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The toilet paper unwraps with a soft crinkle, revealing five identical tests, side by side.

For a few seconds, he doesn’t speak.

His eyebrows lift, his mouth parts slightly, and I watch him—helplessly—as his eyes shift from me to the tests, and back again. Once. Twice.

His voice, when it comes, is barely a whisper.

“What are these?”

I can’t speak. My throat tightens so hard I feel like I’m choking on air.

I just stand there, frozen, breath catching on a sob I try to hold in, as my heart punches against my ribs—a desperate, wild rhythm that screams everything I can’t say.

He looks down. And sees it. And I see it too.

One line. Two lines.

Again. And again.

All of them.

Positive.

His breath catches. His fingers tighten instinctively around them.

And I just cry. Not from fear. Not from sadness. But from the weight of it. The beauty and terror of what this means. Of what’s coming. Of what we’ve already begun.

He doesn’t move at first.

Still holding the tests in one hand, he slowly lifts his gaze to meet mine. His chest rises and falls, visibly, as if he’s trying to catch up with reality—to let this moment land in his bones.

“Sierra…” His voice cracks, like it’s carrying too much emotion in too little space.

My husband looks back down, stares at the results again, almost like he needs to make sure he read them right. His thumb brushes across the plastic, almost reverent, as if touching proof of something too big to grasp all at once.

Then, gently, he places the tests in the nearby dresser and steps closer. One step. Two.

I feel the weight of his presence even before he touches me.

And when his hands reach for my face, cupping it so delicately it breaks me open, I start sobbing.

FIFTY-TWO

Nick

Everything around me goes still.

The air. The light. My own heartbeat.

All I feel is her—the trembling of her shoulders, the warmth of her tears on my fingers, the look in her eyes that holds both fear and hope in equal measure.

I cup her face gently, grounding myself in the softness of her skin, and press my forehead to hers—so I can breathe. Just so I can survive this single second before my entire world shifts.

Because we’re not just two anymore.

We’re three.

Something inside me breaks open—something I didn’t even know was sealed shut until now. And in its place, something new is being born. A fierceness. A softness. A kind of joy so terrifying in its purity, I don’t know whether to laugh or fall apart.