Oh. Fuck. He hadn't been expecting an honest answer. They didn't have real conversations anymore. They hadn't had a real conversation in months. Why start now? Why midnight on a Saturday, sitting at the kitchen table? Obviously he had to address what she'd just said, because it wasn't the kind of thing you could just shrug off or give a non-answer to. It was hard to decide what to say, though, when he was so out of practice at this, and when he didn't know what she actually meant. What's to come could have meant the rest of her pregnancy and the childbirth. That was the most immediate answer; he couldn't look at her and her swollen stomach at this point without thinking about how near the arrival of the baby was. But what's to come could also have meant whatever happened next. Raising a baby together. Having to move past this place where they'd currently plateaued because it was easier than trying to forge ahead and safer than falling behind. Figuring out what their marriage actually was, moving forward. All of that was terrifying, too, and Ben didn't have any easy answers for any of it.

Actually, he sort of hoped she was talking about childbirth, because that seemed like an easier problem to solve than everything that happened next.

"Because of your cousin?" he asked solemnly. Hopefully she said yes; that was the easier answer. After the unexpected turn the conversation had taken towards honesty, though, he didn't want to assume.

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