Chapter 1 - The Fourth Baby
By nine-thirty, the Brooks-Hill house finally sounded tired.
Eight-year-old Ava and five-year-old Caleb were building a crooked blanket fort in the family room while two-year-old Micah pushed a wooden truck across the rug. Their laughter drifted into the kitchen beneath the hum of the dishwasher.
Nia Brooks stood at the island folding small shirts.
She had done three loads of laundry that day, driven to school twice because Caleb had forgotten his lunch, answered six freelance emails she had not had time to finish, paid daycare, scheduled Micah’s pediatric appointment, and reheated the dinner Marcus had missed because a client session ran late.
Her natural curls were twisted into a loose bun. Her beige lounge set had a faint streak of applesauce near the hip.
Marcus Hill came up behind her.
He smelled like soap and the cedar deodorant she bought for him.
His arms slid around her waist.
For a second, despite everything, Nia relaxed.
Marcus kissed her temple.
“I’ve been thinking,” he murmured.
“That sounds expensive.”
He laughed.
“Maybe we should have one more.”
Nia’s hands stopped over one of Micah’s shirts.
“One more what?”
Marcus tightened his arms playfully.
“Baby.”
She turned.
“A fourth baby?”
“Yeah.” His smile widened. “One more little us.”
Nia stared at him.
Behind Marcus, three framed school pictures sat beside the household calendar.
Ava with two missing front teeth.
Caleb grinning like school photographs were comedy.
Micah’s daycare portrait, his collar twisted because Marcus had dressed him that morning.
Three children.
Three pregnancies.
Three recoveries.
Three stretches of sleepless nights.
Three times Nia had rearranged her career around a future Marcus kept describing but never formalizing.
Her eyes shifted toward the family room.
Ava shouted, “Micah! Don’t knock it down!”
The blanket fort collapsed.
The children screamed with laughter.
Nia looked back at Marcus.
His smile faltered.
“What?”
She pulled slowly from his arms.
As she reached for another shirt, she noticed a glossy corner sticking beneath the household calendar.
An advertisement.
She knew it immediately.
An engagement ring.
A slim diamond band from Bell & Hart Jewelers.
Nia had saved the advertisement almost four years earlier after Marcus had leaned over her shoulder and said, That actually looks like you.
She had tucked it inside the calendar.
Apparently neither of them had ever thrown it away.
She pulled it free.
Marcus saw what she was holding.
His face changed.
Nia almost laughed.
Instead, her voice came out quiet.
“But marriage is still ‘just a ring,’ right?”
Marcus sighed.
“Nia.”
“And paperwork.”
“Here we go.”
There it was.
Not guilt.
Not embarrassment.
Exhaustion.
As though her wanting the promise was more exhausting than her waiting for it.
“Why do we need a piece of paper to prove what we have?” Marcus asked.
Nia stared at him.
“You want another lifetime commitment from my body while refusing one signature from yours?”
Marcus glanced toward the family room.
“Keep your voice down.”
“I am keeping my voice down.”
“We have three kids,” he said. “I’m here every day.”
Nia’s jaw tightened.
“Being present for children you created isn’t a marriage proposal.”
He recoiled.
“That’s insulting.”
“No. You know what’s insulting?”
She crossed to the narrow drawer beside the refrigerator.
Beneath birthday candles and spare batteries sat a small fabric pouch.
Nia opened it.
Three hospital bracelets fell onto the granite counter.
Ava Brooks-Hill.
Caleb Brooks-Hill.
Micah Brooks-Hill.
Marcus stared at them.
Nia placed her palm beside the bracelets.
“Three pregnancies.”
“Nia—”
“Three recoveries.”
“I know what you’ve done.”
“Do you?”
His eyes hardened.
“Don’t do that.”
“Three times I trusted you with my future.”
She swallowed.
Her throat burned.
“And commitment is still too much?”
Marcus rubbed both hands across his face.
“You’re making a ring more important than our family.”
Something inside Nia went still.
“No.”
She looked straight at him.
“You keep using our family to avoid giving me one.”
A floorboard creaked.
Both turned.
Aunt Yolanda stood in the doorway.
She had come over to help with bedtime and had apparently heard more than either realized.
Yolanda folded her arms over her dark cardigan.
“You trust her enough to carry another child,” she said to Marcus, “but not enough to marry her?”
Marcus’s face tightened.
“This is between me and Nia.”
Yolanda nodded.
“Then answer Nia.”
Marcus turned back.
His eyes were angry now.
“You invited her into this?”
“I didn’t invite anybody.”
“Of course not. But somehow your aunt always ends up in the middle.”
Marcus reached toward Nia’s arm.
She stepped backward.
He froze.
“So now you’re giving me an ultimatum?”
Nia shook her head.
“No.”
Her hands were trembling, but her voice wasn’t.
“I’m finally giving myself a boundary.”
On the counter beside the bracelets sat an unopened pregnancy-test box they had bought during a scare two months earlier.
Nia picked it up.
Marcus watched.
She opened the drawer.
Placed the box inside.
Closed it.
“There will not be a fourth baby.”
Marcus stared at her.
“You’re serious?”
“You’ve had three chances to build a family with me.”
His face twisted.
“We already built one.”
Nia felt tears gathering.
That was exactly the problem.
She looked around the beautiful kitchen.
The photographs.
The toys.
The bills.
The calendar filled in her handwriting.
Every visible piece of marriage.
None of the legal protection.
None of the promise.
None of the certainty she had kept telling herself would arrive after the next milestone.
Nia wiped one tear before it could fall.
“I’m done auditioning to become your wife.”
Marcus said nothing.
Nia picked up the ring advertisement.
On the back, in faded blue ink, was something she had forgotten she had written four years earlier.
A date.
And beneath it:
He said after we buy the house.
Nia stared at those six words.
Then she slowly looked up at Marcus.
Because they had bought the house three years ago.
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And suddenly, the argument was no longer about another baby.
It was about every promise that had come before.
