Selene’s POV
Three days after the "Da-da" incident, and Mateo is fine.
He says he's fine. He acts fine. He makes breakfast with his usual chaos, sings terrible opera during bath time, does all the voices during story hour. The same Mateo as always.
Except he's not.
I notice it first in the spaces between performances. The way his smile drops the second he thinks no one's looking. How he volunteers for every task that takes him out of the room—garbage, laundry, mysterious errands that don't need running. The slight flinch when Elio reaches for Axel, quickly masked but not quickly enough.
My therapist brain catalogs the symptoms before my partner's heart catches up. Withdrawal disguised as helpfulness. Humor deployed as armor. The careful maintenance of normalcy while something underneath is drowning.
I've seen this pattern a hundred times in my office. I just never expected to see it in my bedroom.
"He's spiraling," I tell Axel quietly, Tuesday night after Mateo's gone to "check on something in the garage." We don't have anything in the garage except boxes we haven't unpacked.
"I know." Axel's jaw is tight. "He flinched when Elio climbed into my lap today. Actual physical flinch."
"Have you tried talking to him?"
"Three times. He deflects. Makes a joke. Changes the subject." Axel runs a hand through his hair, frustration evident. "I don't know how to reach him when he won't let me in."
"He's ashamed of what he's feeling. Thinks it makes him a bad person."
"That's ridiculous."
"Feelings usually are."
Wednesday, Mateo cooks an elaborate dinner that takes four hours and uses every pot we own. Thursday, he reorganizes the entire garage—the one with nothing in it except dust and regret. Friday, he volunteers to take all three babies to the pediatrician alone, a task that would make a lesser man weep and that he returns from looking like he survived a war.
He's keeping himself so busy he doesn't have time to feel. Classic avoidance. Textbook, really.
I hate watching it happen to someone I love.
Axel tries again Friday evening, cornering Mateo in the kitchen while I pretend to read on the couch. I hear murmured words, Mateo's deflecting laugh, the sound of the refrigerator opening and closing as he finds an excuse to move. Then Axel walking away, defeated.
We're losing him to something he won't name. And I don't know how to stop it.
Friday night, I wake at 2 AM to an empty bed. Axel's still there, breathing deep and even, but Mateo's side is cold. Been cold for a while, judging by the temperature of the sheets.
I find him in the nursery.
He's sitting on the floor between the cribs, back against the wall, watching all three babies sleep. The nightlight casts soft shadows across his face, highlighting the exhaustion he's been hiding.
"Hey," I say softly, lowering myself to sit beside him.
He doesn't startle. Maybe he knew I was coming. "Couldn't sleep."
"That's been happening a lot lately."
"Just restless. Too much energy." The lie sounds hollow even in the dark.
I don't call him on it. Just sit with him, shoulders touching, listening to the soft sounds of babies breathing. Aria's little snuffles. Sören's occasional sighs. Elio sprawled like a starfish, taking up his entire crib.
"They're so small," Mateo says eventually. "Sometimes I forget how little they are. How much they need us. How much we could mess them up without even trying."
"We won't mess them up."
"You don't know that."
"I know you." I take his hand, lacing our fingers together. "I know how much you love them. How hard you try. That counts for something."
He's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper.
"I keep thinking about it. 'Da-da.' The way he looked at Axel like—like he knew. Like some part of him recognized something I don't have." His hand tightens around mine. "And I know that's crazy. Babies don't work like that. But I can't stop thinking about it."
"What else are you thinking?"
"That maybe I'm fooling myself. Pretending biology doesn't matter when it obviously does. That word—that specific word—it means something. 'Da-da' isn't just a sound. It's claiming someone. And he didn't claim me."
I let the words hang. Don't rush to fix or reassure. Sometimes people need to hear themselves say the hard things out loud before they can start to heal.
"I feel like a fraud," he continues. "Standing there saying 'we're all equal, we're all their parents, blood doesn't matter' while secretly keeping score. While secretly wondering which ones are mine and hating myself for wondering."
"That doesn't make you a fraud. That makes you human."
"It makes me a hypocrite."
"It makes you someone who's struggling with something complicated." I shift to face him. "Mateo, you can believe that biology doesn't define family and still have feelings about not knowing. Those aren't contradictory positions. They're just... messy."
"I hate messy."
"Since when?"
A ghost of a smile. "Okay, fair. I love messy. Except when the mess is inside my own head."
"That's the hardest mess to sit with. The one you can't organize or clean up or make a joke about until it goes away."
His eyes find mine in the darkness. Vulnerable. Scared. So different from the sunshine he shows the world.
"How do I make it stop?" he asks. "The scorekeeping. The wondering. The flinching every time Elio reaches for Axel instead of me."
"You don't make it stop. You feel it. You name it. You let yourself be jealous and ashamed and scared, and then you remind yourself that feelings aren't facts." I squeeze his hand. "Elio saying 'Da-da' to Axel doesn't mean he loves you less. It means he learned a sound and attached it to a person. That's it. That's the whole story."
"My brain knows that."
"Give your heart time to catch up."
In Elio's crib, the baby shifts in his sleep. Makes a small sound—not quite words, just baby noises. Then, clear as anything: "Teo."
We both freeze.
"Did he just—"
"Teo," Elio mumbles again, still asleep, fingers curling around his stuffed elephant.
Mateo's breath catches. I watch his face in the nightlight—the hope he's trying not to feel, the tears he's trying not to shed.
"He's dreaming about you," I whisper. "Even in his sleep, you're there. Even when he can't see you, some part of him knows."
The tears win. Silent, streaming down his cheeks, catching the nightlight like small rivers. I pull him close, his head against my shoulder, and let him cry in the dark while three small humans sleep peacefully, unaware they hold our whole hearts in their tiny hands.
"I'm sorry," he manages. "I'm sorry I've been—"
"Don't apologize. Just let me in next time. Don't disappear into the garage pretending to organize nothing."
A wet laugh. "You noticed that?"
"I notice everything. Occupational hazard."
We stay in the nursery until the sun starts to rise. Talking sometimes. Silent others. Just existing together in the space between night and morning.
When we finally return to bed, Axel stirs. Reaches for us both. Pulls us close without opening his eyes.
"Figured it out?" he mumbles, half-asleep.
"Working on it," Mateo answers.
Axel's arm tightens around us. "Good."
And somehow, tangled together in the gray dawn light with Axel's warmth at our backs, the spiral starts to slow.