That evening, I brought up Saturday at dinner. Della had made pot roast. Daniel was on his second helping.
“Your mom invited Michael and Nathan for dinner this Saturday,” I said. “With Rachel and Claire.”
Daniel immediately brightened. “Seriously? Both of them?”
“Both of them.”
“Great!” He put down his fork. “I can tell them how we solved the whole baby situation. Mom moving in, everything running smoothly. Michael’s always going on about how hard it was when their first was born. I’ll show him how it’s done.”
I smiled. “Oh, you’ll definitely have something to tell them.”
He didn’t notice anything in my voice. He went back to his pot roast.
Across the table, Della dabbed her mouth with her napkin to hide her smile.
The rest of the week passed slowly. On Wednesday, I went to my last prenatal class alone. The instructor, a cheerful nurse named Bev, asked where my husband was. I said he was working. She gave me the same look she’d given me for six weeks, sympathetic and a little sad.
“He’s missing the infant CPR module,” she said. “That’s the most important one.”
“I’ll teach him,” I said.
On Thursday, I met with Hannah, the HR coordinator at my office, to sign the last of my maternity leave paperwork. Twelve weeks of job-protected leave. Six weeks of short-term disability at sixty percent of my salary. After that, unpaid.
“Do you have enough saved to cover the gap?” Hannah asked kindly, sliding the forms across her desk.
I thought about the $8,400 in the baby fund. About the $3,239 on the credit card at nineteen percent. About Daniel’s freelance income, which came in big chunks some months and nothing at all in others.
“We’ll be fine,” I said. I wasn’t sure it was true.
On Friday night, Daniel came home excited. “I think I’m getting the Hendricks project,” he said. “It’s a big one, Maren. Six months. Twenty-two thousand dollars.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said, and I meant it.
“It’s a lot of hours, though. Evenings. Probably some weekends.”
“When does it start?”
“Probably right around your due date.”
I looked at him. He was already pulling out his phone, already texting someone about it.
He didn’t even realize what he’d just said.
Della, standing at the sink, set down the dish she was drying very carefully.
“Saturday,” she murmured to me later, as we turned out the kitchen lights. “Tomorrow, honey.”
“Tomorrow,” I said.
Laura Bennett writes about complicated family dynamics, difficult conversations, and the quiet moments that change everything. Her stories focus on real-life tensions — inheritance disputes, strained marriages, loyalty tests — and the strength people find when they finally speak up. She believes the smallest decisions often carry the biggest consequences.