I fight to keep this home every single day, papers spread across the table and deadlines looming, but Knox's voice cuts through it all when he says it's time for an early bedtime and something in me settles even as I want to argue.

He places me in the high chair without hesitation, the tray clicking into place as he brings the sippy cup to my lips, and I take it because his steady presence makes the fear of being left behind fade into nothing. I find my thumb creeping toward my mouth when the evening grows quiet, a comfort I crave more than I can admit while the adult world presses in around us.

His fingers close gently over my hand as it rises toward my mouth in the dimming light, lowering it without comment, his other palm resting firm on my lower back while the nightlight glows upstairs and neither of us moves to break what we've started.