotion in the depths of her third trimester. Both of them were so moved that they could hardly look at each other. When they embraced in the kitchen, the name was decided.

The mountain was squirming again. The milk was gone. Ethan put down the bottle and was free to stroke Sierra’s head, yet he hesitated. She made a sharp sound of distress and grabbed his shirt. He scratched her chin with his index finger and she quieted, though a needy look remained on her face. “I know, I know.” His eyes turned to the TV, where a football game had been playing all this time, turned down low. He felt an invisible cord pulling him back into himself, even though he knew he should be focused on the life right here in his arms. He looked down. Smiled. She didn’t smile back. Seven o’clock and the only sounds in the apartment were the humming fridge, the muted voices on TV, the muted but needy sounds of Sierra.

The truth was that he had not bonded with his daughter, he did not feel an unconditional love for her. On the day Sierra was born, Ethan could not stop grinding his teeth and his jaw felt tingly. Maybe this was where it began, with a strange tic he couldn’t stop. Rebecca had been in the hospital for six days, was four days overdue, and her stomach was an ungodly sight. She was the one in the thick of it. While she confessed to some fear, as the fateful hour approached, Ethan couldn’t believe how well she was doing. Then again, she was a nurse. “I trust the doctors,” she said. “If I didn’t, I’d be in the wrong line of work.”

Ethan didn’t want to be in the room as the birth was happening, but he didn’t think he could say this without sounding weak. Amidst screaming and crying, a grip on his hand like someone clinging to a life raft, he ground his teeth together, shuttered his eyes, recoiled from a grisly memory. Two calves spilling out of a soon-to-be dead cow, covered in a film of mucus and blood. Lots and lots of blood. This was his uncle’s farm, and at age nine, Ethan’s first horror movie. “Ah shit!” his uncle had cried, “she’s cut bad, Ethan. Look at that! Well, we got five or six out of her.” The calves slipped in the slime that coated them, until finally, they stood, feet planted on the ground. And the cow quickly fell to the ground, a bullet in her brain.

These jarring images were in Ethan’s head when the nurse handed his daughter to him. Walking up and down the corridor, he wasn’t sure what he felt. Not the stupendous love depicted in movies. He didn’t want to drop her, though he wondered what would happen if he did.

As for skin-to-skin contact, that new and highly intimate way of bonding, Ethan wouldn’t do it. “Ethan,” Rebecca scolded, “what’s the big deal?” No, he was adamant. For one, he didn’t want random nurses seeing him with his shirt off. And two, as the big day drew closer, and he contemplated this aspect of parenthood, a thought took root in his mind: What if she tried to suck on my nipples? What if I liked it? It was all too much, too perverse. He didn’t do skin-to-skin then or ever. Luckily, Sierra didn’t seem any worse for it.

Or was she? Was this why she hardly smiled at him? Ethan shook her hand and the murmuring stopped. “I’m your daddy, Sierra. What do you think of that?” He finally stroked her head. “Strange, isn’t it?” Her expression was so curious, so captivated, it seemed that she might really speak. Ethan’s voice turned wistful. “Mommy’s got the hang of this. She’s used to taking care of people. More often than not, it seems like she’s taking care of me . . .”

Ethan felt like clearing his throat but didn’t want to disturb Sierra with a sudden sound. He raised her up in his arms so they were face-to-face. She grabbed his nose and touched his cheek. Cooing sounds escaped her lips. Was that . . . yes, a smile! She seemed suspended not by arms, but by an invisible force. If the present were a painting from the nineteenth century, it might have been entitled: Child Gazes Upon Father.

Through courting and connecting with Rebecca, becoming a husband, Ethan knew that to be intimate, to love, was like standing on a precipice in a thunderous gale. Cradling his daughter, pressing her small body to his chest and gently rocking her, he wondered if he was approaching another precipice, about to fall.

The phone rang. The calm was broken and Sierra let loose a series of shrill noises that usually prefaced a tantrum. Ethan clenched his jaw and set Sierra on the couch. When he answered, he had to fight back the urge to curse.

“Hello,” Ethan said in a carefully sedated voice.

“Hello? Ethan Miller?” The voice was deep, a thick East Indian accent.

“Yes.”

“We’re calling from Microsoft about your computer. We need to see if it’s working. Only take a few minutes. Routine procedure. Sir, if you could turn it on . . .”

The voice probably came from a call-centre. They’d never gotten a call like this before, but Rebecca’s parents had, and he remembered the line his father-in-law had used to great effect.

