My mother stared at me.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From the woman I’ve loved for sixteen years?”
“From giving up something you’ve always wanted.”
Samantha reached for her coat.
I picked it up and gently handed it to her.
“There isn’t an engagement to celebrate tonight,” I said. “Whatever happens next is between Samantha and me.”
My mother refused to back down.
“You’ve always wanted children.”
“I still do,” I answered quietly. “But Samantha has spent the last eight months believing that mattered more to me than she did.”
Samantha looked at me.
She still didn’t take my hand.
***
Six days earlier, I thought I knew exactly how the rest of our lives would unfold.
I met Samantha when we were nineteen.
We were broke.
Our dates consisted of cheap pizza beside the lake because that was all we could afford.
She always ate the crust first.
