Chapter 17

A couple weeks after kindergarten started, the house eased into a rhythm that felt familiar but with a few new details.

Ethan still treated every morning like a quest: a backpack that had to be zipped just so, shoes that suddenly felt wrong on the wrong feet, the bathroom trip that only occurred after everyone was already in the car. He was bright and eager and anxious, all at the same time. His teacher sent a note the second week saying he sometimes grew quiet halfway through the day and needed a predictable transition -- snack, five minutes with crayons, then back to group time. Nothing dramatic. Just kindergarten being kindergarten.

Aimee, meanwhile, was in her own version of the same storm. Senior year, heavier course load, a practicum that actually expected her to be reliable, and a professor who graded papers like he was allergic to happiness. Her planner lived on the kitchen counter now, buried under highlighters, sticky flags, and abandoned tea mugs.

Some evenings she’d fall asleep on the couch with a laptop on her stomach and a half-finished paragraph on the screen. Beth would slide the laptop out from under her hands and tuck a throw blanket over her, smoothing Aimee’s hair back like it was muscle memory. I’d bring her a late-night coffee when she tried to rally again, cup warm between her palms, eyes half-closed as she reread the same sentence three times.

The boys didn’t register any of this explicitly, but Ethan felt Aimee’s stress the way little kids feel weather systems. One Thursday, he came home glassy-eyed and tired, cheeks flushed from the effort of holding it together for seven hours. He dumped his crayons on the dining room table and didn’t want to talk. Aimee slid into the chair beside him, studying him like she could read the energy right off his skin. She didn’t ask anything. Just started coloring with him, quiet and unhurried, letting him come back to himself.

Ten minutes later he leaned against her arm and whispered, “School makes my tummy wiggle.”

She nodded, simple and calm. “Mine too, sometimes.”

The relief in his shoulders was immediate -- someone else understood without making it a big deal. They colored another page in companionable silence. When Beth passed through the room with a laundry basket, she caught my eye. No commentary needed.

That same night, after Ethan and Jake were asleep, the strain caught up with Aimee. She was at the dining room table, laptop and tablet open, draft paragraphs highlighted in three colors. Beth was proofreading something with her, occasionally circling a sentence and sliding the page back: read that out loud, it’s close but not quite there. You could tell Aimee was one inch from shutting down.

I made tea and set the mug near her elbow. She barely looked up. A minute later Ethan padded downstairs, hair sticking up, clutching his blanket.

“Bad dream?” I whispered.

He shrugged, eyes heavy. Before I could scoop him up, he walked straight to Aimee and rested his head against her side. She made a soft sound and kissed his forehead without thinking, one hand in his hair. He didn’t even ask to sit in her lap; he just stood there the way you stand under a favorite tree. When I offered to take him back upstairs, he shook his head and stayed pressed against her until his breathing slowed again.

It struck me then how circular the comfort had become. Ethan steadied her by existing -- a tiny reminder that not everything required adult competence. And she steadied him by letting him be small.

Later, when Ethan was tucked back into bed, Aimee finally exhaled and rubbed her eyes. “I feel like I’m sprinting all the time.”

Beth squeezed her shoulder. “You’re doing it, though.”

Aimee gave a tired laugh. “Barely.”

I leaned against the counter. “Barely counts. Half this house runs on barely.”

That made her smile -- real, if a little frayed. She shut her laptop and rested her head on Beth’s shoulder for a moment before gathering her notes again.

We weren’t fixing the chaos for her. We were just making enough soft places that she didn’t drown in it. And every morning, when Ethan needed two hugs before walking through the school door, Aimee knelt down and gave both. He’d whisper something earnest about being brave today, and she’d whisper right back that she would, too.

Most days, that was enough.

By the second week of November, the leaves had thinned to bare branches, and the house smelled like pumpkin bread and sharpened pencils. Halloween was behind us -- Ethan’s fire-engine costume still hanging off the coat rack, Jake’s pumpkin onesie retired with sticky candy stains -- and Thanksgiving with Aimee’s parents loomed just far enough away to make everyone quietly anticipate it.

The ease between us wasn’t constant. Close love invites close friction.

One Tuesday evening, I came home later than planned. Work was heavy -- fall budgeting cycles always were -- and I walked into the kitchen just as Beth snapped a Tupperware lid onto leftovers with more force than necessary. Aimee was hurrying between the dining room and the living room, looking for a reading log Ethan had forgotten at school.

“Jim,” Beth said, and her voice landed sharper than I expected, “I needed you home on time. I had Ethan’s program tonight and I barely made it.”

My instinct was defense. “I texted you that I’d be late.”

Beth exhaled, trying not to escalate. “I know. I just needed steadiness today and didn’t have it.”

Aimee stepped in before I could reply, soft but tired. “Everyone’s stretched lately.”

Beth’s jaw tightened. “I’m not blaming anyone. I’m just saying we need clarity about who’s covering afternoons on heavy days. I don’t want Aimee scrambling between practicum work and snack time because we forgot to plan.”

I almost said it wasn’t my fault, the childish version, but caught myself. She wasn’t assigning blame -- she was expressing accumulated stress.

I nodded slowly. “You’re right. Let’s map heavier weeks on Sundays. Even if my schedule changes last minute, at least we’re starting on the same page.”

Beth’s shoulders eased, just a little. Aimee squeezed her hand once, grateful for the reset. The whole exchange lasted maybe ninety seconds, and yet it felt like proof that our relationship needed logistics as much as affection.

After the kids were in bed, I apologized without self-defense. Beth leaned over Aimee to kiss my cheek, tension gone. “I wasn’t mad at you,” she murmured. “Just overwhelmed.”

And that was the truth -- nothing dramatic, just three adults learning that no one could be everywhere at once.

Later that week, after Ethan’s bedtime, I walked into the living room and found Beth and Aimee curled at opposite ends of the couch, deep into a conversation about Beth’s old college friends and the kind of romantic chaos Aimee found endlessly entertaining. They were laughing, cheeks flushed, legs tangled under a shared throw blanket. It was domestic and tender and intimate in ways that didn’t require my participation.

I stood there a moment longer than necessary, invisible on the margins of my own living room. Not excluded -- just surprisingly aware of how easy they were with each other.

A flicker of envy surprised me. Nothing sharp or accusatory. Just the ache of watching two people you love inhabit a space you don’t automatically belong to.

Aimee noticed me first and waved me over. “Come sit.”

I hesitated before joining them. Beth bumped my knee gently with hers. “You come with snacks or judgment?”

“Probably both,” I said, half-joking.

Aimee smiled, pulling the blanket wider. “There’s always room.”

The moment passed, as most small insecurities do, but something in me catalogued it -- love had multiple currents, and I wasn’t always in the center of every one. That didn’t make me less loved. It just made the household more complex.

Later that night, lying in bed with Beth after Aimee drifted off, we talked about it. I whispered, “I don’t ever want to be the odd man out.”

Beth blinked awake, soft-eyed. “You’re not. You were just watching something sweet and didn’t know where to land.”

I nodded, embarrassed.

Beth slid closer, her voice gentle. “Aimee and I have girlfriend energy some days. We lean into it. It doesn’t replace anything with you -- it just adds another kind of closeness.” She kissed my shoulder. “You’re enough, and we both know it.”

The truth hit me later: love had made room for three, but inside me was still a reflex I never expected -- wondering if someday Beth would discover she preferred the softness of being with a woman. Not Aimee specifically, just possibility. Some buried masculine insecurity whispered that the bond between Beth and Aimee was easier, quieter, less freighted than the bond between Beth and me.