“I don’t have a computer.”

There was a pause. The voice became louder. “Sir, go out and buy one and we can help you right away, no problems, we’ll sort everything out . . .”

Ethan smirked at the scammer’s hubris. Until a terrible cry erupted in the living room.

Ethan dropped the phone on the island, where it spun like a bottle, rushed to the couch and saw that Sierra was no longer lying on it – she was screeching on the floor. He hoisted her up and she screamed into his face. The scream went down his throat, scraped his insides raw like a razor blade. “Are you okay?!” Sierra tried to shake right out of his arms. Are you okay? What kind of asinine question was that? Of course she wasn’t okay, she’d fallen a foot and a half onto hard laminate! Had she broken something? Was she bleeding? God, did she have brain damage? If she had brain damage, or was scarred in any way, he’d never forgive himself. Palms sweaty, heart hammering, Ethan sat, stood, and let out a groan to which Sierra responded with one of her high-pitched wails, the dreaded Stuka scream. The red face contorted, the mouth gaped, the chest puffed in and out like a bellows. He held the back of her head and squinted. Lowered her to the rug as she cried and kicked. “I’m so sorry, it’s . . . it’s . . . going to be okay . . .”

Should he phone Rebecca? 911? While he considered this, the crying eased just a tad, yet Sierra still looked uncomfortable. Her diaper? Ethan took a whiff. No doubt. He lunged at the playpen and seized the stuffed rabbit, wearing a blue vest, holding a carrot in his teeth. “Here you go, Mr. Rabbit!” The cries increased at the sound of Ethan’s voice. He didn’t see blood, bruising, or swelling on her face, but he’d have to check her whole body.

It took a minute for Ethan to run to the bathroom and grab a fresh diaper and plastic bag, wipes and diaper cream. All the while, that ceaseless sound was like a splinter burying deeper into his skin. When he returned he wondered if he should change Sierra on the table in her room. No, too risky. If she fell again, her neck might snap like a twig.

Ethan arranged everything on the rug, unzipped the onesie, and was about to undo the straps of the diaper when he remembered. Gloves! Back to the bathroom, cursing. He washed for another full minute and found a pair of clear plastic gloves. He knew this was cold. Yet a few days after bringing Sierra home from the hospital, Ethan did his first change, and an hour later, as he was eating an apple, noticed shit under his fingernails. After this, he wore yellow rubber gloves, the kind used to open containers of corrosive chemicals. He’d recently graduated to these clear plastic ones, which Rebecca declared to be progress.

This time he returned to the living room with one of Sierra’s soothers and her sunflower sleeper. The cries had become heart-rending whimpers. Ethan forced himself to make a monkey face. “Hold still, okay?” He removed the dirty diaper and wiped her down. Now he could clearly see torso, legs, and bottom; none of it appeared bruised or battered. Praying that it’d work this time, Ethan picked up Mr. Rabbit and held him, fluttering, above Sierra’s head.

Sierra let out a squeal that quickly became a full-bodied giggle.

Waves of relief washed over Ethan. Arms and legs moved spastically, she looked like one of those happy babies in commercials. Carefully, he removed the gloves and placed a hand on Sierra’s belly. Moving his fingers above and below her belly button, gently tickling, Ethan felt something coming alive inside of him. The toothless grin, the innocent laughter, all this seemed very strange, yet very pleasurable. Amazingly, he himself began to laugh as he moved from tickling her armpits, to heels and arms, and without thinking, kissed her chest.

Pleasure. The word described what Ethan felt, but once it entered his mind, like many other impulses that took root there, it upset the equilibrium, it poisoned the experience.

Pleasure? I shouldn’t be getting pleasure out of this. Tickling . . . touching my daughter.

Tickling and kissing Rebecca’s stomach when they were in bed was suddenly conflated with this. But one was blatantly sexual, this was innocent . . . he was finally feeling something . . .

Why didn’t you put her diaper on?

Ethan’s throat constricted. He sprung up like a jack-in-the-box and banged his shoulder on the table. His face turned white and he stared at the floor. Sierra stared up in confusion. She reached for him, gurgled, as if she wanted more.

What if I touched her down there? He shook his head. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Ethan put a finger to his neck. Throbbing pulse.

Was this why he’d been so distant? Because deep down, he knew that he couldn’t be trusted, that he might harm his child?

No! I would never!

