Anton
Something is off with my wife.
Three days now. Three days of small, almost invisible shifts that anyone else would miss. But I've spent the last few weeks learning Kira the way she learned my kitchen, memorizing what goes where, what's normal, what's out of place. And something is out of place.
She's not drinking coffee. Kira drinks coffee every morning. She has it ready before I come downstairs, two cups, black for me, cream and one sugar for her. But for three days she's been pouring mine and making herself tea instead. Something herbal that smells like ginger.
She pushed her wine away at dinner last night. Didn't touch it. Said it tasted wrong.
And she keeps touching her stomach. Quick, unconscious presses of her palm, flat against her belly, like she's trying to hold something at bay. She’ll pause and swallow, then drop her hand and carries on. But I see it.
I see everything now.
I don't push. I've learned that lesson. But by the third night, the not knowing is eating a hole in my chest. Every scenario I run leads somewhere bad. She's sick. She's unhappy. She's regretting this. She's figured out what kind of man she actually married and she's looking for the exit.
On the third night I come home and the house is dark.
The hallway light is on, the one she had fixed her first week here. But the kitchen is cold. No smell of cooking. No music playing softly from the back of the house. No warmth.
My chest tightens. I take the stairs fast.
The bedroom door is closed. I open it.
She's sitting on the edge of the bed. Hands in her lap. Her eyes are red, but she's not crying. She's just sitting there, still and quiet, holding something small between her fingers. Turning it over and over.
"Kira."
She looks up. And the expression on her face roots me to the doorway. It's not her trained composure. It's not the steel she used on the delivery man or the fire she threw at me in the kitchen. It's something raw and unguarded and real.
"What happened?" I cross the room. Kneel in front of her. Take her hands.
The thing she's holding is small. White plastic. A window with two pink lines.
The world goes very still.
I know what this is. I know what two lines mean. My brain processes it the way it processes everything, fast and clinical and precise. Pregnancy test. Positive. My wife is pregnant.
My wife is carrying my child.
I stare at the lines. My vision narrows to that small plastic window and the two pink marks inside it and the tremor in Kira's fingers and the sound of her breathing, shallow and uneven, while she waits for me to react.
"I felt sick," she says. Her voice is thin. Held together with effort. "I just took the test today…It’s positive." She swallows. "Iknow the council wanted this. I know that's part of why we're here. And I need to know that this isn't just another box to check on their list. Because for me, it’s everything."
She is afraid I'd make this about the council.
The fury that hits me isn't directed at her. It's directed at every single thing that made her believe she needed to be afraid of this moment. Her training. Her father's instructions. The council's demands. And me. The cold, controlled man who stood at that altar and treated her like an obligation for long enough that she couldn't be sure, even now, even after everything, that I'd see this as anything more than compliance.
That's on me. That's my failure.
"Anton." Her voice cracks. "Please say something."
I set the test on the bed beside her. Take both her hands in mine. Hold them tight.
"When Lev died," I say, "I shut down."
She goes still.
"I was twenty-three. A stupid fight over a misunderstanding over a woman. He was just there one minute and gone the next, and I decided I would never let anything get close enough to hurt me like that again."
