Baby Daddy Roulette

Chapter 52

Two weeks post-surgery, and we're living with a ghost.

Mateo exists in the house—technically. He occupies space, consumes oxygen, moves from bed to couch to physical therapy and back. But the person inside that body has gone somewhere we can't reach, somewhere dark and unreachable that he won't let us see.

His usual Spanish-English chatter has stopped entirely. No more switching languages mid-sentence, no more terms of endearment dropped casually into conversation, no more random exclamations when something delights or frustrates him. He answers in monosyllables when he answers at all. Yes. No. Fine. Tired.

The silence is deafening.

I catch myself listening for sounds that don't come anymore—his laugh echoing through the house, his terrible singing during bath time, the way he used to narrate everything he was doing in a mock-announcer voice just to make us smile. The soundtrack of our lives has been replaced with nothing but the noise of three toddlers and two adults trying desperately to pretend everything is normal.

The babies feel it most.

Elio, who used to follow Mateo around like a tiny shadow, has started avoiding him entirely. He toddles past the couch where Mateo lies staring at the ceiling, doesn't even pause, heads straight for Axel or me instead. It's like he knows something fundamental has changed. Like he's protecting himself from rejection before it can happen.

The first time I notice it, my heart cracks.

The second time, I see Mateo notice it too. His eyes track Elio's path away from him, something devastated flickering across his face before the blankness returns.

He's losing his son. Or believes he is. And the belief is becoming self-fulfilling.

"You should hold him," I suggest gently. "He misses you."

"I can't chase him around. Can't play with him properly."

"You can hold him. Read to him. Let him sit on your lap."

"He doesn't want to sit on my lap." The bitterness in his voice cuts. "He wants someone who can actually be a father."

"You are his father."

"I'm a body on a couch."

I don't know how to argue with that. Because from his perspective, it's true. He can't do the physical fathering he defined himself by—the lifting, the playing, the roughhousing that was his specialty. And without that, he doesn't know what he has to offer.

Axel tries too, in his way.

He brings Mateo protein shakes and healthy meals that go mostly uneaten. Sits beside him during physical therapy sessions, offering quiet support that Mateo doesn't acknowledge. Puts on games—other teams' games, since watching the Sirens advance without him would be torture—and doesn't comment when Mateo changes the channel after five minutes.

One night I find Axel standing in the doorway of the living room, just watching Mateo sleep. The expression on his face—helplessness, grief, love—mirrors everything I'm feeling.

"He's getting worse," Axel tells me later, standing in the kitchen where Mateo can't hear. "I don't know how to reach him. Nothing I do makes any difference."

"Neither do I." The admission feels like professional and personal failure combined. "I keep trying to treat him and he shuts down. He knows all my techniques. Uses them against me like weapons."

"What do we do?"

"We stay. We wait. We don't let him push us away even when he's trying to."

"That's not a plan."

"It's the only plan I have."

The house feels wrong. Like someone turned off a light source I didn't know we were depending on. Mateo's energy used to fill every room—the jokes, the music, the constant motion. Now there's just stillness. Heavy, suffocating stillness.

I find myself overcompensating. Talking too much. Laughing too loud. Trying to fill the void he's left with my own inadequate brightness. But I'm not sunshine. I've never been sunshine. I'm steady and practical and capable, but I don't know how to light up a room the way he did.

Week three. The playoffs continue without him.

The Sirens win their conference finals game without Mateo. I watch with Axel in the bedroom, volume low, not wanting to remind Mateo of what he's missing. But he knows. Of course he knows. He always knows.

"They're better without me," he says the next morning, proving he was listening through the wall.

"That's not true."

"Seventeen assists last night. The offense is running smoother. Fewer turnovers." He's been tracking the statistics. Torturing himself with data. "They don't need me."

"They want you back. The whole team—"

"The team is winning. Why would they want someone who can't contribute?"

The logic is circular and unshakeable. He's built a fortress of self-loathing that deflects every argument I try to make.

I call my own therapist for the first time in months.

"You can't fix him," Dr. Okonkwo tells me over the phone. "You know this. You're too close to remember it, but you know."

"I know. But I can't just watch him disappear."

"You're not just watching. You're staying. That matters more than you think."

"It doesn't feel like enough."

"It rarely does."

She's right. I hate that she's right.

Week four. Something shifts.

Not better. Different. Mateo starts snapping at us—actual emotion, even if it's negative. Irritation when I suggest exercises. Frustration when Axel hovers. Short, sharp words that cut even as they signal he's still in there somewhere.

"Stop looking at me like that," he tells me after I ask how he's feeling for the hundredth time.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm dying. Like I'm broken. Like you're waiting for me to fall apart so you can swoop in and fix me." His voice rises, the first real volume in weeks. "I'm not a patient. I'm not a case study. I'm not one of your fucking athletes with performance anxiety. Stop analyzing me."

"I'm not—"

"You are. You've been doing it since I got home. The concerned looks. The gentle suggestions. The way you catalog everything I do like you're writing a fucking diagnosis in your head." He's shaking now, rage and pain tangled together. "I don't want to be managed. I don't want to be handled. I want to be left alone."

"Mateo—"

"Leave me alone!"

The words echo in the silence that follows. Aria starts crying in the nursery, startled by the raised voices. Elio's face crumples. Sören watches with those calculating eyes, taking notes as always.

I look at Mateo—flushed, breathing hard, more alive than he's been in weeks even if the life is anger.

"Okay," I say quietly. "I'll give you space."

I walk away. Scoop up Aria. Take the babies to the backyard to play, giving him the solitude he demanded.

But through the window, I see him. Staring at his hands. Face crumpling in the aftermath of the outburst.

Alone, like he asked.

And looking more lost than ever.

I want to go back. Want to hold him through it, remind him we're still here, that pushing us away won't make him feel better. That anger is better than nothing, and nothing is what we've been drowning in for weeks.

But he asked for space. And sometimes respecting that boundary is the only love you can offer, even when it hurts. Even when your instincts scream to push through and force the connection.

The sunshine is eclipsed. Has been eclipsed for weeks now, maybe longer.

I don't know how to bring it back.

All I can do is wait for the dawn that might not come.