Rain slid down the tall glass windows in slow, silver lines, blurring the green lawns and marble fountains outside. You sat in the wingback chair near the bay window, your hands resting over the swell of your stomach — heavier now, your twins pressing into your ribs as if reminding you they were there.

Your parents’ mansion was quiet in the mornings. Quiet in the way that made every clock tick sound louder, every creak of the wooden floorboards feel deliberate. Somewhere in the hall, the faint clink of porcelain cups told you your mother was having her tea.

You wondered if Simon was having his.

The thought was ridiculous — he was thousands of miles away, somewhere hot, somewhere dangerous, somewhere you’d never see. You pictured him in desert dust, helmet low over his eyes, his hands gripping that rifle like it was the only thing keeping him alive. And still, part of you hoped he’d stolen a moment for tea, for something ordinary, for something that might make him think of home.

But home here was complicated.

Your parents had taken you in the day Simon left. Not because they liked him — in fact, they didn’t hide their distaste — but because you were carrying their first grandchildren. In their eyes, that was the only thing redeeming your “reckless choice.”

At first, their generosity felt like grace. You were safe, you had a roof over your head, you had people to check on you. But it didn’t take long for the comments to start.

“If only you’d chosen someone more… stable,” your father would remark at dinner, eyes fixed on his wine glass. “A man who would be here for you,” your mother added, as if Simon had chosen to leave you, as if he hadn’t sworn to keep other people’s children safe while his own were yet to be born.

They never yelled, never cursed. But their disappointment was a steady, quiet storm that never passed.

You didn’t argue. You didn’t defend him — not because you agreed, but because you didn’t trust your voice not to shake. Instead, you came here, to the chair by the window, and watched the grounds stretch into the horizon. You found peace in the stillness, in the weight of your twins moving beneath your hand, in knowing that somewhere Simon was still breathing, still fighting to come home to you.