My grandmother smiled, her eyes glistening. “Then take it, baby. Let it wash over you. Love doesn’t have to fit in a box to be real. It just needs to fulfill you and make you happy.”
My mother nodded, her fingers tracing the tears on my cheeks. “We aren’t disappointed in you, Amiyah. The only thing that breaks our hearts is seeing you deny yourself what you deserve. You’ve spent so much time proving your strength that you forgot softness is sacred too.”
The air shimmered around us, the light brightening until it looked like dawn.
I reached for them, my voice cracking. “You really aren’t disappointed?”
My mother shook her head. “Never. You’re everything we dreamed you’d become, bold, brave, brilliant, but most of all, you’re love. You just have to stop running from it.”
Nana smiled through her own tears. “You come from women who knew how to love without fear. Don’t let the world shame you into believing your kind of love is wrong.”
As she spoke, she and my mother both reached out and placed their hands gently over my stomach. The warmth of their touch spread through me like sunlight, deep and steady, filling me with something I didn’t have words for. Love sparkled in their eyes, soft and knowing, as if they saw something in me I couldn’t yet see in myself.
Tears streamed down my face, but my heart was calm, my spirit still.
When I blinked, they each placed a hand on my face again, my mother on one cheek, my grandmother on the other. The light around them grew even brighter.
“Go live, baby,” my mother whispered. “Love out loud.”
“Build the family your soul’s been waiting for,” Nana added. “And remember, we’re always with you.”
The light rose higher, flooding everything in gold. I reached for them, but my fingers met only air, soft and warm, fading into morning light.
When I opened my eyes,my pillow was damp with tears, but my heart felt different, lighter, open. The dream clung to me like perfume, sweet and haunting at once. My chest felt heavy, but in a way that wasn’t pain, more like my heart had been scrubbed raw, ready to feel everything again.
The warmth of my mother and grandmother’s touch still lingered, too, deep in my skin, right where they had placed their hands on my stomach.
I lay there for a few minutes staring at the ceiling, one hand resting on my belly without thinking. Then the wave of nerves rolled back in, quick and sharp, pulling me out of that dream-soft peace and back into reality.
The truth I had been avoiding was sitting right there under my palm.
It had started as a slight suspicion, a little fatigue, some nausea, cravings that didn’t make sense. At first, I thought it was stress or a bug. But when the smell of coffee made me want to cry, I knew something was off.
A few tests later, the truth stared back at me in bold, pink lines. Positive.
At first, I just sat there on the bathroom floor, staring. My body trembled, my throat closed, and my mind went completely blank. Then, like a dam breaking, everything hit me at once: shock, fear, confusion, and something else so pure and wild it took my breath away.
Joy.
Because underneath all the fear, I was happy. Terrified, yes, but happy.
That was two weeks ago.
Since then, I had beenstuck somewhere between disbelief and panic. I hadn’t told anyone. Not Lena, not James, not Calla. I told myself I needed to confirm it with my OB/GYN before I said anything, but deep down, I knew I was stalling.
They had both been so open about not wanting children, about finding fulfillment in each other, in me, in the life we were building without the expectations of family or marriage. I believed in that too, or at least I thought I did.
But now, everything felt different.
The timing, the circumstances, all of it scared me. Calla was still reeling from everything with her father’s death, and James had thrown himself into work, trying to keep things steady. They didn’t need this kind of chaos right now. And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about how their touch made me feel safe, how their love filled every empty place inside me.
That had to mean something.
I got out of bed slowly, every movement deliberate, and showered. By the time I stood in front of the mirror to get dressed, my reflection barely felt like me. My eyes were softer, fuller. My hand drifted to my stomach again. “It’s really happening,” I whispered.
The drive to the doctor’s office was quiet, just me, the hum of the car, and my heartbeat thrumming louder than the radio.
When I finally sat in the waiting room, I tried to steady my breathing. The walls were pale blue, calming, but I still couldn’t shake the tremor in my hands. When the nurse called my name, my legs felt like they belonged to someone else.
