Month Four: Week Fourteen
The gender reveal happened at twenty weeks.
Isla went alone to the ultrasound. Dr. Reeves had offered to seal the results in an envelope so she could find out with Killian somehow.
But that felt wrong. Waiting weeks to tell him. Making him find out through a letter.
"Tell me," Isla said. "I'll tell him this weekend."
Dr. Reeves smiled. "It's a girl. Congratulations, Mrs. Archer. You're having a daughter."
A girl.
Killian's daughter.
Their daughter.
Isla stared at the screen. At the tiny profile. At the little hands and feet. At the life growing inside her.
A daughter who wouldn't meet her father until she was seven.
Who'd grow up visiting daddy in prison. Who'd know Killian through glass and supervised phone calls instead of bedtime stories and piggyback rides.
Isla cried through the rest of the appointment.
Happy tears mixed with devastating ones.
A girl. They were having a girl.
And Killian was going to miss everything.
