28. Ivy
IVY
T he first thing I notice when I wake is the softness.
The light, pale and silvery, spills across the duvet like poured milk, quiet and smooth against the rumpled sheets.
The blanket smells faintly of detergent and pine, the scent of Ethan’s home, and beneath that, something warmer.
Him. I’m alone, but I know he brought me here.
I remember the way I curled into him, too tired to pretend I was okay, and how his body had felt beside mine—solid, warm, safe in that way only he can be.
I must have fallen asleep against him. I must have been carried here, because my last memory is the laugh track from a sitcom and the soft weight of my head resting on his shoulder like it belonged there.
Living with Ethan is both heaven and hell.
On the surface, we have settled into something almost domestic.
He brews my tea before I’m even fully awake.
He keeps the fridge stocked with things I didn’t even know I wanted until they’re there.
There are prenatal vitamins on the counter now, the brand Cassie swore by during her residency rotation in maternal health, and soft cotton socks he picked out, folded neatly beside a pair of slippers I never asked for.
When I try to thank him, he only nods, quiet and unreadable, like this is just what you do when someone is carrying your child, even if that person broke your heart.
The texts from Daniel have stopped. For now, at least. The silence unnerves me, but I try not to feed the fear.
There’s something steadier in the way Ethan moves through the apartment, in the sound of his voice when he answers his phone from the study, in the way his keys drop into the bowl by the door every evening.
He is still here. He hasn’t run. That means more than I know how to say.
This morning, we go to the checkup together.
I try not to let the nervousness show as we enter the clinic, but Ethan reaches out instinctively, his hand finding the small of my back.
Just that touch is enough to hold me together.
The doctor is kind, the nurse efficient, and the exam room smells like peppermint and paper, but all I can focus on is the quiet rise and fall of Ethan’s chest beside me as we wait for the screen to light up with the shape of our child.
The image makes my breath catch. There she is.
I still don’t know the sex officially, but deep in my bones, I feel it—this is a girl.
The outline is perfect, a little profile with a stubborn jaw and one tiny hand lifted like she’s already preparing to argue with the world.
Ethan’s gaze is fixed, unmoving, his jaw clenched just slightly like he’s holding something inside.
I steal a glance at him and for a moment, I see something in his eyes that almost breaks me.
Wonder. Awe. The barest edge of a smile.
Later, we walk through the park, coats pulled tight against the cold, and Ethan hands me a white paper bag without a word.
Inside are two melting ice cream sandwiches, the kind sold only in the small corner shop he likes because they make everything in-house the way his grandmother used to.
The air bites at our faces, but the ice cream is delicious, rich vanilla pressed between soft gingerbread cookies.
I laugh as I take a bite, teeth aching from the chill, and he watches me like he’s cataloging the sound.
“Who eats ice cream in December?” I murmur, my voice soft, full of joy I don’t want to examine too closely.
His eyes don’t leave mine. “We do.”
We sit on a wooden bench near the playground, just far enough to not be noticed but close enough to watch the swirl of color and motion.
Children chase one another across the frosted lawn, their boots kicking up brittle leaves, cheeks flushed pink with cold.
A little girl in a red puffer jacket climbs onto the jungle gym and waves to her father, who responds with a clap and a grin so wide I feel something twist in my chest. I glance sideways at Ethan.
He’s watching too, quiet and still, the ice cream forgotten in his hand.
I can see it so clearly in that moment—him, holding a child against his chest, teaching her how to ride a bike, pressing a kiss to her forehead before school.
He would be the kind of father who remembers every birthday, who reads bedtime stories in silly voices, who shows up for every game, every recital, every scraped knee.
I never needed anyone to take care of me.
I have money. I have work I believe in. My remote role at the nonprofit lets me build communications campaigns for women’s health across underserved regions.
It matters. I matter. But this—this is something else.
This is care that asks for nothing in return.
It makes something in me soften and hurt all at once.
We return to the apartment in silence. Not because there is nothing to say but because neither of us knows how to breach the space between us.
Ethan disappears into the kitchen, warming leftovers, setting the table like we’re married or something close to it.
We eat quietly, side by side, and I try not to want more.
