“No! You have to come back right now!” Queenie’s voice rose, that stubborn, playful edge creeping in, only to melt into a dreamy, blissful tone. “The baby and I are both waiting for you! Hurry up and come home!”
“The baby?” Julian froze, his mind going completely blank as he echoed her words without thinking.
“What baby?” His fingers tightened around the phone, a sudden surge of shock, confusion, and a heavy, suffocating anxiety crashing over him.
“Oh, you silly man!” Queenie giggled on the other end, her voice syrupy sweet. “Our baby, of course. I’m pregnant! Julian, you’re going to be a dad!”
Boom.
The news thundered in his ears, as if lightning had struck right beside him.
Pregnant?
Queenie was pregnant?
Julian stood rooted to the spot, clutching the phone. For a moment, he even forgot how to breathe.
After the initial shock, a tidal wave of tangled emotions crashed down on him.
A flicker of bewilderment at the thought of becoming a father for the first time? Mostly, though, he felt as if an invisible rope had suddenly tightened around him, filling him with a heavy, inescapable pressure and a chaos he couldn’t begin to untangle.
Moving stiffly, almost mechanically, he turned to look at Gwyneth, who still stood by the gravestone, her hair plastered to her forehead by the fine drizzle.
She stood motionless in the rain, her profile carved in sharp relief by the gray light. There was nothing on her face, no expression at all.
Something slammed into Julian’s chest—a sour, aching shame mingled with a strange panic that threatened to swallow him whole.
Queenie’s pregnant. Shouldn’t I be happy about this?
Now his father would finally accept her.


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