DAD ON DUTY
Colin looked at me. "What is this?"
"The right destination," I said. "Finally."
Nobody smiled.
For the next week, Colin finally took the vacation he'd postponed by exactly one week too late.
This one just looked a little different.
Breakfast started at 2:11 in the morning. Another feeding at 4:47. Laundry that never technically closed for the night. Room service that meant warming bottles at whatever hour he was summoned. Entertainment that consisted mostly of two newborns taking turns crying in stereo.
The chalkboard stayed exactly where it was. Silas, to my endless quiet delight, began treating it like an official posted schedule.
Colin stumbled into the kitchen one morning after another sleepless night, shirt inside out, hair standing up in six directions.
Silas glanced at the chalkboard. "Looks like Sunrise Bottle Service starts in five minutes."
Colin groaned. "I'm starting to genuinely hate this resort."
Mom, pouring coffee without looking up, said, "Management appreciates the feedback."
Even I laughed at that one.
By the fourth day, Colin had stopped complaining out loud.
By the sixth, he'd stopped waiting to be asked at all.
One afternoon I reached for a bottle warming on the counter, and Colin quietly picked it up first, without a word.
Late that same night, I woke to soft voices down the hall and found Silas standing in the nursery doorway. Colin had fallen asleep in the rocking chair, one daughter resting on his chest, the other asleep in the bassinet nearby, an empty bottle still loose in his hand.
Silas draped a blanket gently across his son's shoulders and murmured, mostly to himself, "You're already better at this than I ever was."
Colin never heard him say it.
I did.
I did.
The next afternoon, Colin finally asked the question he'd clearly been circling for days.
"Why did you actually come, Dad?"
Silas sat with it a long moment before answering.
"When your mother needed me most," he said quietly, "I chose myself instead. I've spent thirty-one years wishing I'd made a different choice." He looked toward the nursery. "When Nora called, I understood I couldn't go back and fix what I did to your mother, or to you. But maybe I could still help save yours."
Nobody said anything else. There wasn't really anything left worth arguing about.
