the final weeks

Week 35

Tom arrives on a Saturday morning with his truck, ready to help assemble the final furniture pieces for the nursery. Christine opens the door with a warm smile—she's been genuinely grateful for his help these past weeks, chalking up his presence to genuine neighborly concern rather than anything more complicated.

"Tom! Perfect timing. Tasha's in the nursery trying to arrange the bookshelf for the millionth time," Christine says, ushering him inside. She's holding a list, already in full organizational mode. "We ordered a changing table that arrived yesterday and I swear she's moved it three times already."

"Nesting?" Tom asks, following her upstairs.

"Like crazy," Christine laughs. "Last night she reorganized the dresser drawers at two in the morning because she said the blankets weren't 'quite right.' I told her I'd do it in the morning, but she's very particular about how everything is arranged."

That's Tasha showing through. Tasha always had that quality of needing things exactly so. But Tom also knows that Sarah would never have cared about blanket arrangements at two in the morning. The blending is nearly complete now—they're not distinct anymore but a single person who carries both sets of preferences, both sets of loves, both sets of griefs.

In the nursery, Tasha is indeed standing in front of the changing table, one hand on her lower back. She's enormous now, the baby due in just three weeks, and she moves with the careful grace of someone whose entire body is physics she has to actively negotiate. When she sees Tom, her face goes soft—and he can see both of them in that expression. Tasha's genuine pleasure at his presence, and underneath it, Sarah's **** gratitude that he's come.

"Hey," Tasha says, and her voice is tired. "Thanks for coming."

"Of course," Tom says. He doesn't kiss her, though he wants to. Christine is right there, oblivious and content. Instead, he claps his hands together. "What needs doing?"

They work through the morning while Christine is in and out, bringing water, snacks, making phone calls about final details. Tom and Tasha exist in a strange kind of parallel universe in Christine's presence—close enough to be helpful, distant enough to be appropriate. When their hands brush reaching for the same screw, it feels like an electric shock. When Tasha winces with a contraction and Tom reaches out instinctively to steady her, Christine is there within seconds, her hand replacing his on Tasha's arm, her concern immediate and fierce.

"You okay, love?" Christine asks, her face creasing with worry.

"Just Braxton-Hicks," Tasha says, leaning into Christine's touch. "They've been stronger lately."

Tom watches Christine's hand move to Tasha's belly, feeling the tightness, murmuring reassurances. The intimacy of it is devastating. This is what Tasha has chosen—this woman, this care, this partnership. This is what Sarah is grieving even as Tasha embraces it.

By afternoon, Christine leaves to run errands—final shopping for postpartum supplies, a visit to her mother. When the door closes behind her, the temperature of the room shifts.

Tasha sinks into the rocking chair they've positioned by the window, and Tom sits on the ottoman across from her. They don't touch. They haven't been alone together in nearly two weeks, and the absence of privacy has created a strange ache between them.

"How are you feeling?" Tom asks quietly.

"Tired. Heavy. Like I'm going to be pregnant forever," Tasha says. She's looking out the window, not at him. "The OB says the baby is perfectly positioned and could come any time in the next few weeks. Christine has started getting everything ready—the hospital bag is packed, the car seat is installed. She's taking two weeks off work after the birth."

"That's good," Tom says.

"It is," Tasha agrees. She's quiet for a moment. "She asked me yesterday if I was happy. If I wanted this. If I was ready to be a mother."

Tom's chest tightens. "What did you say?"

"I said yes," Tasha says. She finally looks at him, and her eyes are swimming with tears that she's holding back through sheer **** of will. "I said yes to all of it. And Tom, I meant it. I am happy. I do want this. I am ready to be a mother—at least, Tasha is. And the Sarah part of me that's watching all of this? She's happy too. She's sad and grieving and she knows what she's losing, but she's also happy for Tasha. For us."

Tom doesn't know what to say to that.

"The thing is," Tasha continues, her voice very small, "I still haven't made a choice. You told me I had to, after the baby comes. You told me that I had to decide if I was coming back to you or if I was staying as Tasha. And I've been thinking about it constantly. Every single moment. And I still don't know."

"You don't have to know yet," Tom says carefully, honoring his own promise not to pressure her.

"But you need me to," Tasha says. "I know you do. You're trying so hard to be patient and supportive and not push, but I can feel it. You're waiting. You're counting down to the birth like it's a deadline. And the thing is, Tom—" Her voice breaks slightly. "The thing is, I don't know if I can separate anymore. I don't know if the person who was Sarah will be able to choose to leave this baby, this woman, this life."

Tom leans forward slightly. "Then don't choose yet. Wait until after. Wait until you've had time to recover and—"

"That's not fair to you," Tasha interrupts. She wipes at her eyes angrily, as if they've betrayed her by crying. "You can't just wait forever. You deserve a wife or a life that makes sense. You deserve to know if you're going to get Sarah back or if you're going to lose her permanently."

"I know," Tom says. "And I'm willing to wait. For reasonable amount of time. I'm willing to give you the grace period after the birth. But you're right—eventually, I need to know. Eventually, this limbo has to end."

Tasha nods, and a tear finally spills over. "I'm scared."

"I know," Tom says softly.

"I'm scared that if I choose to come back, the birth will have broken something in me that can't be fixed. That I'll come back to you as Sarah but I'll be missing crucial pieces. That I'll resent you for making me leave." She's speaking faster now, the words tumbling out. "And I'm scared that if I choose to stay, I'll spend the rest of my life wondering if I made the right choice. If Sarah is going to spend my entire lifetime with Christine whispering that I abandoned her, that I chose a different life over her real one."

