Chapter 24 - the choice i made before anyone could make it for me
A year after the Open Door Center opened, Nathan and I began talking seriously about having children.
There was no dramatic announcement.
No perfect timing.
No promise.
Just conversations.
Many of them.
What kind of parents did we want to be?
Where would we live?
How would our careers change?
What would happen if one of us became exhausted?
What if parenting was harder than we expected?
What if we disagreed?
What if we couldn't have children?
What if we had children and discovered we were terrible at it?
We talked about all of it.
One evening, Nathan looked at me.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
I laughed.
“That's reassuring.”
He smiled.
“But I'm not afraid of you changing.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because you've already changed.”
That hit me.
“You mean since Ethan?”
“I mean since you met yourself again.”
I looked away.
He continued.
“You don't need me to promise that nothing will go wrong.”
“No.”
“You need me to promise that if something goes wrong, I'll tell you.”
I turned back.
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I'll tell you too.”
We held hands.
That was our decision.
Not to prove anything.
Not to replace anyone.
Not because Noah and Miles had somehow created an empty space in our lives.
Because we wanted to build a family.
Our way.
Months later, we learned we were expecting.
I stared at the test.
Then sat on the bathroom floor.
Not crying.
Not laughing.
Just breathing.
Nathan knocked.
“Claire?”
I opened the door.
He saw my face.
He knew.
Neither of us spoke.
He hugged me.
And for the first time, the word pregnant didn't make me think about Ethan.
It didn't make me think about Savannah.
It didn't make me think about a clinic in Boston.
It belonged entirely to us.
Later, I called Savannah.
She cried.
Then laughed.
Then said:
“The boys are going to be unbearable.”
“They already are.”
She laughed harder.
When I told Noah and Miles, they stared at me.
Then Miles asked:
“Does that mean we're uncles?”
I laughed.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you're six.”
Noah looked offended.
“That's old.”
I smiled.
“Very old.”
He nodded seriously.
“Okay.”
Then he asked:
“Can we teach the baby dinosaurs?”
I touched my stomach.
“I think so.”
“Good.”
That night, I realized something.
The future hadn't erased the past.
May you like
It had simply stopped asking permission from it.
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