I stared at the message Vera had sent after putting the baby to bed, and a cold feeling washed over me from head to toe. It wasn't fear, and it wasn't excitement either. It was something unfamiliar, something heavy that settled right in my chest and refused to move. My fingers tightened around the communicator as I read her words again, slower this time, as if repeating them might help me fully grasp what had happened.
Since I wasn't around when Xander was born, I never truly understood what it meant to receive news like this. I'd heard people talk about it, heard men describe the moment their woman brought life into the world, but those were just words back then. Now, I could practically hear my own heart pounding in my chest, loud and uneven, as if it was trying to remind me that something irreversible had just changed. Somewhere far away, Vera had given birth, and I wasn't there.
