Serafina
“Can we talk?”
Lucia’s voice comes from the doorway, calm on the surface, but I know her well enough now to hear what’s underneath it. I look up from the table where I’m folding fabric samples, my hands already dusted with chalk, my mind still half in work. The house is quiet in that rare way that feels earned rather than imposed, sunlight sliding across the floor, Matteo’s mug clinking softly somewhere in the kitchen.
“Of course,” I say, setting the fabric aside. “What’s going on?”
She steps into the room and sits across from me, not rushing, not stalling either. Her fingers lace together and then unlatch again, a small, unconscious movement that makes my shoulders tense before I can stop them. Old instincts wake up immediately, sharp and unwelcome. Brace. Anticipate. Prepare for loss.
Lucia takes a breath, steadying herself. “I didn’t want to make this a big thing,” she begins. “I just… I wanted to tell you myself.”
I nod slowly. “Okay. I’m listening.”
She meets my eyes, really meets them, and for the first time I see it clearly. The nerves. The hope. The fear she’s trying not to let spill over.
“I’m pregnant,” she says.
For a heartbeat, the world drops out from under me. The hum of the house disappears. The sunlight feels suddenly too bright, too still. I wait for the response I’ve been conditioned to expect, the one I’ve rehearsed for most of my life. I wait for jealousy to strike like a blade. I wait for that familiar tightening in my chest, the voice that whispers this changes your place, this means you lose something.
Nothing happens.
Instead, something warm and electric surges through me, so fast and full it steals my breath. A laugh tears out of my chest before I can stop it, breaking into tears almost immediately.
“Oh,” I say, my hand flying to my mouth as my eyes burn. “Oh, Lucia.”
She freezes, clearly unprepared for this reaction. “You’re… okay?” she asks carefully. “I mean, really okay?”
I push back from the table so quickly my chair scrapes against the floor. “Okay?” I repeat, laughing through tears as I stand. “I’m more than okay. Come here.”
She hesitates, just for a moment, like she’s giving me one last chance to pull away. Then she stands, and I close the distance between us without thinking, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tight. Her body is warm and solid and real against mine, and the truth settles into my bones like it was always meant to be there.
“This is wonderful,” I say, pulling back just enough to see her face. She looks radiant and terrified all at once, eyes shining, breath uneven. “This is really wonderful.”
Her shoulders sag as if something heavy has finally been set down. “I didn’t know how you’d feel,” she admits softly. “I kept thinking about it, running through all the possibilities.”
“I thought I knew how I’d feel too,” I tell her honestly. “I was wrong.”
She lets out a shaky laugh. “Wrong in a good way?”
“In the best way,” I say without hesitation.
We sit back down, closer now, knees almost touching. I’m still wiping my cheeks when Matteo appears in the doorway, his expression shifting the moment he takes in the scene. He looks from Lucia to me, clearly bracing himself.
“What happened?” he asks, already moving closer. “Is everything all right?”
Lucia turns toward him. “I told her.”
He stills completely. “And?”
I reach for his hand before the spiral can take hold, grounding him the way I’ve learned to do. “And I’m very happy,” I say firmly.
His breath rushes out of him in a way that sounds almost like a laugh. “You are?” he asks, disbelief and relief tangled together.
“Yes,” I say, squeezing his hand. “I really am.”
He moves to sit beside Lucia, pulling her gently against him, his arm wrapping around her shoulders. Watching them together, tender and unguarded, fills me with something expansive I don’t have a name for yet.
“I expected jealousy,” I admit quietly, more to myself than to them. “I was ready for it.”
Lucia tilts her head, studying me. “And instead?”
“And instead,” I say, wiping the last of the tears from my face, “it feels like the universe just said yes.”
She laughs then, bright and relieved, the sound loosening something in my chest. “That’s exactly how it feels,” she says. “Like everything just… clicked.”
We start talking after that, because joy always needs somewhere to land. We talk about timing and space and doctors, about rooms that might need rearranging and schedules that will shift. I listen without withdrawing, without scanning myself for cracks, surprised by how natural it all feels.
Later, when Matteo steps out to take a call, Lucia turns back to me, her voice softer now. “Thank you,” she says.
I frown slightly. “For what?”
“For not making me smaller in this,” she replies. “For not disappearing when things got real.”
I take her hand, squeezing gently. “You didn’t ask me to give anything up.”
She squeezes back. “Neither did you.”
When I’m alone that night, I sit on the edge of the bed and let the day settle into me. I wait for the aftershock, the delayed doubt I’ve learned to expect. It doesn’t come. Instead, there’s a sense of expansion, like my life just made room for something it’s been preparing for all along.
I pick up my phone and type a message to Adrian.
Lucia’s pregnant.
The reply comes almost immediately.
I know.
I smile and type back, I’m happy.
There’s a pause, just long enough to breathe. Then his answer appears.
Me too.
I lie back, staring at the ceiling as laughter bubbles up unexpectedly, followed by tears that feel like release rather than grief. I think of my children, of this house filled with new breath and new beginnings. I think of love that keeps choosing, keeps unfolding, keeps refusing to turn into a cage.
I expected jealousy.
Instead, joy found me first.