My hand rested there, on the small, secret curve that no one knew about. Two months. I was two months along, and the only person I'd told was God, kneeling in the back pew of St. Anthony's three Sundays ago.
I took a deep breath and tried to speak. I wanted to apologize to the little one inside. I couldn't keep it. But as soon as I opened my mouth, the tears began pouring out.
They came without sound at first, just a heat behind my eyes and then a collapse, my shoulders folding inward, my hand still pressed to my stomach as if I could hold everything together by touch alone. The sobs came after. Ugly. Wrenching. The kind that steal your breath and leave you gasping against the bathroom wall at four in the afternoon in a house that has never felt like yours.
I had wanted to surprise Simone on his birthday. I had planned it. The timing, the words, the way I would tell him over dinner at the estate, just the two of us, with the candles lit and the guards posted far enough away that we could pretend to be a normal married couple for one night.
But it was obvious he didn't want this baby at all.