▸ Column · Contemporary Midgard (modern-day New York) — Loki among mortals
LOKI replies.
The letter
So, Amira and I had our son Felix four months ago, and I genuinely can't remember the last time we talked — like, actually talked, about us or anything else. He sleeps in a tiny bassinet crammed right between us. She nurses him every two hours. My mom even offered to take him for a night so Amira and I could go have dinner, and she spent the whole meal staring at the baby monitor app under the table. (I get it. I do. It's only been four months.) I'm not even asking for much at this point — I'd take one full conversation that didn't loop back to feeding logs and nap schedules. Last night I went to hold her hand and she'd already conked out sitting straight up against the headboard. How do you get back to being a couple when there's just... no room left for it?
— Sidelined in Midtown
Loki replies
Oh, I recognize this letter. Not because I have cradled an infant — I have not, and intend to maintain that policy — but because I recognize the shape of what's underneath it. With considerable personal authority, I might add.
A new creature has entered the room. Golden. Helpless. Magnetically absorbing every ounce of devotion the room contains. And you are standing slightly outside the light of it, telling yourself you're fine, reaching into the dark and finding a hand already asleep in someone else's exhaustion.
I know this position. I grew up in it.
Now: you are beginning to build a ledger. "The monitor under the table." "One conversation that isn't about ounces." I hear the columns forming already. I have constructed entire palaces on precisely this kind of accounting, and I assure you — they are cold, immaculate, and very empty.
Amira is not choosing against you. She is four months into something that has consumed her alive, and she is still right there beside you, falling asleep against your headboard rather than disappearing entirely. That is not abandonment. That is survival, trusted.
It is a temporary displacement, not permanent exile. I say this as someone who made a temporary displacement permanent through sheer personal determination. Do not be quite so determined.
— Loki
Thor weighs in
My brother names your wound and he is not wrong about it. But, friend — you wrote this letter counting what you are not receiving.
Look again at the woman nursing through the dark every two hours, falling asleep sitting straight up.
This is not a negotiation. Carry the two o'clock. Let Amira sleep. Not to earn anything back — because she is bearing more than you are right now, and you have strength she does not.
Do that faithfully, no account kept, and the couple you are missing does not return through bargaining. It returns because you were worthy of her when she had nothing left to give.
I have paid dearly for asking what I deserved when I should have been asking who needed shielding.
— Thor
▸ Read next