How could something be one thing, then suddenly, another? He’d been trying to make Sierra happy, to feel genuine affection. Then it was like an expressionless doppelganger had caught him in the act, revealing the dangers of loose behaviour, exposing his crime of pleasure.

Hastily, Ethan put a new diaper on Sierra, dressed her in the sunflower sleeper, and carried her to the crib with the soother in her mouth. He rolled up the rug and tossed it in the playpen, disposed of the dirty diaper, then washed his hands so vigorously that his knuckles turned rosy red. Over the kitchen sink he poured two large shots of rum into a glass and mixed it with Coke. This seemed to be the logical conclusion to the night.

At least he’d put Sierra down by eight. As for a bath, well, he wasn’t doing that.

Now Ethan sat brooding in the eight hundred square-foot apartment. He did not resent Rebecca going out to have fun, but this was all much worse than expected. The TV wasn’t just muted, it was off, better for hearing vague thumps from above, an occasional conversation in the hallway. He was ninety-nine percent sure that he hadn’t touched Sierra inappropriately. Yet there was no doubt that in some ambiguous way he had transgressed.

Since he started drinking, among other thoughts, one thing kept intruding on him, circling like a rabid dog. His fantasies. Fantasies that, once they were ignited, rarely relinquished their hold. In every single one, instead of making love to Rebecca, he fucked her wildly over a table, facedown on the floor, or pushed up against a door or window. Sometimes he even slapped her across the face or spanked her. She would make raw, animalistic noises and bite his shoulder or scratch his back. Ethan was always in complete control, unleashing every emotion he’d ever felt upon Rebecca’s helpless body.

Beyond a fleeting, hollow arousal, which Ethan was ashamed to feel right now, these fantasies were troubling. Not just in their persistence, even at work, assisting some grey-haired battle-axe, but in the passion, the brutality, behind them. Rebecca meant everything to him; he didn’t want to treat her like some faceless body. No, she deserved tenderness, kindness, the things she had shown him. It was partly because of these fantasies that Ethan rarely initiated sex, even when Rebecca wore nothing but a sheer white negligee to bed, and he knew she was lying there, waiting for him to put his hands on her. Better to let her start things. Ethan never wanted her to feel objectified. Because there weremoments when he felt a truly enormous lust for her breasts, stomach, and thighs. Her mouth and those beautiful grey eyes.

Ethan finished his drink. Of course, alcohol would only make him feel worse. He would have gone on wallowing in this fugue state if not for a real eardrum-splitter. The fire alarm.

After the first ain, ain, ain, followed by a three second interval, Ethan leapt to his feet. “God-fucking-damnit!” It was a prick of a sound, the right pitch to damage ears. It came from that weird, glassy contraption by the door, not the circular alarm on the roof of their hallway. This could mean a few things: some jackass had pulled the firm alarm, it was a test, or there really was a fire. As he walked to the door, braving the ain, ain, ain by pressing his tongue to the side of his mouth, he prayed it wasn’t the latter. But the alarm didn’t stop and when he opened the door he saw confused and frazzled tenants evacuating to his right where the hallway curved and there was a grungy, little-used stairwell.

A fight-or-flight response kicked in. Ethan grabbed his phone and the car keys. He ran to the bedroom. Stuffed his wallet in his pocket. He saw the diaper bag on the floor beside the dresser and swung it over his left shoulder. Would they need it? Wait, where was Sierra’s coat? It had to be five degrees out, too cold for a baby in a sleeper. Whenever she wore the puffy red coat, Rebecca called Sierra her little ladybug. He ran to the front closet, but the coat wasn’t there. He ran back to the bedroom. All this time Sierra screeched half-heartedly, and though quieter than before, Ethan was annoyed because it seemed performative, one more weight on his back. Be quiet, he implored. Shut up! The coat wasn’t in their bedroom closet either. He found himself yanking open drawers in Sierra’s bedroom. All to no avail.

Ages seemed to have passed since the alarm began ringing and he wondered if smoke would soon suffocate them.

Ethan pressed a hand to his head.

The sound was an ice pick driven between his eyes.

He looked at Sierra, peering between the bars of the crib.

What if I left her?

Once he processed this, Ethan was horrified. Not only was the thought horrific, but the twenty seconds when he stood looking at his helpless child, considering leaving her behind.

Leaving her behind. To potentially burn.

As the weight of this lodged deep within him, Ethan made a choking sound and Sierra was in his arms. Then they were in the bathroom, he wrapped her in the hooded bath towel, and they flew out of the apartment into the empty hallway, down three flights of stairs. Sierra held tight, calmer, more content, the lower they got.

