The air in the room felt unusually heavy after Haisley's words. "Is it for Ethan?" she had asked quietly, her eyes searching Sophia's face for an answer.
Sophia didn't speak. She couldn't. She only nodded once slowly, hesitantly like someone confessing a guilty pleasure. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. And then she looked away, unable to hold her mother's gaze.
Haisley exhaled sharply and brought her hand to her forehead, her fingers pressing into her temples like she was trying to hold back a headache or maybe a thousand thoughts at once. It wasn't just what Sophia had confirmed, it was everything that had led up to this moment. The secrecy, the arguments, the rift Sophia had caused within the family, and now this?
Pregnant?
She didn't yell. She didn't scold. She simply stood there, too stunned to react the way a mother might. She just stared at Sophia, who looked like a child again vulnerable, unsure, yet glowing with a kind of joy Haisley hadn't seen in a long while.
