She had been a nurse for over thirty years before retiring, and when she offered to watch Olivia instead of hiring a nanny, I had felt both relieved and grateful.
She greeted us warmly, her silver hair neatly pinned, her hands steady and practiced as she took Olivia from me and instinctively checked her temperature with the back of her fingers.
“You focus on work,” she would always say. “Grandma’s got this.”
And I believed her.
Yet over the past two weeks, something had begun to feel wrong in ways I struggled to articulate.
Every morning, without fail, Olivia would start crying the moment Michael entered the room.
Not ordinary crying, not hunger or discomfort, but something sharper, something desperate.
The first time it happened, I assumed it was coincidence.
The second time, I blamed myself.
By the fifth morning in a row, the pattern felt undeniable.
One morning, as I leaned over the crib and whispered good morning, Olivia’s tiny body stiffened before I even touched her.
When Michael’s footsteps echoed down the hallway, her cries escalated into a high-pitched scream that made my chest tighten.
“For God’s sake,” Michael muttered from the doorway. “Why does she do this every morning?”
“She’s a baby,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Babies cry.”
“Other babies aren’t this dramatic,” he replied coldly. “Maybe you’re doing something wrong.”
Those words lodged somewhere deep inside me.
I had already been doubting myself since returning to work, already wondering if my divided attention had damaged something essential between me and my daughter.
Margaret, on the other hand, seemed to soothe Olivia effortlessly during the day.
When I would call to check in, I could hear Margaret’s calm voice in the background, singing softly, and Olivia would sound quiet, content.
But then evenings would arrive, and the tension would creep back in.
One night, when Michael tried to hold Olivia, her body went rigid as if she were bracing for something invisible.
Her tiny fists clenched.
