Lost Creek Hollow bronca

up until now, there had been a silent fear that lingered in wren's mind.
a fear that her children would not know a mother's love from her, only the hollow, sharp-edged feeling of rejection. a fear that she would gaze upon them and feel nothing but dread the day they were to arrive.
but she stands there, warm saltwater dribbling down her cheeks and to her chin, listening to her wife's fluttering laughter and the pitter-patter of tiny heartbeats alongside their mama, and she asks herself: how could someone wish to harm these beautiful creations of love?
love, pure love; a love that went into making them, and a love that now swells in her chest and climbs her ribs like vines, warming her insides and spreading to every corner of her body. there is love for them, for her family, and there is also a quaking, unending rage — a rage over the fact that someone could have looked at her when she was that small, felt her heartbeat in her mother's belly, and turned their teeth to her.
but she chooses to swallow it now as she wipes away silvertongue's own tears, gasping, mirroring the giddy, healing laughter. we made those, cara mia, she pulls away to point at the swelling stomach, to press her palm against them as if to say i'm here; as if she were a child experiencing joy for the first time. they're in there! we made those!
she remembers then that she, too, carries products of their love, and while she cannot bend far enough down herself, she invites her wife to return the favor and listen to the thud of life at her hearth.