Three A.M., Waiting for the Due Date
Chapter 11 - Three A.M., Waiting for the Due Date
Elena woke at three in the morning, eight months pregnant now, unable to find a comfortable position, her mind circling back, as it often did in these quiet hours, to the specific fear that had followed her since the kitchen.
Marcus woke beside her, recognizing the particular stillness of her insomnia by now, months into a pregnancy that had survived considerably more than most.
"Can't sleep," he said, not quite a question.
"I keep thinking about the birth," Elena said. "About the hospital, about paperwork, about whether some part of me is always going to associate genetic testing and family trust clauses with what almost happened, even after everything's resolved legally."
"That's a reasonable fear to still be carrying," Marcus said. "I don't think it disappears just because we understand the facts now. I think it takes time to fully believe, in your body and not just your mind, that the danger's actually passed."
"Do you still think about her," Elena asked, "your mother. When you're lying awake like this."
"Sometimes," Marcus admitted. "I think about the version of her I knew before the kitchen, and the version capable of what she actually did, and I still don't know how to fully reconcile those two people into one understanding I can hold comfortably."
"Maybe you're not supposed to reconcile them fully," Elena said. "Maybe some people just contain both things, the version you loved and the version capable of real harm, and the work isn't making them make sense together. It's deciding how much access either version gets to your life going forward."
Marcus considered that, something in the framing landing more usefully than any of his own attempts to process it over the past several months.
"I've decided," he said slowly. "Limited contact, for now. Supervised, if it happens at all, until whatever legal consequences she faces are fully resolved. I'm not ready for anything beyond that, and I don't think I owe anyone a faster timeline than that."
"That sounds right," Elena said. "For you, and for our daughter, when she's old enough to understand any of this."
They lay together in the dark, the baby shifting inside her, Marcus's hand resting gently against the movement, both of them slowly, carefully, learning to trust the quiet stretches of the night again, one sleepless hour at a time.
"I'm scared of the birth itself too," Elena admitted, quieter now. "Not just the family history around it. The actual, physical part of it, especially after everything else that's happened this year."
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"I'll be there," Marcus said. "Every second of it. Whatever you need."
"I know," Elena said. "That's the part that actually lets me sleep most nights. Knowing you'll be there, fully, the way your father was there for you, whatever else this family's history turns out to be complicated by."
