“I keep using work and exhaustion as reasons to let Rachel carry more.”
“She can handle it.”
“That isn’t the point.”
That sentence surprised all three of us.
He continued.
“I’ve watched her handle everything.”
“June.”
“Her job.”
“Her mom.”
“Everything.”
“And I’ve been acting like being tired means I get to step away.”
Sylvia looked hurt.
“I was only trying to help you.”
“I know.”
He nodded.
“You’ve always tried to help me.”
Then he paused.
“But I think some of that helping kept me from learning how to stay when things are hard.”
Sylvia said nothing.
“That’s what I need to learn.”
He looked toward June.
“How to stay even when I don’t want to.”
His voice broke slightly.
“That’s being a parent.”
He turned back toward his mother.
“I don’t want to be the thirty-three-year-old man who calls his mom from an emergency room because his baby being sick is inconvenient.”
Sylvia looked stunned.
“What do you want me to do?”
