CHAPTER 188: Ordinary

POV: Selene Castellano

Five weeks after Elena came home, life became something Selene didn’t have a word for yet.

Normal implied returning to something. This was new. A different texture entirely. Days that had the shape of two people learning a third person who had very clear opinions about everything and no capacity yet to express them in language, which meant every cry was a translation problem and every solved translation felt like winning something significant.

She was standing at the kitchen window at 6 AM with Elena against her shoulder, the city just beginning outside, when Avalon appeared behind her and put his hands on her waist and his chin on her shoulder and they stood like that looking at the morning together.

“She’s asleep,” Selene said quietly.

“I know,” he said. “Don’t move.”

“I wasn’t going to move,” she said.

“Good,” he said.

They stood very still.

Elena breathed against Selene’s neck with the total commitment of someone who had exhausted herself communicating very important things at three in the morning and needed to recover.

“What were her opinions about at three AM?” Avalon said.

“Everything,” Selene said. “The position, the temperature and the way I was holding her that was apparently insufficient.”

“What was wrong with the way you were holding her?”

“I don’t know,” Selene said. “I tried seven variations and she approved of the seventh.”

“What was different about the seventh?”

“I have no idea,” Selene said. “But I’m writing it down.”

He laughed quietly against her shoulder.

She felt it more than heard it.

“We should go back to bed,” she said.

“We should,” he agreed.

Neither of them moved.

The city continued outside. The light changed by degrees as Elena breathed.

“This is the part nobody tells you about,” Selene said.

“Which part?” he said.

“That it’s also this,” she said. “The 6 AM kitchen. The standing still because she’s finally asleep and not minding.”

“You don’t mind,” he said.

“I don’t mind anything,” she said. “That’s what’s strange. I’m exhausted but I don’t mind any of it.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I know,” he said. “Me too.”

She turned her head slightly.

He was right there.

She kissed him, carefully, so as not to disturb Elena, and he kissed her back with the specific warmth of someone who had been waiting for a quiet moment and had finally found one.

“Five weeks,” he said against her mouth.

“Five weeks,” she agreed.

“Dr  Okafor said—”

“I know what she said,” Selene said. “I was there.”

“I’m just noting—”

“You’ve been noting it for a week,” she said.

“I have feelings about the timeline,” he said.

“I know you do,” she said.

“They’re significant feelings,” he said.

“I’m aware,” she said.

Elena stirred.

Both of them went completely still until she settled.

“Tonight,” Selene said quietly.

“Tonight,” he agreed.

“If she cooperates,” she said.

“She’ll cooperate,” he said.

“You don’t know that,” she said.

“She’s a Castellano Pierce,” he said. “She understands timing.”

Selene laughed.

“Take her,” she said. “My arms are going.”

He took Elena with the careful competence they’d both developed, the handoff that had started terrifying and was now practiced, and Selene stretched her arms and turned and looked at her husband holding their daughter in the 6 AM kitchen light.

The photograph she’d never take because the taking would interrupt the being in it.

“Go back to bed,” he said. “I have her.”

“You have meetings at nine,” she said.

“I have a daughter at six,” he said. “The meetings can wait.”

She looked at him.

“You’ve changed,” she said.

“I’ve been changing,” he said. “Slowly—”

“Then all at once,” she finished. “Yes, I know.” She crossed to him and kissed him again, less carefully this time, and he made a sound against her mouth that Elena apparently found interesting because she opened her eyes briefly and looked at them with the expression that was definitely Nene’s.

“She’s judging us,” Selene said.

“She’s always judging us,” he said. “We should be used to it.”

“Go to bed, Selene,” she said, imitating his voice.

“That’s not what I sound like,” he said.

“That’s exactly what you sound like,” she said.

She went to bed and laid in the warm quiet.

Heard him through the wall talking to Elena in the low steady voice he used at 6 AM, not words exactly, just sound, the specific register of someone who had decided that presence was its own language.

She closed her eyes and slept.

Woke at eight to Avalon beside her and Elena in the bassinet and a text from Amara that said simply: When you’re ready. No rush. The foundation is here.

And one from Maya that said: Kofi and I are trying again. Don’t make a thing of it. Just wanted you to know.

Selene read Maya’s text twice and felt something warm and uncomplicated move through her.

Typed back: I love you. That’s all.

Maya replied immediately.

I know. That’s why I told you first.

She showed Avalon over breakfast.

He read it, set the phone down and looked at Elena in the bassinet.

“Good,” he said. 

“Yes,” Selene agreed.

Elena made a sound.

“She agrees,” Selene said.

“She always does,” Avalon said.

“She absolutely doesn’t,” Selene said.

“She will eventually,” he said.

“Keep hoping,” she said.

He smiled.

Her phone rang.

James.

She answered.

“The National Award ceremony,” James said. “The recording Rachel mentioned. The man Philip Cross  was following.” A pause. “Cross identified a second person at the theatre that night. Someone who wasn’t with Sandra Cole. Someone who came separately and left separately and who Cross almost missed entirely.”

“Who,”

 she said.

“He doesn’t have a name yet,” James said. “But Selene—he has a photograph.”

“Send it,” she said.

It arrived in seconds.

She looked at it.

The blood left her face.

Avalon saw it happen.

“What?” he questioned.

She turned the phone toward him.

He looked at the photograph and went completely still.

“That’s not possible,” he said.

“It’s possible,” she said. “We’re looking at it.”