Then I saw her.
Tiny.Perfect.A head full of dark hair and the kind of new baby rosy skin that made your chest ache.
“Hannah,” Clara whispered when I asked her name.
Brody's smile reached all the way to his eyes.“She’s beautiful,” he said, and his voice went soft in a way I’d only ever heard when he said my name.
Mason handed her to me.She weighed almost nothing but felt like everything.
The world went quiet, the good kind of quiet.The kind where time stops making demands and just lets you feel.
Something shifted in me.Not panic.Not expectation.Just… knowing.
A small thought, tender and persistent:you’re late.
When we said our goodbyes, Clara made me promise to come by the next morning with coffee and breakfast sushi.Brody kissed the top of her head, telling her she did good and to let us know if they needed anything or if they needed us to keep Jackson for the night, and then we left, wrapped in each other's arms.
As we walked through the halls of the hospital, I saw the pharmacy and knew I needed to make a stop.“I just need to run in there real quick,” I said, nodding toward the sign down the hall.
Brody looked at me, head tilted.“You feeling, okay?”
“I think so.”My voice came out too careful.“Just… maybe I should check something.”
He didn’t ask what.He just nodded once, squeezed my hand, and followed me in.
The fluorescent lights felt jarring after the soft hush of the maternity ward.We found the aisle, the tests, the quiet understanding that passed between us when I grabbed the box, and his eyes went wide with hope.
Back home, the heat had just kicked on.Brody locked the door, then leaned against it, watching me with that same steady patience he gives everything that matters.
“You want me to wait out here...or?”he asked gently, scanning our place with a nervous energy.
“No,” I said.“I want you with me.”
We ended up in our tiny bathroom, both of us laughing nervously because it suddenly felt ridiculous to be nervous about something that, deep down, I already knew.I tore open the box, followed the directions, and then set the test on the counter.
“Five minutes,” Brody said, glancing at his watch.
“Longest five minutes of our lives.”
We sat on the floor just outside of the bathroom, shoulder to shoulder, his hand covering mine.He traced slow circles against my skin, the same small motion that always quieted my mind.
Neither of us spoke.We just listened to the hum of the pellet stove, the soft tick of the clock in the kitchen, the rhythm of our breathing.
When the timer on his phone buzzed, I looked at him, silently asking him to check.
Brody kissed my temple, then stood.When he came back out of the bathroom, his smile was wide, disbelieving, beautiful.“Two lines,” he said quietly.
I stood on shaky legs, with a laugh that turned into happy tears, and pressed my face into his chest.“We’re having a baby,” I whispered.
He pulled me impossibly closer, his voice breaking on a laugh.“Yeah, we are.”
We stayed like that for a while, breathing each other in, letting the reality of the news sink in and feeling the biggest emotions we’d ever had.
It wasn’t chaos.It wasn’t fear.It was life, right here, beginning again.
Brody kissed the side of my head, whispering, “Guess we’ll need to prioritize the nursery in the new house.”
“Guess so,” I said, smiling into his shirt.“And maybe a little more space in my office for a bassinet.”