Darkness was a shock; Ethan felt blinded and weak. Cold nipped his ears, slid under the collar of his coat. Headlights of a passing vehicle illuminated him and the southwest corner of the building. Tenants huddled in groups, phone lights flashing, and he heard coughs and curses, even laughing. One side of the lot had patches of fresh asphalt, that dirty, oily smell one found every five blocks in the city. He wandered towards his Kia Sorento, diaper bag swinging from his left shoulder like a pendulum, Sierra shivering under the hood, looking over his right.

Ethan felt lost, and all he could do was press Sierra against his body, give her as much warmth as possible.

Five minutes passed and he was trying to figure out how to open the SUV without dropping Sierra when a syrupy voice said: “Ethan? That you? Can’t see well, even with glasses. Too much excitement for this old gal.”

Ethan made out the matronly form of Mrs. Milligan, a widow in her seventies who lived on the same floor as them, someone Rebecca chatted with in the elevator. She wore a long, fuzzy coat like a bathrobe and held a scarf in her right hand. Perhaps for keeping her permed grey hair in place as she slept. Perhaps she was sleeping when the alarm went off. Regardless, Ethan was glad to see her.

“From what I’ve heard,” Mrs. Milligan said, “someone on the fifth floor wasn’t careful. Stepped out with something on the stove, now we’re out here! Oh, I hope the firefighters get it under control! I can’t move, not again!”

Ethan hardly listened to her. He asked Mrs. Milligan to take the keys out of his left pocket and unlock the Kia. It would have been less awkward to hand Sierra to the old lady and unlock it himself, but he couldn’t let her go.

At last, safety. Mrs. Milligan cooed and petted Sierra’s head beneath the hood. “Poor baby. Scary, isn’t it? Lucky you have such a good daddy.”

Ethan mumbled thanks. Then they were alone, warmed by the heater. Minutes passed before he could bring himself to set her down on the passenger seat. He couldn’t drive without a car seat, so he decided to phone Rebecca’s brother, Liam, who lived across the river with his wife and two kids. With ringing in his ear, Ethan’s eyes roamed over Sierra’s sleeping body, and he placed a hand on her chest, to feel her breathing.

---

THE ALARM CLOCK READ: 1:25 a.m. Ethan closed his eyes. The night was technically over.

Liam had been gracious, had quickly come over with a car seat; against Ethan’s protests he drove them over in his own vehicle. Once at Liam and Jessie’s, Ethan saw no alternative but to phone Rebecca and report the calamity. It was ten, and the frustration in her voice amidst a low, pounding base was unmistakable. When she appeared, Ethan tried to put up a blasé front, but this crumbled before Rebecca’s rapid-fire questions. Privately, he told her about Sierra falling, and while internally squirming, managed not to avert his gaze. Miraculously, Rebecca didn’t erupt. Her eyes didn’t flare. “Things happen,” she said. “Or so I’ve read. Going forward, just don’t leave her on the couch like that, okay?”

At midnight, an email from the landlord stated that the fire damage was limited to one apartment on the fifth floor. All tenants below the fifth had been cleared to return. Reading this exasperated Ethan. There was danger, yet it now seemed like an entirely false alarm.

As Liam drove them back, Ethan’s thoughts turned grim. The city was closed down, the sky a black matte with a sickle moon pinned in the northwest. Night of frost. Along the freeway, a rabbit skittered across four lanes of traffic. Mr. Rabbit, running away.

“Did you have a good time?” Ethan asked Rebecca.

From the backseat, rustling clothes. “Yes, Iwas.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh . . . Ethan, I didn’t mean it like that.”

The alarm clock now read: 1:35 a.m. Rebecca was getting ready for bed after changing and feeding Sierra, and Ethan sat at the foot of their bed. He wore a grey T-shirt and grey-blue pyjama bottoms – drab colours in a room where the walls were a shade of pastel yellow, there was a fuzzy pink lamp, and Rebecca’s blouses and bras were draped over a light blue ottoman. By no means a masculine room, but Ethan was comforted by it. Except tonight, when frost seeped up from the laminate, numbing his toes, and his hands trembled when he lifted them from his knees.

Ethan rose and looked in the mirror above the dresser. The man he saw was not ugly. He’d always had a strong jaw, despite recent issues with it. His hair was a thick, dark brown. Rebecca once said he’d look like Ryan Gosling if he let his facial hair grow out. He knew she was exaggerating, but appreciated the compliment. So yes, outwardly, he was alright.

