They talked about children. About family dinners. About birthdays and school pictures and the life they wanted to build. Daniel was not a perfect man, but he was gentle, hardworking, and devoted. He came home to her. He held her hand. He made her laugh. When she doubted herself, he told her she was beautiful anyway.
They had been married five years when the dream that should have come naturally began to turn into a long, private grief.
Linda could not get pregnant.
At first they told themselves it would happen soon. Then they told themselves to be patient. Then they started counting time in cycles of hope and disappointment. Month after month, Linda watched expectation rise and then collapse. With every failure, something inside her weakened. She began to wonder whether she had been made wrong somehow, whether motherhood had been meant for everyone except her.
The worst part was not the doctors or the negative tests. It was Daniel’s mother, Gloria Carter.