The sadness she felt was the sadness of losing the potential of a deeper sense of closeness that she might have had with Omkar. She was just like those young mothers who lacked a sense of love and belonging. A baby felt like a knot that would have been tied between herself and Omkar, fortifying the security of their union. Maybe the guarantee that she would be cherished by him a little longer. Aria was irritated at her own unshakable insecurity when it came to connection. But then again, how could she not be anxious? She wasn’t a girl who was worried about a loss she had never tasted. Loss had been the rule of her life instead of the exception.

There were no children on the beach that day, so instead of watching them, Aria imagined them playing there. She tried to study the bubble of belonging that seemed to exist around a man, a woman and their child. It caused a potent ache to paint itself against the trammel of her chest.

“Hey, what are you looking at?” Omkar said, walking up behind her and kissing her on the cheek from behind. Aria was staring off into the recesses of the ocean, trying to see with her mind what her eyes could not.

“Nothing,” she said, smiling at him as he sat down beside her.

“Why did you come here? Did you miss me?” he jested, mindful of the fact that she had chosen to sit exactly where they had sat during the picnic he had arranged for her on their first date there.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to see the ocean again,” she said.

Omkar could feel the murkiness of her mood, and put his arm around her shoulder, burying his face in the hair that cascaded past the side of her neck. Aria broke the silence by asking, “How would you feel if I got pregnant? I mean, what would you want to do or whatever?”

He sat back in disbelief, his breathing shallow. “Do you think you’re pregnant?” he asked. The entire trajectory of his life hung in the balance of her answer.

“No. I know I’m not pregnant. I just started thinking, since we haven’t exactly been careful about it, you know … What would you think about it if it happened?”

Omkar leaned back on his arms. “What would you want to do about it?” he asked, not wanting to answer first in case his answer was the opposite of hers.

“No, you don’t get to put it back on me. Can you just try to answer?” she asked.