As a girl, I never pictured myself the breadwinner.  Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, I was not so much a Southern Belle, as I was a product of good ole’ Southern values.  Go to church on Sundays. Come home and cook a feast for your family.  Get the babies to bed. Get your family’s week started off on the right track.

I could see myself one day staying home, chipping away at the time by fussing over the babies and perhaps with the writing of an occasional poem. I could even see myself going to work—perhaps being a “career woman” for a while before I retreated back into the woods of my own imagination—to a place where imagery reigned supreme, where only the integrity of the words mattered.

But never did I see myself as sole breadwinner, with the pressure one hundred percent on me to provide a life for my family.  Men were supposed to do that.  And anything the woman earned, in my mind at least, was just extra. For the incidentals, the non-essentials: a new purse or outfit. Getting your hair done. Putting gas in your car.

And that was how I was carrying it, shortly after the birth of my first child. Logan was a little over a week old, and having somewhat recovered from my painful and unexpected cesarean section, I was falling seamlessly into the role of stay at home wife and mother. I hadn’t figured anything out yet, and was planning to use my maternity leave from the newspaper where I was on staff to work through it all. Maybe I’d go back, perhaps part-time while I stayed at home with the baby and saved us a boatload of money on daycare. Maybe I’d finally finish and publish my collection of short stories.  Maybe I’d do some freelance copywriting, I didn’t know. But the possibilities were endless. Or so I thought.

I had fallen into a routine, or found one at least, for myself.  I steadily whittled the hours away by tending to the baby, cooking myself a light breakfast, and assessing my post-baby body.  Then I would have a cup of coffee, e-mail or instant message a friend, call my mother, indulge in a shared nap with the baby, straighten up the apartment and then perform my biggest wife/mother duty of all: cooking the dinner that was to greet my husband when he walked in the door from work.

It was a big duty to me because you see I had never cooked. I had never had the kind of life that cooking fit into.  I was an out to dinner kind of girl. I preferred cocktails and appetizers after work.  Or if resources were limited, a frozen something warmed by microwaves.  But cooking—this was not me, at least I didn’t think until I began to search for recipes of my restaurant favorites online.  I found them, one by one, and perfected them. I knew they were good by the reaction of my husband: how quickly he ate, if he paused to speak between bites. If he was silent and finished quickly, I didn’t have to ask how it was. If he went back for seconds, I knew the recipe was a winner.

So I dove into this cooking, feeling as if it was the least I could do for the man who went to work for Logan and I everyday.  Perhaps I just needed to feel as if I was earning my keep. Whatever the reason, I liked how I felt when I put together meals—smothered pork chops and garlic mashed potatoes, baked barbeque chicken and cabbage, a broccoli casserole—and my man would devour it all gratefully.

One day, I had finished with dinner early and it had started to rain. I thought I would surprise Marc by picking him up for work instead of letting him walk home in the rain. He’ll be thrilled, I thought, to see us pull up.  No one else but he would understand how great of a task it was for me to get Logan bundled, harnessed, down the three flights of stairs in our building and into the car.

I saw him before he saw me, the long stride of his legs swallowing up the sidewalk.  He didn’t have an umbrella, but it seemed that the quickness of his pace defied the mist through which he walked.  He wasn’t really getting wet.  I pulled into a driveway, blocking his path so that he would see me.  He looked at me puzzled, and smiled, I think, before climbing into the car.  I immediately knew something was wrong.

Our baby was three and a half weeks old. Everything he did was fascinating to both of us.  Usually, Marc would completely overtake me with questions about our day.  What did the baby eat? How much did he sleep?  Did he make any new sounds? Did he smile? How is his stomach? Did he spit up a lot?

Not today.  He was quiet, reserved. I asked him what was wrong and he said nothing, smiled gently and asked me what was for dinner.