CHAPTER 180: Home

POV: Selene Castellano

Elena had been home for four days and nobody had slept properly. Selene was standing in the kitchen at two in the morning in yesterday’s clothes eating cold rice from a container she didn’t remember putting in the fridge and she was the happiest she’d ever been in her life and also she was going to cry if Avalon said one more word about the swaddle.

“She keeps breaking out of it,” he said, appearing in the doorway with Elena against his chest, both of them looking equally outraged about the situation.

“Then let her break out of it,” Selene said.

“Dr Okafor said the swaddle helps her sleep.”

“Dr Okafor doesn’t live here.”

“That’s not a counter-argument.”

“Avalon.” She put down the rice. “She’s been home four days. She’ll figure out sleeping. We’ll figure out sleeping. Stop managing it.”

“I’m not managing it. I’m troubleshooting.”

“Same thing.”

“It’s not the same—”

“It’s the same thing and you know it.” She crossed to him and looked at Elena, who was in fact completely free of the swaddle and entirely unbothered about it, eyes open, looking at the kitchen ceiling with the focused expression of someone conducting an important assessment. “She’s fine. She’s awake because we’re awake. We’re awake because we keep standing here arguing about a blanket instead of sleeping.”

Avalon looked at her.

She looked back.

They were close enough that she could see the exhaustion on him properly,  the version of him that came from three nights of two-hour sleep increments, from learning a new person’s vocabulary of sounds, from the terrifying responsibility of being entirely in charge of something so small and so completely dependent. She knew she looked the same way. Probably worse. She’d caught her reflection earlier and it had been information she’d decided not to pursue.

“You have rice on your shirt,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“How long has it been there?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” she said. “Give me the baby.”

“I have the baby.”

“Avalon.”

“I can hold the baby.”

“I know you can hold the baby, give me the baby.”

He transferred Elena to her with the careful deliberateness they’d both developed in four days, the specific handoff of two people who were still learning the weight and the hold and the right way to support a head that was simultaneously the most fragile and the most important thing either of them had ever touched.

Elena settled against Selene’s chest and immediately made a sound of profound satisfaction, and closed her eyes.

They both looked at her.

“She just—” Avalon started.

“Don’t,” Selene said. “Don’t say a word or move.”

He didn’t move.

Elena slept.

They stood in the kitchen at two in the morning in the stunned silence of people who had just discovered that the thing they’d been trying to solve for an hour had solved itself in thirty seconds.

“I hate her,” Avalon whispered.

“You don’t,” Selene whispered back.

“I’m slightly annoyed with her,” he whispered.

“You’re obsessed with her,” she said. “You’ve taken forty seven photographs today. I counted.”

“The lighting was good this morning.”

“You took eleven photographs of her sleeping.”

“She sleeps expressively.”

“She’s a newborn.”

“She has a lot to express,” he said.

Selene looked at him over Elena’s head. At this man in yesterday’s shirt with his hair doing something she’d never seen it do before because he hadn’t looked in a mirror since Tuesday, standing in their kitchen at two in the morning arguing about a swaddle and a sleeping baby and he was so completely undone by their daughter in the most beautiful way she’d ever seen anything and she felt something move through her that was not appropriate for 2 AM with a newborn on her chest but was present nonetheless.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said quietly.

“Like what,” she said.

“You know what.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Selene.”

“Avalon.”

He stepped closer. His hand came up and pushed her hair back from her face and she felt that in her spine and her knees and several other places that had no business being relevant right now.

“Four to six weeks,” he said quietly. “That’s what Dr Okafor said.”

“I’m aware of what Dr. Okafor said,” she said.

“I’m just noting the timeline.”

“You’re doing more than noting," she said.

“I’m very tired,” he said. “And very aware of you.”

Elena made a sound between them, they both looked down at her.

She was still asleep. Just registering her presence and reminding them.

“Bed,” Selene said. “All three of us. Now.”

“The swaddle—”

“Leave the swaddle,” she said. “Come to bed.”

He followed her down the corridor and they settled Elena between them in the specific configuration they’d developed that Dr Okafor had opinions about and they’d decided to have opinions about back, and the room was dark and quiet and Elena breathed her small certain breaths between them and Avalon’s hand found Selene’s across the space and held on.

“Four to six weeks,” she said into the dark.

“I know,” he said.

“I’m noting the timeline too,” she said.

She felt more than heard him smile.

The doorbell rang at 7 AM.

Avalon didn’t move. Selene didn’t move. Elena didn’t move.

It rang again.

Selene extracted herself with the careful precision of someone defusing something and went to the door and opened it and Maya was standing there with coffee and a bag of things and the expression of someone who had absolutely not called ahead because calling ahead would have given them the opportunity to say don’t come.

“I brought snacks,” Maya said. “Real ones, not whatever Avalon packed.”

“Maya,” Selene said.

“Also I need to hold her,” Maya said. “Medically, I need to hold my niece. It’s been four days and I’m experiencing symptoms.”

“What symptoms?” Selene asked.

“Acute niece deficiency,” Maya said. “It’s serious. Let me in.”

Selene stepped back.

Maya came in and went straight to the bedroom where Elena was still asleep between two pillows Avalon was not asleep but was pretending to be.

“I know you’re awake,” Maya said to Avalon.

“I’m asleep,” he said.

“You’re breathing wrong,” she said.

“I’m breathing fine.”

“You’ve been awake since five,” she said. “I can tell.” She looked at Elena. Her voice changed completely. “Oh,” she said. Just that. “Oh, look at her.”

She sat carefully on the edge of the bed.

Looked at her niece sleeping.

Selene stood in the doorway and watched her sister’s face and thought about a hospital room six weeks ago and what Maya had lost and what she was looking at now and felt the weight of both those things existing simultaneously in the same moment.

“Can I?” Maya asked.

“Yes,” Selene said.

Maya picked Elena up with the careful instinct of someone who had been waiting to do this for four days and had not let herself rush it. Elena made a sound of mild protest and then settled.

“Hi,” Maya said softly. “I’m your Aunt Maya. We’ve been introduced but you were very new then and I want to make sure you remember me.” She looked at Selene. “She has Kofi’s eyes.”

“She has Avalon’s eyes,” Selene said.

“They’re similar,” Maya said.

“They’re not similar,” Avalon said from the pillow.

“They have the same shape,” Maya said.

“They don’t,” Avalon said.

“They absolutely—”

Selene’s phone rang.

She looked at the screen.

She answered.

An official woman’s voice came in from the other end.

“Ms. Castellano Pierce. This is Patricia Ruiz. I’m sorry to call so early. I need to tell you something about Edward Pierce before it comes out another way.”

Selene went very still.

“He died last night,” Patricia said. “Peacefully in his sleep. His lawyer called me an hour ago.” A pause. “He left something in his will for the foundation. For the land trust specifically.” Another pause. “Selene. It’s significant and it changes the foundation’s capacity entirely.”

Selene looked at Avalon over Maya’s head.

He was fully awake now and reading her face.

“How significant?” she asked.

Patricia told her.

The room went completely silent.

Maya looked up from Elena.

Avalon sat up.

Selene stood in the doorway of her bedroom with her four day old daughter in her sister’s arms and her husband watching her face and a number in her ear that Edward Pierce had left to answer for 1978.