Page 17 of What Remains

“Yeah, baby?” he’d said, stepping closer.

She pushed a small white stick into his hands.

Two pink lines. Clear as day.

He’d stared down at it, his brain taking far too long to catch up with what his eyes already knew.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

And the whole world shifted under his feet.

He hadn’t said anything. He’d looked from the stick to her face, then back to the stick, then out the window at the street below where a neighbor was salting his driveway. He’d watched the man work for a long moment, the small, white container swinging in a perfectly ordinary arc.

So instead, he’d pulled her against him, lifting her clean off the ground and spinning her until she squealed, swatted his shoulder, and told him to put her down before she puked on him.

He remembered the shampoo—something cheap and floral from the drugstore that she bought in bulk and that he had once teased her about. The small, helpless fists she made in the back of his shirt before she could bring herself to hold on.

He remembered whispering into her hair:

“I’m gonna be a dad.”

God, he’d stood ten feet tall that day.

Molly laughed, the sound bright and beautiful. “Yeah, Seth. You are.”

His throat tightened now in the cabin’s stillness. He blinked hard and stared into the fire.

They should’ve had more time.

More nights whispering into the dark about the future. More too-early mornings making coffee side by side. More lazy Sundays with AJ gurgling on his chest while Molly stole his toast.

He rubbed at his chest, kneading the ache there, trying to work it loose like a knot in muscle.

The fire cracked loudly, snapping him back to the present.

He drew a shaky breath and leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees.

No tears came.

But the weight of missing them?

That he carried. Every damn day. Every damn second.

He squeezed his hands together until his knuckles hurt.

He missed being whole.

Out the window, snow drifted down softly under the moonlight, indifferent. Inside, the fire warmed everything except the one cold place buried deep inside him.

Seth straightened, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until lights appeared behind them, and forced his breathing back into something steady.

He had a job to do.

They were the only ones he had left, and he’d burn what was left of his own life as fuel to keep them safe.

And Molly… Molly would’ve wanted him to keep going. He knew that to his core. She’d have been furious at him for even considering otherwise.

The rocking chair creaked softly as he settled back into it, rifle within reach, eyes on the door.