“It’s a good activity for the family.”
“Okay. And spring? It’s barely fall.”
“Fashion is forward. Coffee? I have some of Roarke’s blend. I’ve been spoiled.”
“I’ll get it.” At home, Peabody moved through the open space to a newly designed kitchen.
Eve took a moment to glance around. Everything was color—the walls, the art, the fabrics hanging here and there as if at random. They’d separated the kitchen from the living space with half walls of some sort of textured glass.
Every time she came by, it looked less and less like what she’d left behind.
“It looks like you,” she decided. “Like all of you.”
“We’re happy here.”
“Yeah, it feels happy here. Look, Leonardo, I’m sorry to crash into your morning, but—”
Before she could finish, Mavis bounced out, hair bundled up in a curly topknot, a sunburst of color in her snug top with her knee-length pants picking up the pattern with wide cuffs. On her hip, Bella wore similar pants in the same pink as the front door and a white top with Namaste spelled out in sparkling rhinestones.
Bella squealed. “Das!” After that, her current name for Eve, she babbled out a stream of the incomprehensible.
“I thought I heard somebody. And Peabody!” Mavis did a quick dance on sparkly red skids. “You’re just in time. Wait till you see this. Okay, Bellissima, go see Dallas!”
“Das!” Bella called as Mavis set her caref
ully on her feet with the baby gripping Mavis’s fingers.
“You can do it, baby. You can do it.”
Blue eyes huge, Bella took a shaky step on her pink skids. Then another, with her hands waving like bird’s wings when she let go of Mavis’s fingers.
“What’s she doing? How can she do that?” Eve had to will herself not to retreat as the little legs and hands worked, and the blue eyes shone with the thrill of it.
“She’s walking!” Leaving the coffee behind, Peabody eased out of the kitchen. “She’s taken her first steps.”
And finished them by ramming into Eve’s legs, clutching her trousers like a rope off a cliff.
“Just this morning,” Mavis sniffled, “Leonardo put her down to play on the floor while we got her breakfast. And she pulled herself up on the chair, and walked to him. She walked to her daddy. It still waters me up,” she managed, and swiped at her eyes.
Behind Eve, Leonardo sniffled in stereo.
And Bella, head tilted back, fingers clutching, eyes imploring, said, “Das.”
“What does she want?”
“She wants you to pick her up,” Mavis said.
“Why? She can walk.”
“Das,” Bella said again, and managed to infuse the single syllable with absolute love.
“Okay, okay.” With trepidation, Eve reached down, hauled her up.
Bella kicked her feet in delight, shouted, “Slooch!” and pressed her mouth—always damp—to Eve’s cheek. “Hi! Hi!”
“Hi.”
Bella patted Eve’s cheeks, babbled, then threw out her arms. “Peebo!”