Carrying His Claim
I turned the moment over carefully, the way I turned over anything that threatened to complicate a picture I badly wanted to remain simple — Selene’s flicker at the mention of medical updates, the too-smooth delivery of her reassurance, the brief, sharp something that had crossed her face when I’d named the complication out loud.
I told myself it was grief. That seemed, on reflection, the most reasonable explanation available — a woman who’d spent six years making peace with what her own body couldn’t do, watching that peace tested in real time by news that should have been uncomplicated relief and instead carried, underneath the relief, a fresh reminder of exactly what she’d lost. Grief did