Omkar thought about the fact that he was already struggling to juggle the pressures of school and work and having enough time left over for Aria. He thought about the wrath of his parents, were he to make a “mistake” like that. But even though there were undeniable consequences and even though the timing would not be his first choice, Omkar could not find an inch of himself that felt like those negative factors would outweigh the blessing he would perceive it to be if it actually did happen.

To his surprise, when he considered the question, he realized that it would feel like a consummation of the love that he felt for her. He pulled her to lay her head against his chest. Aria could hear the sound of his heart beating. “Shona, I don’t want to ask you to do anything that you don’t want to do. But how could it not make me happy? A child is a divine spark. It is sacred. If God wanted us to be a soul’s entry into this world, how could I not be happy? I wouldn’t care if it were a girl or a boy. I would want you to have the baby. I could not see it as a mistake because I love you and I know that God likes to use love to create new life.”

Even knowing his heart as well as she did, Omkar’s answer astounded her. She was spinning as a result of it. Omkar coaxed her from her silence. “What would you want to do?”

“I’m not saying that I want it to happen right now or anything, but I wouldn’t want to get an abortion,” she said, looking down at her feet in the sand.

A smile spread across Omkar’s face. He leaned down and kissed the crown of her head. In the wake of the conversation, they watched the ocean with their minds far away from it. Aria let his surety carry her trust, and with the weight of her trust in his arms, Omkar started to think. By American standards, they were young … too young, perhaps, to consider marriage. But when compared to the prospect of bringing life into the world with her, which was a commitment that even divorce could not undo, marriage no longer seemed far away. It made no sense to Omkar why, if he could consent to having a child with her, he hadn’t proposed to her already. The conversation had been a wake-up call to whatever part of himself had not been diligent about taking precautions when they had made love. A wake-up call to the part of himself that knew how much he loved her and how committed to her he really was.