They’re meant to be filled with laughter, clinking glasses, familiar voices overlapping in a kind of warm chaos that reminds you where you belong.
That night looked exactly like that.
On the surface.
The dining room glowed with soft yellow light. Music played quietly in the background—something cheerful, something easy. Plates passed from hand to hand. Someone laughed too loudly at a story that had already been told twice.
Everything felt… normal.
Almost perfectly normal.
I remember thinking how tired I was.
The kind of tired that settles deep into your bones. Work had been exhausting, and the pregnancy only made everything heavier—my body, my thoughts, even my patience.
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