Ivonne turned to her slowly.
“Trying?” she repeated. “Trying is not enough. My son needs a child.”
Darnell chuckled. “Maybe she eating too much to make room.”
The room laughed. Not everyone—but enough.
Nyla blinked fast. She didn’t want tears. She didn’t want tears. But tears don’t ask permission.
She looked at Terrence just once. She begged with her eyes.
Terrence didn’t defend her. He didn’t correct them. He didn’t even look uncomfortable.
He just said, calm and careless, “Nyla, don’t start crying. You always make things dramatic.”
And in that moment, Nyla realized something painful.
The problem wasn’t only Ivonne. The problem wasn’t only Darnell.
The problem was the man sitting right beside her, watching her get broken and calling it normal.
Three weeks after that Sunday dinner, Nyla learned a hard truth.
Cruel words don’t disappear. They plant seeds. And when pain comes, those seeds grow fast.
That morning, Nyla stood in the bathroom with the door locked. She stared at the tissue in her hand, and her whole body went cold.
Blood.
Not a little. Not maybe-it’s-nothing.
Enough to make her knees weak.
No. Not again.
Like terror had been waiting for her.
She rushed out and found Terrence in the living room adjusting his watch like he had somewhere important to be.
“Terrence,” she said, voice shaking. “Something is wrong.”
He frowned like she was interrupting him on purpose. “What now?”
Nyla grabbed his hand and pressed it against her belly.
“I’m bleeding.”
Terrence pulled his hand back like the words disgusted him.
Then he sighed, deep and annoyed.
“So, what you want me to do?” he asked.
Nyla blinked, because that wasn’t a husband’s first sentence.
That was a stranger’s sentence.
“I… I need to go to the hospital,” she whispered.
Terrence rolled his eyes, grabbed his car keys, and said, “Come on then.”
At the hospital, the waiting room smelled like disinfectant and fear.
A nurse called Nyla’s name. Terrence stayed on his phone.
When the doctor finally came out, he didn’t drag it out. He didn’t soften it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ve had a miscarriage.”
Nyla’s ears rang. She couldn’t breathe right. Her hands shook so hard the chair trembled.
Terrence stood slowly and just stared at the doctor.
Then he asked one question.
“So, when can we try again?”
The doctor looked uncomfortable. Nyla looked destroyed.
On the drive home, Nyla cried quietly. Terrence drove with one hand and turned the radio up with the other.
“Stop that,” he said. “Crying won’t fix it.”
When they reached home, Terrence didn’t hold her. He didn’t pray with her. He didn’t even ask if she wanted water.
Instead, he made one call.
“Mama,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, it happened.”
Nyla sat on the edge of the couch, listening like someone listening to her own funeral.
Then Terrence put the phone on speaker.
Ivonne’s voice blasted through the room, sharp like a slap.
“I knew it,” she shouted. “I told y’all that woman is cursed.”
Nyla’s heart dropped.
Terrence didn’t correct her. He didn’t defend Nyla.
He just said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with her, Mama.”
As if Nyla were a broken appliance.
That evening, Terrence’s cousin showed up.
Her name was Kesha Grant, and she loved gossip the way some people loved oxygen. Always smiling, always pretending to help, always spreading poison.
She walked into Nyla’s house like she owned it and sighed dramatically.
“Oh, Nyla,” Kesha said, “I heard. That’s so sad.”
Nyla nodded, eyes puffy.
Kesha leaned closer and dropped her real message like a needle.
“But you know, people been saying it’s because of your weight. Like your body can’t hold nothing.”