Erin couldn’t speak.

She just stood there, her heart hammering in her throat, watching him.

Ben looked up at her from the floor, his eyes completely red, tears finally spilling over his lower lashes.

He looked utterly wrecked, and utterly beautiful.

“When we went to that final ultrasound,” Ben began, his voice dropping to a raw, ragged whisper.

“When the doctor talked about the… the complications.

About the minor risks with your blood pressure.

You were so brave, Erin.

You nodded, and you asked the right questions, and you held my hand, and you acted like it was nothing.”

He wiped roughly at his cheek, a wet, self-deprecating laugh escaping his lips.

“But I was terrified.

I have been terrified for weeks.

Not because I don’t think you can do this.

Because I know you can.

But because I looked at you, sitting on that exam table, and I realized that I have never, in my entire life, told you the full extent of what you mean to me.

I tell you I love you every day.

But I’ve never put into words what it feels like to know that you are risking your body, your life, to give me a child.”

Erin let out a soft, shuddering gasp, her hands flying up to cover her mouth.

The sheer, overwhelming relief that it wasn’t bad news crashed into her, instantly followed by a tidal wave of profound emotion.

Ben looked down at the envelope, tracing the seal.

“So, I started writing.

Every night, when you went to sleep, I came in here.

I wrote down every memory.

The night we met in the rain in Chicago.

The day we moved into this house.

The morning you handed me that positive test and we just sat on the bathroom floor and cried.”

He slowly stood up, closing the distance between them, holding the envelope out to her like an offering.

“Inside here… there are letters.

Not just from me.

I spent the last month secretly reaching out to your mother, your sister, your best friends from college, my parents.

I asked all of them to write you a letter.

To tell you how strong you are.

To welcome you to motherhood.

I wanted you to have them at the hospital.

I wanted you to open this bag when you were exhausted, and bleeding, and feeling terrified of the responsibility we just brought into the world, and I wanted you to read the words of every single person who loves you, reminding you that you are a force of nature.”

Erin’s vision blurred completely, the tears coming fast and heavy now, hot tracks of saltwater pouring down her face.

She looked at the envelope in his hands.

It looked so innocent now.

Not a vessel of bad news, but a physical manifestation of a love so deep, so fiercely protective, it quite literally took her breath away.