Her eyes filled.
I sat beside her.
“There’s something I need to ask,” I said.
Her expression shifted.
“Okay.”
I hesitated, suddenly afraid of the answer.
“At your apartment, I saw an appointment card. On the back, you wrote, ‘Ask about embryo.’”
All the color drained from her face.
The change was so immediate that my heart slammed against my ribs.
“Sophie?”
She turned toward the window.
“Sophie, what does that mean?”
She didn’t answer.
I reached into my jacket and took out the folded letter, not the clinic notice. I placed it gently on the bed between us.
“In your letter, you wrote that the doctor mentioned unusual hormone levels. You said part of you was afraid to hope. Was there something else you didn’t tell me?”
Her breathing changed.
The monitor beside her gave a slightly quicker rhythm.
“Sophie,” I said softly, “please.”
She closed her eyes.
For a long moment, I thought she wouldn’t answer.
Then she whispered, “After the last miscarriage, they ran more tests than usual.”
I stayed very still.
“One doctor thought there might have been a vanishing twin,” she continued. “Another thought the levels were from the tumor. Nothing was clear. Everything was confusing, and then the tumor became the urgent thing.”
