The man looked away, rubbing his face with both hands. He did not answer.
Sofia felt anger flare, hot and sudden, but she forced it down. This was not about her. She took a steady breath.
“Where is the bathroom,” she asked.
He gestured toward a side door without looking up.
Sofia moved quickly. She cleaned the baby with careful hands, speaking softly as if afraid that silence itself might hurt him. She changed him into clean clothes and washed his face, kissing his damp curls when he whimpered. Then she carried him downstairs and prepared a fresh bottle. The baby drank eagerly, his small fingers gripping her sleeve as if anchoring himself to the only solid thing he knew.
Tears blurred Sofia’s vision. The scene pulled her backward in time, to another night, another child, another moment she had failed to undo.
She did not notice the man watching from the doorway until she looked up and found him there, shoulders sagging, eyes hollow.
“I cannot,” he said quietly. “I cannot look at him without seeing her.”
Sofia understood without asking. The house carried the absence of a woman like a wound that refused to heal.
“Can you stay,” he asked after a long pause. “Not just tonight. I will pay you whatever you want. Just stay.”
Sofia looked down at the baby sleeping against her chest, his breathing slow and uneven. Every instinct warned her to leave, to protect herself, to avoid attachment. But his hand tightened around her finger, and she felt the weight of that trust settle into her bones.
“I will stay tonight,” she said. “We can talk in the morning.”
He nodded once and turned away.
Morning came quietly. Sofia woke on the living room couch with the baby still in her arms. She moved through the kitchen carefully and found an older woman standing by the counter, pouring coffee with rigid precision.
“You must be the new one,” the woman said without warmth. “My name is Gloria Walsh. I have worked here for years.”
“Sofia Ramirez,” Sofia replied.
Gloria’s eyes swept over her with thinly veiled disdain. “You will not last. None of them do. He does not want anyone attached to the child.”
She took a slow sip of coffee and continued, her voice sharp. “His wife died during childbirth. Her name was Evelyn. After that, everything changed. He blames the baby. He never says it, but everyone here knows.”
Sofia tightened her hold on the child, a protective instinct rising fast and fierce.