“I haven’t had a period in four months, almost five now. I may have a year, eighteen months to have a baby naturally. It’s hard to know, but there is a definite, shrinking window. There’s an expiration date in the near future.”

I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes. It takes me a few moments to realize the uncertainty, at least in part, might be because of me.

“You don’t think it makes a difference to me, do you? I know this is a big deal, and I’ll support you whenever it gets hard, but I’ll love you no matter what. You know that, right?”

“You’re a great father,” she says, somewhat haltingly. “Earlier you admitted to wanting more kids. I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I think we have some kind of future together.”

“That’s not presumptuous at all. I know you’re in D.C. and are on the road a lot, and I’m here in Atlanta. We’ll work it out but make no mistake. You are my future, Kimba.”

“I feel the same way, which is why I wanted you to know that it’s possible I won’t ever have kids naturally. I’m still deciding what I want to do.”

“What’s the decision? What are you considering?”

“I want to elect Georgia’s first Latino governor.”

“And you will.”

She smiles, cups my face and strokes my jaw. “Only a man in love would be that confident that I can. It’s gonna be hard as hell.”

“Hard as hell is your default setting, Tru. It’s not my love for you that tells me that. It’s your track record. It’s who you’ve always been.” I pull her into me, stroke down her back and kiss her temple.

“I wasn’t thinking about having a baby right now,” she says, laying her head on my chest. “I’m not sure I want to focus on that if I need to focus on Ruiz’s campaign.”

“Can you do both?”

“I don’t know. I can take the things the doctor has recommended to restart my period.”

“They can do that?”

“Sometimes. If they can, there’s a chance I can have a baby, but I don’t know that I want to just because someone says it has to be now. I could adopt later.”

We could adopt later.

That’s what I hear. Noah doesn’t even know Aiko and I have broken up. There is a lot of transition ahead and we have to handle it carefully, but there’s no doubt in my mind I want to spend my life with Kimba.

“It just felt wrong not to tell you,” she says. “I didn’t want you to think I was keeping it from you or hiding anything.”