“That seems wise. Given the… situation.”
Silence descended again. The only sound was each of them taking bites of their dinner and the clock on the wall ticking.
“Thank you for coming today,” Grace said after the silence became too much to bear. “I picked out a nice color for the nursery walls.”
“Was it the yellow you showed me last weekend?” Alex asked.
“Exactly. I thought it was nice and sunny.”
“It’ll look really lovely.” Alex smiled at her. “You know, I was wondering if we should have a theme.”
“A theme?”
“A nursery theme. Like ducklings or zoo animals or outer space.”
“Wow.” Grace grinned. “You’ve really put thought into this. What are you leaning toward?”
“Hmm…” Alex considered. “We could do a beach theme, maybe? I know you love the beach.”
“I do.” Grace smiled. “We could do yellow walls like the sun and sand, blue accents on the furniture for the water, a fish mobile…”
“Their names written in ocean-style letters,” Alex added.
“Yeah.” Grace nodded. “That would be nice, right?”
“Right,” Alex agreed. “See, we’ve got this parenting thing down! Regardless of what Kathryn says.”
“I like your optimism, but I can’t imagine it’ll be that easy when we have two infants crying at alternating times,” Grace said, but even as she spoke, she stroked her hand fondly over her stomach. She already loved her children, and they weren’t even here yet.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get them on a schedule,” Alex said.
“Right…” Grace frowned. “Have you spent much time with babies?”
“I’ve spent lots of time with my nieces.”
“That’s nice.”
“Haveyouspent much time with babies?”
“Sure. I babysat all through high school. And I’m the mom, so these things will just come naturally to me.” Grace flipped her hair and grinned broadly to show that she was joking about that last part. Alex chuckled.
“Nowwho’s being overly optimistic?”
“Me. It’s me. Now, should we move to the nursery to work on painting? We can finish dinner later.”
“Sure.”
They both stood, and Grace led Alex down the hall to her spare bedroom. Formerly, it had been her home office, but she’d moved her extra desk and monitor out to make room. Now, with drop cloths on the floor and cans of paint at the ready, it looked strangely empty. It was small, about the size of the average walk-in closet, but big enough for the furniture they’d picked out. The window looked out over the apartment complex’s back garden.
“Do you know how to paint?” Grace asked, hands on her hips.
“I do.” Alex expertly opened the first can of paint with the edge of a flat screwdriver and set it down. Paint fumes wafted out. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here.”
“I’ll open the window.” Grace did so, and the smell of paint was immediately replaced by the fresh scent of grass and flowers from the garden. Grace and Alex arranged themselves, dipped rollers into paint troughs, and got to work. It was surprisingly fun transforming the walls from the plain beige they’d been when Grace moved in (a color she’d never had the time, money, or energy to change) into the bright, sunshine-like butteryyellow. After a while, she hooked up her Bluetooth speaker to her phone and put on a happy playlist that had her dancing around the room. When she glanced at Alex, she saw that he was nodding his head along, too.
It was almost possible to believe that they were regular parents eagerly awaiting the birth of their babies.
“What do you think?” Alex asked as he finished up the final section of the final wall.
