Page 168 of Disgrace

“Because we’ll need one.”

John’s eyebrow arched a bit as he tipped his head up, and found her gaze in the mirror once more. “Will we?”

“What names do you like?”

His next swallow echoed.

The silence stretched on.

Siena waited John out.

“Luciano for a boy.”

“For your dad,” she said.

John nodded once. “And for my grandfather, yeah. Johnathan for a middle name.”

“What about for a girl?”

“I don’t know.”

Siena grinned. “You better figure it out, don’t you think? We’ll need to know.”

John sucked in a quiet breath, and his hands tightened on her shoulders. Not to a painful point, but a feeling that made her calm in an instant.

“That so?” he asked.

“I know this isn’t happening the way we talked about it, and—”

“Nothing is ever as I plan, Siena.”

“Are you happy?”

“And terrified,” he admitted. “But so happy.”

So happy.

That was all she needed to know. The rest, they could deal with. Just like everything else in their life.

They faced it together.

Head-on.

Unafraid.

Unashamed.

Unbroken.

• • •

Four months later …

“Your turn,” Siena whispered to John.

He laughed, but she heard the stress in the sound. He smiled for their gathered, waiting family, but she saw the tension in his shoulders.

The further along in her pregnancy she became, the more changes she saw in John. Never toward her, but just him in general. She recognized his lack of sleeping, and his up and down moods. She saw his methodical cleaning, planning, and organizing even when he tried to hide it.