Chapter 5 - The Voicemail at Midnight
By 11:45 PM, the house was a war zone, and Nathan was entirely broken.
He had tried to make macaroni and cheese for Sophie, but he burned the bottom of the pot because he had to keep running back and forth to calm Eli, who refused to sleep horizontally for more than three minutes without gagging on his reflux. Sophie had refused to eat the burnt pasta, cried herself to exhaustion on the couch, and finally fallen asleep wrapped in a throw blanket without reading her school book or brushing her teeth.
Nathan sat on the floor of the hallway, his back pressed against the drywall, holding a now-exhausted Eli against his chest. His suit was ruined, covered in crusty stains and dried tears. His phone sat on the floor beside him, glowing with missed notifications.
With shaking, trembling fingers, he picked up the phone, dialed Rachel’s number, and when it went straight to voicemail after the third ring, he pressed record and poured his entire soul into the speaker.
"Rachel... please," Nathan’s voice cracked, thick with exhaustion and genuine emotional agony. "I don’t know what I’m doing. He won’t settle. Every time I lay him down, he gags. Sophie won’t stop asking if you left forever because of what I said yesterday. I ruined her dinner, the kitchen is destroyed, and I have grease on my suit. Please... just tell me what to do. I'm so sorry. Please answer your phone."
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Far away in a quiet, luxurious king-sized hotel bed in Denver, Rachel’s phone lit up on the nightstand. She reached over, played the voicemail on low speaker, listened to the raw desperation in her husband's voice, and took a slow, deep, uninterrupted breath of calm hotel air.
For the first time in eight months, Rachel closed her eyes and slept eight unbroken, silent hours.
