Chapter 1

The second time I got pregnant, the whole family braced like a war was coming.

My mother-in-law quit my job for me. My mother moved in.

Everyone in that house watched every bite I ate, every hour I slept.

I was like a piece of fragile porcelain.

Locked away in a cabinet, handled with the most careful hands.

As if the smallest slip would shatter me.

But even with all that care.

I still lost the baby, out of nowhere, five months into the pregnancy.

The doctor called it a threatened miscarriage brought on by too much stress.

He told me to go home and let my body recover.

On the drive back, Marvin Simmons lost his temper with me for the first time.

"Kayla Henson, I honestly don't get what you're being so dramatic about."

"You don't work, you don't earn a dime. What stress could you possibly have?"

"Everyone in this family revolves around you. What more do you want? Why couldn't you even hold on to one baby?"

My mother-in-law said I was simply fated to be childless. My mother told me to take a good, hard look at myself.

But all I felt was tired. So tired.

Too tired to even think about what, exactly, I had done wrong.

1.

The bedroom door wasn't shut all the way.

I lay in bed and watched my mother bent over in the living room, apologizing.

"I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I didn't raise my daughter right."

"This girl has been willful since she was little. We spoiled her rotten. She can't take the slightest hardship."

My mother-in-law let out a helpless sigh.

"Young people these days are just so soft."

"Pregnant, and still staying up all hours every night, and greedy for snacks too. Who knows how much junk food she ate behind our backs."

Marvin sat beside them, his voice heavy.

"A few times I woke up in the middle of the night and saw her lying there with her eyes wide open."

"The doctor said no staying up late, and she just wouldn't listen."

I pushed the door open.

The living room went silent in an instant.

On the table sat a stack of conception guides, along with the herbal remedy prescription my mother-in-law had just picked up.

No one asked how the follow-up exam had gone.

No one cared how much a mother who had lost her child was hurting.

I looked at Marvin and spoke slowly.

"I didn't stay up late. I just couldn't sleep."

All this time, every time I lay down, I would hear my mother and my mother-in-law talking outside.

How many steps I'd walked. How much I'd eaten.

Whether I'd gained weight. Whether this baby would slip away too.

Those words came through the door, one line after another, burrowing into my ears.

Until I couldn't breathe.

My mother-in-law's brow furrowed, her tone sinking.

"What's the difference between not sleeping and staying up late?"

"If you really cared about the baby, you'd keep your eyes shut and sleep."

I turned to my mother.

"I didn't eat any junk food either."

"After I got pregnant, you wouldn't let me have snacks, wouldn't let me drink anything sweet. You even weighed my fruit out by the gram."

"Every single day it was boiled eggs, unsweetened soy milk, unsalted greens, and one bowl of fish soup after another."

"That stuff was fishy and awful to eat."

"Every time I swallowed it I wanted to gag, but I never once left anything on the plate."

My mother's face went dark.

She slapped the table hard and raised her voice.

"Kayla, what is that supposed to mean?"

"We're up at dawn and awake till late taking care of you, and now we did that wrong too?"

My mother-in-law gave a cold laugh.

"Well, the baby's gone now, so of course you can say whatever you like."

"Who knows if you snuck food when we weren't watching."

I opened my mouth, and had no idea what else there was to explain.

Marvin sighed and patted my shoulder, like he was soothing me.

"Forget it. It's over now. There's no point going on about all this."

"At least the doctor says Kayla's body is basically fine. A few months of rest and she'll be good as new."

He handed the prescription to his mother.

"Mom, let's just follow the remedy you suggested."

My mother-in-law nodded.

"Three months of rest first. Once her body recovers, we start trying again."

"This time we'll have to keep a tighter watch. We can't let her run wild."

My mother chimed in.

"The job's already been quit, so now she can just stay home and focus on getting her strength back."

"She's still young. There'll be another baby eventually."

I stood in the doorway and quietly lowered my head.

"I don't want to get pregnant again."

All three of them froze at once.

Marvin was the first to speak.

"Kayla, what nonsense are you talking?"

"Losing the baby is hard on all of us. You can't fall apart over one setback and start saying spiteful things like that."

My mother caught the shift in my mother-in-law's face and grabbed my hand first.

"What woman doesn't have children?"

"Be good. Get your health back, and stop making everyone worry."

Her hand was warm.

But all I felt was cold.

As if, in their eyes.

I wasn't a daughter, wasn't a wife.

Just a baby-making machine, broken for the moment, that needed fixing as soon as possible.