I adored them.
Daniel loved them too.
But there was always one thing he wanted that he never quite learned how to stop wanting.
A son.
He never said our girls weren’t enough.
Not directly.
That would have been easier to confront.
Instead, his disappointment appeared in small moments.
After Ruby was born, he held her against his chest and kissed her tiny forehead.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered.
Then, barely loud enough for anyone else to hear:
“Maybe next time.”
I heard him.
I pretended I didn’t.
There was always a next time with Daniel.
A next pregnancy.
A next chance.
A next possibility.
By my fourth pregnancy, I was already tired.
By my fifth, I was scared.
My doctor had warned me that my pregnancies were becoming harder on my body.
But when that little blue line appeared again, Daniel looked like someone had handed him a winning lottery ticket.
“I have a feeling,” he told me.
“You said that with Ruby.”
“No. This is different.”
“How?”
He grinned.
“I just know.”
I rolled my eyes, but secretly I hoped he was right.
Not because I needed a boy.
I didn’t.
I wanted a healthy baby.
But I wanted Daniel to finally stop chasing something our family supposedly lacked.
At twenty weeks, the ultrasound technician smiled.
“Well,” she said, moving the monitor toward us, “Dad might want to start thinking about boy names.”
Daniel nearly jumped out of his chair.
“A boy?”
She laughed.
“A boy.”
He grabbed my face and kissed me.
I laughed too.
For the rest of the pregnancy, Daniel became almost unbearable with excitement.
He repainted the spare bedroom.
Bought a baseball glove for a child who hadn’t been born yet.
Ordered a wooden crib without telling me.
Put a tiny football on the dresser.
Every night, he would rest his hand against my stomach.
“Hey, buddy. Dad’s here.”
Sometimes I caught myself feeling guilty for the girls.
Daniel had never built a room months in advance for any of them.
He had never counted down their births with the same intensity.
I told myself I was being unfair.
He loved his daughters.
This was simply different.
At least that was what I wanted to believe.
During the last three months of my pregnancy, I had trouble walking.
My back pain became so severe that my doctor ordered me to rest as much as possible.
That was when Marcus started helping us.
Marcus Hale had been Daniel’s closest friend since high school.
Calling him a friend almost felt inaccurate.
He was family.
He had been Daniel’s best man at our wedding.
He was there when Emma was born.
He helped Daniel renovate our kitchen.
The girls called him Uncle Marcus.
When I could no longer manage school pickups comfortably, Marcus volunteered.
When Kayla had dance practice and Daniel was working late, Marcus drove her.
When I needed groceries, he dropped them at the house.
Once, he even sat in the pediatrician’s office with Ruby for forty minutes because I was too sick to leave bed and Daniel was stuck at work.
I appreciated him.
Nothing more.
Nothing inappropriate had ever happened between us.
Not even close.
But looking back, there had been moments I should have paid more attention to.
One evening, Daniel came home early and found Marcus and me sitting at the kitchen table.
Marcus had brought coffee.
I had nearly spilled mine because he was telling me a ridiculous story about Daniel getting rejected by a girl at sixteen.
Daniel walked in while we were laughing.
He stopped in the doorway.
“You two seem to be having fun.”
Marcus grinned.
“I was telling your wife what a loser you were in high school.”
Daniel laughed.
But after Marcus left, Daniel asked:
“How often is he here when I’m gone?”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“I’m asking.”
“Whenever you ask him to help.”
Daniel shrugged.
“Forget it.”
I did.
There was another moment too.
Two summers earlier, Marcus had been swimming with the girls at a family barbecue.
He climbed out of the pool carrying Emma on his shoulders.
As he bent to put her down, the waistband of his swim trunks shifted slightly.
