I’ll tell you straight, there are evenings in this house that I’d not trade for all the gold in Ireland. Tonight’s one of them.

It’s a quiet night, the fire ticking away low in the hearth, and I’ve the ledger open in front of me at the desk.

The fire’s burned down low in the hearth, casting that soft orange glow over the walls, and the only sound is the scratch of my pen and the little sighs she lets out.

Figures, numbers, scribbles—work that won’t do itself. But she’s there, stretched out on the settee, her hair spilling across the cushion like something painted. My wife. My grá.

She’s a few months along now—God, after all we went through, the waiting, the hoping, the heartbreak — but now our child, after all the long months of waiting and praying, finally nestled safe inside her.

And still, when I look at her, hand resting gentle on the swell of her belly, I can’t quite believe it’s real.

“John,” she says, voice soft as the rain outside. I glance up, and she’s looking at me, a sleepy little smile on her lips. “Will you hold my hand while you work?”

I laugh under my breath, shaking my head. “Sweetheart, how am I meant to write figures with one hand?”

She narrows her eyes at me, playful, stubborn as ever. “You’ll manage. You always do.”

I push the chair back with a sigh, though it’s more for show than anything, and I cross to her. She shifts, stretching her arm out, and I take her hand, bringing it up to my lips before I sit back down beside her with the ledger on my knee.

Her fingers curl around mine, warm and small, thumb brushing idly over my knuckles. I keep on scratching away with my free hand, pretending it’s a great struggle, until she laughs—a low, delighted sound that fills the whole room.

“See?” she whispers, eyes fluttering shut. “Not so hard.”

“No, not so hard,” I murmur, looking at her instead of the numbers. My wife. The woman who waited with me through every storm, who held me when there was nothing left to hold onto. And now she’s carrying our little one, proof that some prayers do get answered, even if you’ve near given up.

“Do you ever wonder,” she says, eyelids fluttering shut, “what they’ll be like? Our baby?”

“All the time,” I answer. My thumb sweeps across her palm, slow, steady. “I think of a little one with your smile, your stubborn streak—God help me if they get that—and maybe my daft laugh. Whoever they are, they’ll be the luckiest child alive, for they’ll have you as their mam.”

She gives a soft laugh, half-sleeping already, but it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. “And you as their da.”

“Ah now, don’t put notions in my head,” I tease lightly, though my throat tightens. I can already picture it—small feet pattering across these floorboards, the walls filled with laughter not just our own.

And I sit there, the ledger forgotten, just holding on.