Emily Thompson never thought her life would settle into something so quiet. Not boring — she loved her family too fiercely to call it that — but quiet in the way that made moments blend into each other. Mornings with Lily’s giggles echoing through the kitchen. Afternoons with David typing away in the small office they’d converted from a guest room.
Evenings spent folding laundry while children’s songs hummed softly from the baby monitor. It was a comforting rhythm, familiar enough that Emily sometimes forgot the world outside existed. Their house in Eugene felt like its own small universe — steady, gentle, predictable. But while Emily thrived in that small universe, she felt a tug in her chest every now and then.
A whisper that something was missing — not in a dramatic, sweeping way, just a quiet ache she noticed while watching Lily stack blocks or tracing the soft curve of her daughter’s cheek as she slept. When Lily turned one, the conversation resurfaced again. “Maybe it’s time,” David said one night, lowering himself onto the couch beside her.
He smelled faintly of coffee and the cedar-scented candle Emily always kept burning in the living room. “We could start thinking about a second.” Emily looked over at him, her fingers drifting unconsciously to Lily’s baby monitor. The screen showed the toddler curled up with her stuffed rabbit, breathing deeply.