The tears wouldn't stop falling, no matter much she blew her nose and took a deep breaths. Her legs, too exhausted to hold up her body anymore, bent sharply as her body dropped heavily to the floor. The positive news she so desperately craved had not come. Instead, that mocking singular line appeared. The baby they both craved was not a reality. Little did she know that this was the same line that would appear for months to come.
It wasn't long during the day before she plastered on a smile for Timothy's arrival from school, but even he knew something was wrong. Her smile was there but the sparkle that would always accompany it had disappeared. Yet, he didn't ask until several days later when his father eventually sat him down and explained. When it happened again, he remembered the signs-his father spending lots of time hovering by her side, but not touching her and the whispered conversations late at night on the sofa that ended with a clinging hug to each other. These were the signs that he grew to quickly recognized.
"Patrick I'm not sure I want to go through this again. What if I was wrong, what if I'm just late, what if..."
"Sweetheart, look at me" She lifted the watery blue depths to his dark eyes as his fingers lead her chin upwards "I want you to know that no matter what this test says, I love you, not your womb. We've been incredibly happy without a baby haven't we?" Shelagh thought back to the times when the three of them had, had family picnics, and shared in so much laughter that tears had rolled from their eyes. But then Shelagh's memory turned to the times when they had clung to each other in times of sadness and helplessness.
She gulped, and took a deep breath. Her hands tightened in anxiety around his arm, and silent prayers were sent to the God she so desperately was relying on for strength for both her and her husband.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Finally, it was time. They looked down together, and there they saw the two parallel lines...
