CHAPTER 202: Ordinary Days

POV: Selene Castellano

October arrived quietly, the way real life did after everything loud had finally settled.

Elena was four months old and had opinions about mornings, about certain textures, about the specific way Avalon held her when he read to her in the evenings, which she apparently preferred over every other configuration available. She’d started laughing that week — a real laugh, surprised out of her by something as simple as Avalon’s face disappearing behind his hands and reappearing.

Selene stood in the nursery doorway watching him do it for the fourth time.

“You’re going to give yourself a headache,” she said.

“Worth it,” he said, not looking away from Elena’s face.

He did it again. She laughed again, delighted, like it was the first time every time.

Selene leaned against the doorframe and let herself just watch for a moment — her husband on the floor of the nursery, completely undignified, completely happy, doing the same silly thing over and over because his daughter found it funny.

“I love you,” she said.

He looked up.

“I know,” he said. “You keep saying it like it’s news.”

“It’s not news,” she said. “It’s just true, and I like saying it.”

He stood, crossed the room, kissed her properly, and Elena made an outraged sound at being momentarily ignored.

“She’s jealous,” Avalon said against Selene’s mouth.

“She’ll survive,” Selene said.

The foundation had settled into its own rhythm too. Amara ran the day to day with the specific competence that had never wavered. James split his time between the board and long calls with his daughter, who called every week now without being asked. Nadia had become indispensable in ways nobody had predicted, particularly to Grace Kim’s expanding stability network, which now included four other cities.

Selene came in three days a week now, Elena in the carrier or, increasingly, left with Maya or Kofi for a few hours at a time — a fact that still occasionally caught in Selene’s chest with something between guilt and relief.

“You look like you’re doing math,” Amara said, glancing up from her screen one afternoon.

“I’m doing math,” Selene admitted. “Guilt math. How many hours is acceptable.”

“There’s no acceptable number,” Amara said. “There’s just what works. Stop doing math.”

“That’s very direct.”

“I’m always direct,” Amara said. “It’s why you keep me around.”

Selene almost laughed.

“Rosa Gutierrez called this morning,” Amara added. “The building on Valencia is fully renovated. She wants you there for the ribbon cutting next week.”

“I’ll be there,” Selene said immediately.

“I know,” Amara said. “I already told her yes.”

Maya was seven months along now, moving through the world with the particular fierce contentment of someone who had learned not to take any of it for granted. She’d started working shorter days too, though she complained about it constantly and loudly, mostly to Kofi, who had learned to simply agree with her complaints without changing anything about the schedule they’d both quietly decided on.

She showed up at Selene’s apartment on a Thursday evening with takeout and the specific energy of someone who needed to talk.

“Robert kicked so hard today I dropped my coffee,” she announced, settling onto the couch with visible effort. “He’s going to be a soccer player or extremely angry about something. Possibly both.”

“He’s a Castellano,” Selene said. “Both is likely.”

“Speaking of Castellanos,” Maya said, “I talked to our father.”

Selene went very still.

“You what,” she said.

“He called me too,” Maya said. “Last week. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to figure out what I thought first.”

“And,” Selene said carefully.

“And I told him I wasn’t interested in a relationship,” Maya said. “But I told him I was glad he was sober, if that’s true, and that I hoped he stayed that way, and then I hung up.” She looked at Selene. “It felt clean. Simpler than I expected.”

Selene absorbed this.

“Did he say anything about me,” she said.

Maya hesitated.

“He asked if you’d called him back,” she said quietly. “I told him that wasn’t mine to answer.”

Selene looked at the voicemail still sitting unlistened, unresolved, on her phone.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

“You don’t have to decide tonight,” Maya said, echoing words Selene had heard many times over the past months. “But Lena — whatever you decide, I’m with you either way.”

Selene reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand.

“I know,” she said.

That night, after Maya left and Elena was asleep, Selene sat on the kitchen floor alone.

She picked up her phone.

Looked at her father’s number.

Pressed call before she could talk herself out of it.

It rang twice.

He answered on the third ring, his voice careful, surprised.

“Selene,” he said.

“I got your message,” she said. “I’m not calling to reconcile. I need you to understand that clearly before we say anything else.”

“I understand,” he said quietly.

“I’m calling because I need to say some things,” she said. “And I need you to just listen.”

There was a pause on the line.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m listening.”

Selene took a breath, steadied herself against the honest floor beneath her, and began.