جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 43

Sera had been quieter than usual for nearly a week, something careful and considering in her expression whenever she thought I was not paying attention, and I had learned, over the past year and a half of marriage, exactly what that particular quiet usually meant, something significant she was still working out how to say aloud.I found her sitting at the kitchen table on a quiet Saturday morning, a small paper bag from the pharmacy pushed slightly to one side, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea she had not touched."Good morning," I said carefully, settling into the chair across from her, watching her expression for whatever clue might explain the particular tension I had noticed building all week."Good morning," she said, something nervous entering her voice despite her obvious effort to sound casual. "I need to tell you something, and I confess I've been trying to find the right moment for three days now, which is considerably longer than I usually take to simply say difficult

My water broke on a quiet Tuesday evening while Damian and I were doing nothing more dramatic than washing dishes together after dinner, and something about the sheer ordinariness of the moment made me laugh despite the sudden, startling reality of what it meant."That's considerably less dramatic than every version of this moment television ever prepared me for," I said, watching Damian's face shift instantly from confusion into the same controlled, focused alertness I remembered from every crisis we had ever faced together, except this time the alertness carried pure joy rather than fear."Bag's already in the car," he said, already moving with the calm efficiency of a man who had rehearsed this exact scenario considerably more times than strictly necessary over the preceding weeks. "I called the hospital the moment your appointment confirmed you were full term. They're expecting us.""Of course you already had a plan," I said, laughing through the first real contraction as he guide