Cliff looked down at the little baby in his arms.
"She's beautiful," he said.
Corinne smiled. Slowly, Cliff put their new born baby back down again. He didn't look at Corinne.
"You're mad at me," Corinne said simply.
"Yep," Cliff replied. "I was right there. Right there! And it was Annika you asked to take to the hospital, and you wouldn't even let her tell me until after our baby was born."
"I'm sorry."
"I was looking forward to it."
"I know. And I really am sorry but I didn't want you to dislocate your jaw."
Cliff blinked, and finally moved his eyes to look at her.
"You didn't want me to dislocate my jaw," he repated slowly.
Corinne looked apologetic.
"You were... you were going to faint and hit your jaw on the way down," she said quietly. "I didn't want you to get hurt. And I've heard that dislocated jaws are very painful."
Cliff let out an explosive breath.
"I could have waited outside you know. You didn't have to keep me away. Damnit Corinne, you insist on telling me - or trying to tell me all this stuff that I don't really need to know, and then you leave out important things like dislocated jaws. Why do you have to act like... like some kind of puppet master? Don't I get choices any more?"
He stood.
"Y'know what? If I stay here, our daughter is going to hear some language which really isn't approriate."
Corinne said nothing as Cliff left.