Aralyn's reaction said what her silence did not. Lorraine's heart sank with guilt, realizing how thoughtless she had been to pry into something so deeply personal. Her excitement, the fragile hope of this new life growing within her, had led her to ask what she had always tried to avoid; questions meant only for whispered confessions in private, not in the open like this.
She was about to apologize when Aralyn spoke.
"I had one… but lost him," Aralyn murmured after a long pause, her voice fragile, as though carefully stitching herself back together.
The weight of those words hung heavily in the air, filling the space between them like a shadow. Lorraine could feel Sylvia stiffen beside her, a subtle, shared tremor for she too knew loss, the sharp ache of children lost too soon.
For a breathless moment, time seemed to freeze in mutual grief.
