The Disconnect

The cable modem's blinking lights mocked Mara from the corner of the room—four amber pulses in a darkness that felt heavier than it should. 2 AM again. The fifth night this week.

"You're still running diagnostics?" Ben's voice came from the bedroom, thick with sleep and something else—disappointment, maybe. Or just exhaustion.

"Customer's having issues. Network outage." She didn't mention she'd already solved it remotely three hours ago.

The truth was, the apartment had become suffocating lately. Not because of anything Ben had done, but because of what they weren't doing. The fertility specialist's office called it 'unexplained.' She called it purgatory.

Mara popped a vitamin D supplement—her third attempt at optimizing a body that refused to cooperate. The pharmacy aisle had become a strange new religion: prenatal vitamins, CoQ10, ovulation tracking apps. Each purchase a small prayer in plastic packaging.

She filled a glass of water from the tap, watched it catch the moonlight through the window. They'd chosen this apartment for its view of the city skyline, back when they believed the future was something you could plan for. Now the lights below seemed distant and cold, like stars that had already burned out centuries ago.

Ben appeared in the doorway, silhouette against the hallway light. He held his phone out to her.

"Your mother called. While you were working."

"What did she want?"

"To ask if we'd considered adoption. Because apparently our reproductive choices are now family dinner conversation."

The water glass trembled in Mara's hand. She set it down on the counter with a clink that echoed.

"I'm running out of hope, Ben."

He crossed the room, wrapped his arms around her from behind. His chin rested on her shoulder, and she could feel the steady rhythm of his breathing against her spine—a reminder of everything she loved and everything she couldn't give him.

"We're not out of hope," he whispered. "We're just in the middle of the story. The hard part."

Outside, a cable repair truck drove past, its yellow light sweeping across their ceiling. Someone else's midnight emergency, someone else's attempt to restore what had been lost. Mara leaned back into Ben's embrace and watched the light fade, letting herself believe, for just a moment, that connections could be repaired.