“Today’s Sunday,” Rebecca said, entering the bedroom, “but if you’re still worried about Sierra, I guess we could try the ER?”

Ethan returned to the bed and clasped his hands together. He looked at Rebecca slipping into a long, maroon-coloured night shirt, well-matched to her auburn hair and fair complexion. Occasionally, she got blemishes on her chin or cheeks, but even without makeup she was stunning – he never tired of looking at or touching her face. Her thick eyebrows, those grey eyes, the carefully measured smile, always suggested strength.

“You looked her over? Carefully?” Rebecca nodded. “I suppose it’s okay.” Ethan scratched his neck. His eyes bored into his hands. He raised his right hand and it trembled.

“I . . .” The only words he could think of were: “There’s something wrong with me.”

Rebecca was fiddling with a chain on the dresser. She wheeled on him, mouth parted. “What do you mean?”

The all too familiar concern was there. Ethan wanted to retract the statement while simultaneously emotions hurtled him forward like an avalanche. Voice directed at his hands, he spoke of his indignation at the state of the apartment and the irritation with Sierra’s cries, before plunging into darker territory, his fear that he might have touched Sierra inappropriately, and worst of all, the thought of leaving her in the apartment, running like a coward. He tried to stress that never in a million years would he actually hurt Sierra, but he was so confused, and he could feel his confusion and guilt radiating off his skin like a foul odour. His shoulders slumped forward and the mattress slumped under him. Rebecca stood behind him, silent.

When he finished there was a long silence broken by Rebecca clearing her throat. “Ethan . . .” He couldn’t bear to see her face, so his eyes latched onto his hands and the bedspread. “You should have told me sooner, I had no idea . . .” Shock, fear, surely she was wondering who he was and what he’d do, had she made a mistake all these years?

“How long have you had these thoughts?”

“Which ones?”

“The touching and leaving Sierra. Was tonight the first time?”

“Yes. Out of nowhere.” Rebecca seemed to be thinking, tapping the dresser with her index finger.

“But you’ve had the other thoughts since she was born?”

“Yes. More or less.” Another moment of silence. “You’re right,” Ethan sighed. “I should have told you sooner. But I didn’t know how. I’m . . . ashamed.”

You should be. Rebecca would be thinking this as she looked in the mirror. The charged silence was the beginning of his punishment. Part of him believed he deserved to be punished, condemned, while another part rebelled, wanted to cry out: I ama good person! I want to be a good dad! I wantto love Sierra!

“I can’t stop thinking about it. I should be checking her, right now, but also not, because what if I do something? What if I didtouch her? What if didleave her?”

Rebecca was beside him, reaching for his hand. When he didn’t offer it, she touched his leg. “But you didn’t. That’s the important thing. I don’t believe . . . No. I know you would never deliberately hurt someone. Much less Sierra.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know you. These thoughts, they aren’t you, the real you. They must be something happening to you.” Her eyes darted to the ceiling, the hand on his leg tightened, a deep furrow crossed her forehead. “Yes, maybe . . . One of my pamphlets talks about postpartum OCD. People might have violent or sexual thoughts about their babies. But I’m pretty sure . . . they almost never act on them . . .”

“Postpartum?”

“Men can have it too. It’s rare, but they can. Maybe if someone’s always been a little obsessive it could be more likely? You’ve . . .”

“Never been normal?”

“I never said that. And normal is a dumb . . .”

“Don’t I look normal?!” Ethan launched himself from the bed to pace the room. “I may not be Ryan Gosling, but I don’t look crazy. I sell insurance for Christ’s sake!” He felt like kicking the ottoman, screaming like a maniac, but then he remembered Sierra across the hall, trying to sleep. “No, I guess I’ve never been normal. I told you about my childhood obsessions? Well, did I tell you about grade eight, when I picked garbage off the floor? After everyone else went out for recess, I stayed back to pick up all the shit, all the banana peels, juice boxes, saran wraps, and half-eaten sandwiches the guys dropped on the floor. They treated the room like a dump, and it bothered me . . . so much.” He shook his head, clenched and unclenched his fists. “What a fucking idiot! I should have gotten the janitor’s fucking salary for all I did!”

Rebecca rose from the bed, frowning, and peeled back the covers. There was sadness in her eyes. “Will you come lie down? You look tired.”

