Our kitchen cabinets were covered with fertility calendars. Vitamins lined the counter beside the coffee machine like tiny promises. Medical bills filled drawers I stopped opening because every envelope felt like proof that hope could become expensive enough to break you.
And then, suddenly, there it was.
Two pink lines.
Pregnant.
I stared at the test until my vision blurred. My hand flew over my mouth as laughter burst out of me — shaky, breathless, almost painful. Not because anything was funny, but because after years of drowning, I had finally touched solid ground again.
I imagined running downstairs barefoot to tell Caleb. I pictured him lifting me into his arms, crying into my hair, whispering that everything had finally been worth it.
Instead, I stepped out into silence.
The house felt wrong immediately. Too still. Too careful.
Usually, late evenings in our Seattle home were full of expensive little sounds — ice clinking in Caleb’s whiskey glass, financial news murmuring from his office, the dishwasher humming softly in the background.
That night, the silence felt rehearsed.
“Caleb?” I called.
No answer.
Then I heard his voice downstairs.
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Soft.
Intimate.
The kind of voice he had not used with me in almost a year.
