(Cassandra's POV)

The morning light came through the blinds in pale stripes across the clinic floor. I sat in the leather chair across from the doctor's desk, hands folded in my lap, knuckles white.

Two years. Two years of blood draws and hormone treatments and sitting in this same chair with the same careful, cautious hope. I had stopped counting the appointments somewhere around month fourteen.

The doctor looked down at the report. Then she looked up, and she smiled.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Thornwood. You're pregnant. About eight weeks along."

I stared at her.

The words landed somewhere outside of me, and for a moment I couldn't pull them in. Then my eyes went hot, and my throat tightened, and I heard my own voice come out unsteady.

"You mean - are you sure?"

She slid the report across the desk. I picked it up with both hands. My name was printed at the top in clean black type, and I ran my fingertip across it, once, twice, like I needed to make sure it was real.

Outside the clinic, I stood on the front steps in the late morning sun. I opened my bag and tucked the report into the innermost zip pocket, the one I never used for anything else. Then I snapped the clasp shut.

I thought of Elizabeth - Damon's grandmother - who never said it outright but asked after my health every single time we met, her sharp gray eyes doing the asking for her. I thought of how she'd looked at me at Christmas, that long measuring look.

Then I thought of Damon.

Nearly three years of marriage. Two of those years trying, hoping, failing quietly. And now this.

I wanted to tell him in person. Not over the phone, not in a text. I wanted to see his face.

I took a cab back to the Thornwood estate and went straight to the kitchen. Mrs. Henderson was at the counter going over the week's grocery list, her reading glasses pushed down her nose.

"Mrs. Henderson," I said, "I need a favor."

She looked up.

"Tonight - can you do a full dinner? Candles, the good tablecloth. Damon's favorite cut of steak, the ribeye. Roasted vegetables on the side." I paused. "And can you pull out the silver candlesticks from the dining room cabinet?"

She set down her pen. She studied me for a moment, and then a slow smile crossed her face.

"I haven't seen you look like that in a long time," she said.

"Like what?"

"Like yourself."

I laughed and didn't explain. I just told her it was a special night.

I checked the table setting myself, adjusted the placement of the forks, and cut a handful of white lilies from the garden to put in the crystal vase at the center. Then I went upstairs and changed into the dark green wrap dress Damon had once said looked good on me - one of the only times he'd ever said anything like that.

When everything was ready, I called him.

The phone rang four times before he picked up.

"Cassandra." His voice was flat, professional. The voice he used for everyone.

"I was hoping you could come home for dinner tonight," I said. I kept my tone light. "Early, if you can manage it. I thought we could eat together."

A beat of silence.

"I'll be there," he said.

I exhaled. "Good. I'll see you tonight."

I hung up and stood there for a moment looking at the dining room - the candles not yet lit, the lilies bright against the white tablecloth. I imagined him walking through the door, me sliding the report across the table, watching his face.

Would he go still the way I had? Would he need a second to understand what he was looking at?

I pressed my hand flat against my stomach and smiled at nothing.

Mrs. Henderson brought the steak out at half past six, still sizzling, the vegetables golden around the edges. I sat at my end of the table and did not pick up my fork.

I would wait.

Seven o'clock came. Seven-thirty. The candles burned down a quarter of the way. Mrs. Henderson came in once to ask if I wanted her to keep the food warm in the oven, and I told her no, leave it.

Eight o'clock.

I checked my phone. No missed calls. No messages.

He's held up at the office, I told myself. He said he'd come. He'll come.

By nine the steak had gone cold. The fat had congealed along the edges, and the vegetables had lost whatever color they'd had. Mrs. Henderson stood in the doorway and said, very gently, that she could reheat everything in ten minutes.

"Not yet," I said. "Just - not yet."

I couldn't explain it. If I let her take the plates away, something would shift. The evening would become something else. As long as the table was set and the candles were burning, it was still the night I had planned.

The clock on the wall struck ten.

I sent him a message. How much longer?

The screen lit up with the delivered receipt. Then went dark.

No reply.

At eleven I was still sitting there. The candles had burned to stubs. The dining room felt very large and very quiet. I looked at the report I'd taken out of my bag and placed face-down on the table beside my plate, and I thought about the two years, and all the appointments, and every time I'd come home to an empty house and told myself it was fine, this was just what marriage looked like, some people had less.

My phone buzzed.

Not a call. A message, from a number I didn't recognize - no name, no prior history. Just a video file.

I almost deleted it. My thumb hovered over the screen.

Then I pressed play.

The footage was shaky, shot from a distance, the way something looks when someone is trying not to be seen. A hotel lobby, or a private room - the background was soft and dim. A woman with a small frame stood with her back to the camera, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders.

A tall man stepped in behind her.

I recognized the suit before I recognized anything else. Hand-tailored charcoal wool, the kind Damon had made at a single tailor in the city who kept his measurements on file. I would know the cut of those shoulders anywhere.

He bent his head toward the woman. His hands came up to the back of her neck, fingers parting her hair with a gentleness I watched and did not understand, because I had never seen him move like that. Not once. Not with me.

He was fastening a necklace.

The chain caught the light as he drew the clasp closed, and I saw the pendant - a delicate gold shape I recognized immediately.

I had told him about it two months ago. We'd been passing a jewelry boutique on the way to a dinner, and I'd stopped at the window and said, almost to myself, that it was exactly what I'd want for our anniversary. He'd made a sound - just a small sound of acknowledgment - and I had taken it to mean he'd heard me.

I watched the woman in the video slowly lean against his chest, his arms wrapped around her.