When I Returned from the Hospital with Our Newborn, My Husband Had Changed the Locks – Twenty Hours Later, He Showed Up, Pounding and Screaming

Ray tried to be calm for both of us. He read articles. Installed apps.

Timed contractions that didn’t matter yet. He talked to my belly when he thought I wasn’t listening.

“This kid is already tougher than both of us,” he’d say.

We planned everything carefully. Ray promised he’d take time off work to stay with us the first week.

He said, more than once, “I’ve got you.

You won’t be alone in this.”

So when I gave birth — exhausted, stitched, overwhelmed — I held onto that promise like a lifeline.

That’s why, two days later, standing on my front porch with my newborn in my arms, the locked door didn’t just confuse me. It broke something I thought was unbreakable.

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