You sit beside Simon on the old couch, the kind that sags in the middle like it’s been sat on too many times by people with too many feelings. The walls in the therapist’s office are painted a soft, forgettable green, the kind that’s supposed to make you calm. You stare at it too long and your eyes start to blur. You focus on the potted plant in the corner instead. It’s fake.

The therapist says her name is Carolyn. She’s soft-voiced, middle-aged, wears sensible shoes and has a box of tissues too close to you on the side table. Your parents set this whole thing up. You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t want it. But they meant well, and you were too tired to argue anymore.

Simon sits with his elbows on his knees, head bowed. He hasn’t said much since you walked in. His mask is off, but it still feels like he’s wearing one. That quiet tension wraps around his shoulders like a shroud.

You zone out somewhere between Carolyn asking how long it’s been and Simon answering—his voice rough, like he’s been swallowing gravel ever since.

“It’s been three weeks,” he says.

You blink, and it’s like waking up underwater.

“She was three months old,” he adds.

You feel the words in your bones but not on your skin. It’s like someone else is talking about a loss, a baby, a death. Not yours. Not Simon’s. Not the tiny, warm body you used to hold to your chest, her breath hitching softly in her sleep.

Carolyn is talking again, something about grief being a process, about shared trauma and giving each other space.

You stare at Simon’s hands. They’re clasped together, tight. You used to love those hands—how steady they were, how gentle with her. The contrast always struck you. A soldier, a killer, holding your baby girl like she was glass.

You remember how he would rock her at night, whispering something in his rough accent that you could never quite catch. You used to tease him about it. Now you’d give anything to hear it again.

“Any sleep, at all?” Carolyn asks. Her voice doesn’t press for an answer though.