Someone Had to Stay

For years I had no baseline; Liam’s behavior was the water I swam in, and you cannot judge the temperature of water you have never left.

I had half-convinced myself that this was just what men were, what marriage was, what you signed up for: a partner who had to be asked, and reminded, and managed, and forgiven, whose participation you earned through constant labor and whose absence you learned not to resent too loudly.

And then my brother, half-asleep, said tell me what you need me to do, and in five words he showed me the baseline I had lost track of.

This was what care sounded like.