Once in bed, staring up at the ceiling, Ethan felt slightly better, yet his outburst seemed like one more pointless debasement. No, stop thinking like that. You have to talk. You have to get it out. But it was so hard.

“I think you should talk to someone.” Rebecca turned to face Ethan directly, while he still looked at the ceiling. An immaculate ceiling, without watermarks or cracks. “I can’t force you to, but I think you should.” She paused, then added: “There’s nothing wrong with asking for help.”

Ethan sucked in a shuddering breath. “Maybe. I don’t know.” On one hand, it made sense, but wouldn’t dealing with fear and stress so openly only create more fear and stress? Baring himself before strangers was too intimate, only Rebecca could see and hear him. Then he wondered if this was fair. Rebecca was his wife, not his confessor. A sense of imposition pricked him like a needle and Ethan rolled over to face the wall. “I feel like I don’t know anything about being a dad. But I shouldn’t say it because . . . because I should be the one supporting you. You’re the one who just had a baby. All I ever do is burden you . . .”

“Hey,” Rebecca said. She began to rub his back and right arm. “Don’t say that. Do you think if you were a burden, I’d be here? Sure, sometimes I get annoyed, but that’s nothing compared to the good times, when you make me laugh without even trying, when you wait up for me after long shifts. You support me all the time, especially those days with the bad morning sickness, when you stayed home with me. And you were at all my doctor’s appointments, taking care of me all throughout. Every parent is scared. I’m scared too. I’ve worried about dropping Sierra, about her getting sick, I get frustrated with her cries. But this is what we signed up for. We’re in this together.”

When she spoke this way, Ethan couldn’t help feeling that she was too good for him. He imagined her face in the dark: plaintive, colour in the cheeks, young and old at the same time.

“Tonight, I was trying . . .” His throat was thick. His glands felt enormous. “I was trying to feel something, but whenever I got close . . .”

Every cell in his body seized up; he was nothing but a plank in the bed. Tears burst from his eyes and he tried not to make a sound. He couldn’t let Rebecca know he was crying.

But then she was holding him. Her hand moved from his right arm to his chest, and she nuzzled against him, kissed the back of his neck. “Ethan, it’s alright honey, I love you . . .” He wanted to say I love you too but could only make short wheezing sounds as tears streamed down his face. He’d longed for this type of touch as a single man, sometimes more than sexual touch, and now it came like a balm, Rebecca’s hand calming, massaging his heart. He felt a brief pang of shame to be held and whispered to like an infant, that he needed this, but then he just accepted it. He was tired, yes, but there was also no alternative. He wasn’t a piece of steel. He would never be a steely, protector-type man. But maybe that was okay. For years, hadn’t Rebecca told him in ways large and small that she accepted him? She was telling him she loved him right now! He owed it to her to work harder, to accept and assert himself more and more.

“I love you,” Rebecca was saying, as she ruffled his hair, “and it might be hard to see now, but Sierra loves you too. She’s going to need you, for a long time. We both need you . . .”

Rebecca’s voice cracked; his anguish had infected her. Slowly, Ethan rolled over and ran his hand over her back while their legs entwined beneath the covers. Rebecca put her hand on his face and wiped his tears away. They were nose-to-nose and despite the dim light, the outer chill, he could see her eyes shining brightly, the inner warmth she always gave him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“No more apologizing, okay?” She kissed him passionately, and the desire to not only touch but live within the other’s skin charged the moment with electricity. Ethan was aroused, but more than that, filled with a deep tenderness that could only be felt in the presence of one who had resolved to share life with him. It was a moment beyond sexuality, beyond substance, almost beyond time; a moment of such harmony that it was possible to believe that the trials and tribulations of
life, the moments of hell, were nothing but an illusion.

Soon, Rebecca fell asleep, head against his chest. Ethan stared out at the dark, thinking of Sierra, holding, feeding, tickling – trying to love her.

Thoughts drifted to Yosemite, the image of El Capitan rising from the valley, a sheer wall impossible to climb, yet climbed it was. It seemed absurd to think that when he was twelve he’d mused about climbing mountains, as if it was something one casually did, as if by locating them on a map, you could do it. Everest, McKinley, Kilimanjaro – he knew all the high summits, and was going to climb them. But now he had his own mountain. Maybe he’d never reach the summit. Maybe there was no summit. Then Ethan felt the shifting of Rebecca’s body, that strong presence pressed against him, and it told him something as clear and pure as water gushing over a fall. He fell asleep to the sound of that water rushing through him.

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