The ultrasound room was not warm enough.

Sarah quivered beneath the flimsy paper gown, the rustle of the paper abnormally loud in the sterile silence. Lucas's hand wrapped around hers, his fingers intertwining with her chilled ones as the technician squirted warm gel onto Sarah's stomach.

"Just relax," the woman said, smiling brightly, tracing the wand over Sarah's skin.

On the monitor, black-and-white static molded into shapes—the curve of a little spine, the throb of a miniature heart. Sarah breathed deep, tallying each fast heartbeat like a prayer.

Then the technician froze.

A beat too slow passed before she began to speak. "I'll be right back. Doctor wants to take a look."

The door closed behind her.

Sarah's fingers sank into Lucas's palm. Neither of them spoke. They'd been here before—three years ago, in a room so identical to this one that it made her stomach twist, when the technician's smile had wavered and the doctor had used words of "chromosomal abnormalities" and "termination."

Lucas buried his forehead against hers. "Breathe, sweetheart."

As the doctor entered, her face was vacant. She scanned the screen with great focus before turning to them. "There is some sort of abnormality of the heart."

Sarah's universe condensed. The words wrapped around her throat like barbed wire—*not again, please God, not again*.

"But," the doctor continued, playing with her glasses, "it's something we can monitor. Most instances resolve themselves by the third trimester."

Lucas's fingers tightened around the chair arm. "And if it doesn't?"

"We have fantastic pediatric cardiologists." The doctor smiled—a small smile, but genuine. "This is not a death sentence. Just a complication."

The drive home was a blur of stop signs and half-finished thoughts. Sarah stared out of the window, watching the world move at top speed while her own had dropped to a crawl.

Lucas parallel parked in front of their go-to bakery. "Wait here."

He was returning a few minutes later with a pink box tied in string. In it were two perfect éclairs—the same kind he'd had delivered to her following their first disastrous date, when she'd spilled red wine on his shirt.

Sarah's smile was faint. "Really?"

Lucas wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. "We've been through worse."

They sat up with their hands together over the tiny rise of Sarah's belly that night.

"I find myself thinking about the willow tree," Lucas breathed to the shadows.

Sarah's head turned on the pillow. "What?"

"At the lake house. The way it lost that giant branch in the ice storm." He traced circles on her hand with his thumb. "Remember what your dad told us?"

As an act of love, they hugged each other even tighter, their bodies intertwined with each other.

Sarah closed her eyes, her father's gruff voice ringing inside her head as if he was standing there with them. *"Don't count it out yet. Willows learn to bend."*

A fresh spasm of hope and misery washed over her. She pulled Lucas's hand to her lips, kissing each knuckle.

They didn't have explanations. Didn't have promises. But they did have this—the certain understanding that whatever was ahead, they'd face it the way they'd faced everything: side by side.

Lucas edged a little nearer, his heat along her neck. "We're going to meet this child, Sarah. I can feel it."

Outside, a spring rain began to fall, gentle and unyielding against the window. Sarah placed both hands across her belly, as though already she could feel the unrelenting pulse of life within.

Whatever happened—whatever challenges came their way—they would face them not with fear, but with the gentle, unrelenting hope which had brought them so far.

Love wasn't sentiment.

It was a choice—to believe, to fight, to keep on coming even if the odds were against you.

And that, Sarah thought into sleep finally, made all the difference.