Starting over-c

I put a hand against my stomach and sat there a moment in the quiet, feeling her shift again, slower this time, like she was settling in for the night the way I was.

"Hi," I said, quiet, the way I did most evenings when it was just the two of us and no one to hear how strange it sounded. "Long day."

She didn't answer, obviously. But something about saying it out loud made the room feel less empty.

I thought, not for the first time, about what I'd say to her someday when she was old enough to ask about her father. I hadn't landed on an answer yet. Some nights I told myself I'd tell her the truth, plain and unflinching — that he'd rejected me before I ever got the chance to tell him she existed, that he'd done it in front of someone else, that he'd chosen ceremony and witnesses over five seconds of listening. Other nights I told myself I'd soften it, give her something she could carry without it curdling into the same bitterness I carried.

I hadn't told anyone here the whole truth. Donna knew I'd left somewhere bad. She'd never pushed past that, and I loved her a little for it. The people at the diner knew I was alone and pregnant and worked hard, and that was enough of a story for them.

What none of them knew — what I still hadn't let myself sit with fully, even eight months out — was what Ada had said in the grass that night, breathless, her hand locked around my arm like she thought I might bolt before she got the words out. It wasn't about her.

I'd walked away before she could finish. I remembered that clearly — the way I'd pulled my arm free, told her I couldn't hear any more that night, and walked to my cabin and packed and crossed the border before the sun came up, leaving her standing there with whatever else she'd meant to say still caught in her throat.

Eight months, and I still didn't know what she'd been about to tell me.

Some nights that didn't matter. Some nights I told myself it didn't matter, that whatever reason Kael had, it didn't undo the fact that he'd rejected me without asking a single question, that reasons didn't rebuild what he broke.

But tonight, feeling her shift again low in my belly, restless the way she got right before she finally settled to sleep, the thought crept back in anyway, the way it always did when I let my guard down.

What if it wasn't him.

I pushed the thought away the way I always did. It didn't matter now. I was here, she was coming any day, and there was no version of this where I picked up a phone and called back into a life that had already made its choice for me.

I changed into the soft, worn shirt I slept in these days, the only thing that still fit comfortably, and lay back against the pillows, one hand resting where I could feel her moving.

The ache in my back had settled into something sharper by the time I finally started to drift, a tightening low and deep that I told myself was nothing, was just the day catching up with me, was just—

I sat up fast when it came again, harder this time, unmistakable, radiating around from my spine to the front of my stomach like a fist closing.

I looked at the clock. 11:47.

I sat very still, hand pressed flat against my belly, waiting to see if it would pass the way the small ones always had.

It didn't pass. Another one followed it, closer than it should have been, closer than anything the books Donna had lent me said was normal for a first one.

My hands started shaking as I reached for the phone.