I’m sitting here in the dark again and it’s 2:45 in the morning. I can hear him through the monitor but I’m standing right over the crib anyway like a total freak. He’s got this... this sound. Like a tiny little rattle in his chest. It’s just a bit of snot, that’s what the doctor said, but my heart is thumping so hard I can feel it in my throat. I’m 49 years old and I’m shaking because what if his lungs just... quit? I read about that respiratory failure thing on some site and now it’s all I can see. Sudden. Quiet. Just gone. I can’t even blink. I don’t even know why I’m typing this. Someone’s gonna think I’m losing it or tell me I’m a bad father for being this worked up. Let em. They don’t know what it’s like to be the guy who has to fix everything for everyone. My mother is in the assisted living place across town and I spent three hours today fighting with the head nurse about her physical therapy. Then I come home and it’s the baby. It’s ALWAYS someone. I’m the one who handles the mess. Always. If I don’t watch him who is gonna do it? My wife is out cold in the other room. Must be nice to just trust the world like that. It makes me want to put my fist through a wall. He just breathed weird. A little whistle. My stomach just dropped right through the floor. I’ve been on my phone for three hours looking at symptoms and there’s this one rare thing where they look fine but they’re actually suffocating. The doctor said he’s fine but what does he know? He saw the kid for five minutes. FIVE MINUTES. I’ve been standing here for five hours. My back is killing me and my knees are locking up but I can’t sit down. I can’t leave him alone for one second because that’ll be the second it happens. It’s just too much on me. I got my daughter from my first marriage calling me at noon asking for car repairs and she’s twenty-five. TWENTY-FIVE. Then the baby starts crying. Then the furnace starts making that clicking noise. It’s all on me. I’m the only one who sees the disaster coming before it hits. If he stops breathing it’s my fault. That’s what it comes down to. I’ll be the one who failed the only thing that matters. I’m so damn tired I’m seeing spots behind my eyes but I gotta stay awake. I gotta hear the next breath. And the one after that. I sound like a lunatic. I know. I’m probably misspelling half of this but I don’t care. My hands are sweating. Every time he shifts his head I think this is it. This is the end. I’m nearly fifty years old and I’m terrified of a six month old. What a joke. A big, tired, pathetic joke. I just want him to be okay so I can close my eyes for ten minutes without seeing a funeral. God. I shouldn’t have said that. Just forget it. I’m still here. Still watching. He’s still rattling and I’m still waiting for the worst to happen.