I stood with my hand on the door while the question settled in my chest like a swallowed stone. I turned back around.
In a week I had been asked a hundred things. Had I seen a doctor? Was I eating? Did I need anything? What did I want to do? Not once had anyone asked how I felt.
"That's a complicated question."
"I know."
"And you're asking it now?"
"I should have asked sooner."
He was still holding the photograph. I took it from him gently and looked at it instead of him.
"I don't know," I said. "I think I might be. Sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
"And sometimes I'm absolutely terrified."
He didn't correct me, or reach for a solution, or open a folder he didn't have. He just nodded, as though that were a perfectly reasonable thing to be.
"I always imagined having children," I said. "Someday."
"Someday?"
