I got home a little after midnight, starving, and found Ali wide awake playing chess. He said he woke up to pee and saw I wasn’t home yet and waited up for me.
“Where were you?” he asked.
“Across the street. You were knocked out when I got home, and I needed to catch up with Dwayne.”
He turned to me, probably to ask how Dwayne held up. Mrs. Pancakes died just before the wedding. But he saw my second trimester belly for the first time and jumped up to caress it. “I can’t believe we’re gonna be parents, Em!”
“Speaking of… Would you want to know what it is sooner rather than later?”
He grinned so wide they could paint lanes on his face and make it a new highway. “I thought you’d never ask!”
