Your hand rests unconsciously over your stomach, where a secret, four months in the making, has been growing. The ultrasound photo is folded carefully in your coat pocket, edges softened from how often you’ve taken it out to look. Tonight felt right. He’d been distant, tired, stressed about the playoffs—but you thought this would fix it. You thought this would bring him back to you.

The heavy door to the locker room is slightly ajar. A sliver of warm, yellow light cuts across the polished concrete floor. From inside, you hear low voices—his, and a woman’s. Laughter. Familiar, intimate.