Something inside me cracked open—gentle, not shattering, just making room. For him. For her. For the version of me that finally accepted I could be loved without conditions. I pressed my forehead against his, breathing him in, and thought how wild it was that the same person who once felt like chaos could now feel like home. How impossible it was that a love like this could exist in the same world that once tore us apart.
And maybe that was what love really was—transforming the darkness you’d inherited into something you could finally see by, until all that remained was a light someone could find you by.
Chapter Forty-Six
I WOKE TO THE SOUNDof murmuring—low, earnest, and suspiciously close. For a fleeting second, I thought maybe I’d left a podcast running. But no, this voice wasn’t about murder mysteries or celebrity scandals. It was about me.
Or more accurately, my uterus.
I cracked one eye open to find Khalifa’s head resting against my stomach and having a deeply emotional conversation with it.
“I’m trying to sleep,” I mumbled.
“Shh. I want her to know my voice,” he said, as if my belly button were a microphone and he was giving a TED Talk titledFatherhood: A Tragedy in Three Acts.
“The only voice that matters is mine.” I dragged his pillow over my face. “You’re just giving her daddy issues before she’s even born.”
He laughed softly. “She needs to be prepared. I’m teaching her important things, like how her mother thinks cereal qualifies as fine dining. Oh, and a brief lecture on the 1982 patriation of the Canadian Constitution—because if she inherits your attention span, she’ll need the head start.”
I groaned into the pillow. “You’re corrupting her already.”
“She should know what she’s getting into.” His voice was lazy, threaded with sleep. “I told her how we met. How I thought you were impossible. Still do. How you stole all the good pillows and most of my sanity.”
“Sounds accurate.”
“And how you’re the bravest person I know. How you’re going to be the best mom.”
I lowered the pillow, my throat tightening in that uncontrollable way it did whenever he said things like that—things he didn’t mean to sound profound, but somehow always did. I glanced down at him—stretched across the bed, his hair messy, eyes half-lidded, hand resting over the small curve of my belly like he was afraid to let go.
He smiled faintly, still watching me, and whispered, “She kicked earlier. Probably because she’s already tired of your sarcasm.”
“Or because you were monologuing again.”
He was silent for a while after that, long enough for me to think he’d fallen back asleep. Then, quietly, he said, “You need to tell your mom, Lillian.”
That sobered me. “No,” I said firmly. “She wasn’t even happy about her pregnancy withme. You think she’ll be happy about mine? I don’t want that poisonous, girl-hating energy anywhere near me. Or her.”
He scooted up until we were face-to-face. “She doesn’t have to be a part of the pregnancy. But I think...she should at least know.”
“Why?”
“Because you might regret not telling her. Because she’s still your mom. And maybe—” his voice cracked ever so slightly, “—maybe she’ll surprise you.”
The tenderness behind his words wasn’t just for me—it was for himself too, for the ghost of a woman he would never get to say those things to.
“Everyone needs their mom,” he said, and it wasn’t an argument—it was a confession.
Something inside me stilled. He would give anything to see his mother alive for one more minute, to tell her all the thingsthat were still sitting in his chest. And here I was—my mother alive and well—wasting the chance to make things right, letting old wounds speak louder than the possibility of healing.
“It’s your choice, though. Whatever you want to do.”
Somehow, that made it harder—because he wasn’t trying to change my mind. He was just reminding me that it wasn’t too late to try.
I exhaled slowly, staring at the ceiling where the morning light was bleeding through the blinds in thin, forgiving lines. Everything had gone back to normal—or at least, to some fragile, shimmering imitation of it. Khalifa was home again. His shoes by the door, his mug on the counter, his voice drifting down the hallway. The house smelled like coffee and food and laundry detergent instead of silence and regret. There was laughter echoing in corners that had gone too long without it, warmth spilling into rooms that used to pulse with absence.
We were us again, except nothing would ever be the same.
And for the first time, I didn’t want it to be.
