He did not sleep much in the first weeks.
Not because of the demands of new parenthood — those were real, and he had taken his portion of them without complaint and often without being asked, the specific competence of a man who had spent his life learning to do necessary things correctly. He had learned the specific hold that Rowan preferred. He had learned the difference between the full-volume word that meant hunger and the quieter sound that meant something else and the particular stillness that meant sleep was approaching.
He did not sleep because he kept waking to check.
Not in the anxious way — not the catastrophizing that had characterized some of his darkest fears during the pregnancy. Something more fundamental than that. The specific, involuntary vigilance of someone who has
