But this? This didn’t feel like creation. It felt like confusion. Like someone had draped the word pregnant over her, and it refused to sit right. She touched her stomach, not tenderly, but in search of reason. What should she do? Was she really pregnant?
She didn’t say any of this aloud. Ashley was already carrying the weight. Tula could see it in her eyes—the restless calculation. The worry. The hesitation to give any consolation. How could she? How could she console her mother over this bizarre diagnosis when she didn’t understand it herself?