I wish people would stop asking.

I’m not a mom because… well, I’m just not. And I get it. My biological clock is tick—

“Girl!” Brandi pokes me. “You need to get checked out.” She laughs. “Your clock? It’s been done tickin’.”

She glides through the kitchen. It reeks of lemon cleaner. Both are her thing — citrus and floating. Brandi doesn’t walk like the rest of us, just takes up space. She’s been gliding through my life since we were twenty-two and broke, splitting rent, cheap wine, and every secret we swore we’d never tell. Now she’s half-swallowed by the fridge, rummaging for something she doesn’t need.

I reach for my water, locket slipping against my collarbone. Metal. Heart-shaped. It clicks softly, reminding me it’s still there, even if nothing’s inside.

Brandi’s words have their way with me. Done ticking. Past my prime. Broken. Like a cheap watch with hands that quit moving long before anybody noticed.

Neither of us touch the silence. I consider a coping skill, one that would make my therapist proud. Inhaling long and exhaling deeply. Instead, the quartz countertop kisses my wrist and I see myself grabbing a bottle of wine and whirling it. It misses Brandi’s pointy little nose by an inch. I march around the island, hand wide open, palm up, and swing for her left che—

“Sierra!” Brandi’s inches away, breath sour with red wine and that mix of worry and critique. “Hate it when you do that,” she says, pouring another. “Still not used to it.”

The gap between us vibrates, loud with everything unsaid.

“Where’d you go this time?”

Back to how bad it hurts when they ask. To crying in secret. To worrying about how angry God might be because I’m not being “fruitful” and “multiplying.”

“Nowhere.” A lie.

“You gonna do it, right? See what doc says?” Brandi’s eyes scan me, landing on my midsection. “Worst case, she tells you which one of you is broken.” Her lips are stained red. “It’d suck, is all I’m sayin’… living without kids.”

I click the locket open, then closed. Then open again. Like it’s got something inside that’ll shut her up.

“Dy-ing without having kids,” she gasps. “I would just die. Imagine?”

Imagine? Now that I have no problem doing. I tiptoe upstairs, pausing at the landing. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Behind door two: my godson. His tiny hand grazes the locket. It snaps closed. The lollipop crackles. Green apple, his favorite. I press it to his lips and whisper, “Shh—”

My phone buzzes, failing to bring me back fully. Because my hands are already around Brandi’s neck, gripping her throat.

Tighter.

And tighter.

Sorry, it’s not just you, friend. It’s everything you represent. The questions. The pity. The silent judgment. The way women like us are treated — as unfinished.

I stare through Brandi, carving up every voice that ever implied we weren’t enough.

Enough.

Godmothers. Aunties. Mentors. You are enough. We are enough. We are more than what — or who — we carry.