Sophia
The fear crept in a few days later, quiet at first, easy to ignore while the joy of telling Mark was still fresh and warm in my chest. It grew steadily after that, the way worries do at three in the morning when there's nothing else to distract from them.
I woke Mark gently one night, unable to keep it contained any longer, needing to say the thing out loud before it grew any larger in the dark of my own head.
"Mark." My voice was quiet, careful. "Are you awake?"
"I am now." He blinked in the darkness, immediately alert, the way he always was, some old surgeon's instinct that never fully switched off even at rest. "What's wrong?"
"I keep doing math I don't want to be doing." I sat up slightly, pulling my knees toward my chest. "You're forty-one. When this baby turns twenty, you
