The crib is too big for you.

You are small, just a bundle of warmth and breath and barely-there murmurs, swallowed by the expanse of blankets. The room is quiet, save for the rhythmic static of the baby monitor and the occasional rustling of sheets when you shift in your sleep.

But there is a din beyond your door.

Down the hall: past the piece of glass your father missed the last time he stumbled into the wall and shattered his beer bottle into brown jagged pieces; past the washroom with the empty roll of toilet paper, and the dim-lit corridor, and the locked bedroom door, voices rise and fall—muffled, but every word ending with a hiss. Your name is in there, somewhere. A word chewed up by your mother’s exhaustion and your father’s frustration.

“They’re fine.””They are not fine—””We talked about this—””No, you talked about it. I never agreed.”

You don’t deserve this place.

You breathe. Small, steady. Your hand reaches up along the side of your crib and I could reach out and touch you if I wanted. The argument tapers off and I take my place back in the shadows.

A moment later, footsteps—light, careful. Your mother appears in the doorway, shadowed in the dim glow of the nightlight. The door clicks shut. She leans over the crib, smoothing the hair from your forehead with soft strokes.

“It’s okay,” she whispers.

It sounds like a reassurance, but it does not sound reassuring.

She lingers, watching, then slips back into the darkened hall. The floor creaks beneath her weight, and then a door closes with deliberate softness. Nothing resolved. It never is.

And so the night stretches on, and the house settles into an uneasy silence, leaving only the hush of your breathing, the static of the monitor, and the weight of a word you don’t yet know, lingering in the dark.