I tell myself this is enough. That having him close—even if we’re not really together—is better than nothing.
But the ache only grows, deeper now, more patient, like it has nowhere else to go but inward.
He hasn’t touched me since that night at the cabin.
Not like that. Not in any way that makes my body remember.
And I feel every inch of that distance. I feel it when he hands me a mug of tea without letting our fingers brush.
I feel it when he walks into the room and looks through me like he’s trying not to want what he once had.
I feel it when he leaves his door open at night, but never wide enough to invite me in.
I try not to cry. Sometimes, I succeed.
It happens as I’m folding laundry on the couch.
The television hums in the background with some old rerun I’m not watching.
The room smells like cinnamon and fabric softener, like something whole and clean.
I reach for a soft onesie I bought weeks ago, pale yellow with little stars across the chest, and something inside me twists hard.
I press a hand to my stomach, not expecting anything, not expecting her.
And then she moves.
It’s the lightest thing. A shift. A roll. A nudge from within that isn’t gas or muscle or wishful thinking but her. My baby. The child inside me, alive and kicking.
I sit perfectly still. My palm is flat and trembling over the small swell beneath my sweatshirt, breath locked tight in my lungs. There it is again—a soft thump like a knock from the inside, like she’s letting me know she’s here, that she’s listening, that she’s part of everything now.
Tears fill my eyes, hot and stinging and impossible to hold back.
Not because I’m afraid. Not because I’m sad.
But because there is something so unspeakably beautiful about feeling her move, feeling this tiny person I’ve grown in silence, press herself into the world for the very first time.
It is magic. It is unbearable to keep this to myself.
I rise from the couch on shaky legs, wiping the tears from my cheeks, barely registering the softness of the lights around me or the gentle hum of music playing softly from the living room speaker.
My feet find the hall without thought, drawn like water to gravity.
The house is quiet, the kind of quiet that stretches out like a held breath, but I know where he is.
His office door is open just a crack. Enough for the warm amber glow of his desk lamp to spill into the dark hallway, brushing over the hardwood floor like firelight. I hear the rhythmic click of keys, the low murmur of a file closing, and then silence.
He is inside.
I knock once, softly. The kind of knock that isn’t really a knock, more like a whisper wrapped in skin.
The door creaks as I push it open, and he looks up at once, eyes alert, back straight in his chair.
His laptop screen reflects faint lines of code and a digital map marked in red, but whatever he’s doing, he slams the lid shut the moment he sees me.
“What is it?” he asks, and his voice is sharp at first—guarded, careful—but it softens when he sees my face.
I can’t find the words. They scatter like petals before a storm, leaving me mute in the doorway with too many emotions swelling at once.
He begins to rise, his chair groaning faintly beneath him, but I shake my head, stepping forward until I’m close enough to see the shadows beneath his eyes, the stubble along his jaw, the tension in his shoulders that never quite leaves anymore.
Then I do the only thing I can. I take his hand.
It is warm and solid, calloused in all the familiar places, and I guide it down slowly, pressing it over the curve of my stomach.
He doesn’t speak. Not at first. His hand just rests there, steady and open, waiting.
For a heartbeat, there is nothing. Just silence. Just the thick, breathless pause of a world suspended.
Then it happens.
A flutter. A small, unmistakable movement, like a knock from the inside. Like a wave hello. His breath catches. His hand goes still.
I watch his face, unable to look away. He stares at his hand like it doesn’t belong to him, like the sensation is something foreign and too sacred to hold. His eyes are wide, not in fear but in awe, and for the first time since I told him the truth, I see it. The wall cracks.
Something shifts behind his expression. Something deep and seismic, as if this—this single, fragile motion beneath his palm—is rewriting every story he’s been telling himself since the day I broke his heart.
His thumb brushes gently over the rise of my belly, almost reverently, like he’s afraid to scare her away.
And still, he says nothing, but he doesn’t have to.
His fingers tighten slightly, just the smallest pressure, the gentlest anchor, as if he’s trying to hold this moment in place before it slips through his hands. And maybe that’s why I believe it—why, for the first time since all of this began, I let myself believe that this isn’t the end of us.