Tom reaches over and takes her hand. He doesn't try to fix it or soothe it. He just holds it while she cries quietly, her other hand on her belly where their baby—where Tasha and Christine's baby—is sleeping or moving or existing in the space between two possible futures.

"For what it's worth," Tom says when she's cried herself out, "whatever you choose, I understand. Sarah understands. We both understand."

"You say that," Tasha says, "but I don't think you can understand until you're faced with giving up a child you carried. Until you have to choose between your marriage and your motherhood. Until you have to decide which version of yourself gets to exist in the world."

"You're right," Tom says. "I don't understand. But I'm trying. And I'm here. Whatever happens, I'm here."

Week 37

Tom comes over on a Tuesday to help Christine move some furniture around—Tom's presence is now so normalized that Christine doesn't even think twice about it. He's just the helpful neighbor who lost his wife and they're being kind to him. The grief of Sarah's fictional **** has become so real in the fabric of this reality that no one questions his constant presence.

While Christine is in the kitchen making tea, Tasha settles heavily on the couch and Tom sits beside her. She takes his hand and places it on her belly where a foot or elbow is pressing outward.

"He's very active today," Tasha murmurs. "Christine thinks it means he's ready to meet us."

"Could be," Tom says. He feels the baby move under his palm, this life that isn't his and yet somehow is. "How are you feeling?"

"Enormous. Uncomfortable. Like I'm about to pop," Tasha says. She pauses. "Sarah wants to talk to you."

Tom's breath catches. In the three weeks since his ultimatum, Tasha has rarely let Sarah come forward so deliberately. When she has, it's been in moments of crisis or overwhelming emotion. Not like this—not like a conscious handoff of communication.

"What does she want to say?" Tom asks carefully.

Tasha's eyes close, and when she opens them again, there's a subtle shift in the way she's holding her body. It's still Tasha's body, still Tasha's face, but there's an echo of Sarah in the way she looks at him.

"I want you to know that I'm proud of you," Sarah's voice says, using Tasha's mouth. "Proud of how you've handled this. How you've loved both of us without forcing anything. How you've respected Tasha even while you were grieving me."

Tom's eyes burn with unexpected tears.

"And I want you to know that whichever choice I make—whichever choice Tasha makes, whichever choice we make together—it comes from a place of love. Not love for you less, but love for this whole situation. For the baby. For Christine. For the experience of being alive in a way I never got to be as Sarah."

Sarah pauses, and Tom can see Tasha struggling slightly to maintain the forefront position, to keep Sarah's voice clear.

"I don't know who I'll be after the birth," Sarah continues. "I don't know if I'll still be mostly me, or if I'll be mostly her. I don't know if the act of bringing life into the world will anchor me permanently as Tasha, or if it will remind me of who I was. But I want you to know that whatever happens, I love you. That version of me loves you desperately. And I hope you'll be able to love whatever version comes back."

Tasha blinks, and there's a shimmer—almost imperceptible—and then Tasha's voice returns, but changed. Softer. "Okay, she's tired now. It's hard to push forward when she's this integrated. I thought she should say that while she could."

Tom doesn't trust himself to speak. He just holds Tasha's hand and nods.

Christine comes back with tea, and Tasha is fully Tasha again, or as fully Tasha as she ever is now. The moment is sealed away, private, sacred. But it sits between Tom and Tasha like a gift—Sarah acknowledging that whatever comes, she's tried to love both of them as well as she could.

Week 38

The due date is one week away. Tasha has started having irregular contractions that might be Braxton-Hicks or might be early labor—it's hard to tell. Christine has become hypervigilant, tracking every symptom, ready to rush to the hospital at a moment's notice.

Tom comes over to help paint the final wall of the nursery—a soft sage green that Christine chose. As he rolls the paint across the wall, Tasha sits on the floor in the corner, ostensibly supervising but really just existing in the space where her son's room is taking shape.

"I've been thinking," Tasha says quietly, "about what Sarah said. About not knowing who she'll be after the birth."

Tom doesn't stop painting. He's learned that sometimes Tasha speaks more freely when they're doing something else, when Tom isn't looking directly at her.

"I think," Tasha continues, "that the birth is going to be the thing that decides it. Not consciously. But the act of pushing a person out of my body, of meeting him for the first time, of holding him and feeling that connection—I think that's going to determine whether I'm Tasha or Sarah or some new combination. And I think Sarah knows that too. I think that's what she was trying to tell you last week. She was saying goodbye while she still could."

Tom stops painting and turns to look at her.

"If I'm mostly Sarah after the birth," Tasha says, "if she reasserts and I realize that I can't be a mother to a child I'm about to give back to someone else—then I'll know I need to come home to you. If I'm mostly Tasha, if the experience of carrying and birthing anchors me permanently into this life—then I think you'll know that too, and you'll let me go."

"And if you're split down the middle?" Tom asks quietly.

"Then," Tasha says, and she smiles sadly, "then I guess we'll have to figure something out that nobody's ever had to figure out before."

Tom returns to the wall, painting smooth strokes of sage green over the neutral beige. By the time the room is finished, it looks like a sanctuary—a safe place for a baby to sleep, to grow, to exist in the world. A room that's been prepared with love by two women who are committed to bringing a child into being and raising him well.

And Tom is complicit in all of it—the lover, the helper, the man waiting to see if his wife will choose to come home or if she'll choose to stay dissolved into someone else's life.

The nursery is beautiful. It's also the room where Sarah will either be reborn or finally laid to rest.