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He passes me the last plate. I dry it. If you had looked through our window, you would have seen nothing: two men, some dishes, a lamp on.
Luke pulls the plug and the sink empties.
"You barely ate," he says.
"I was hosting."
He opens the fridge, shifts the rooster wine aside, and comes out with eggs and butter. The pan we just washed goes back on the burner. He cracks three eggs into a bowl and starts whisking, and it takes me until the butter foams to realize my husband is making me scrambled eggs at 22:00, like I'm a boy home sick from school.
"Luke. You don't have to–"
"Sit down, Preston."
In my husband's first language, that's thank you. I sit down at my own counter, and I let him feed me.
Chapter 14
The Ask
LUKE
On a Saturday at 14:00, Catherine arrives at the brownstone with a book the size of a tombstone. Her driver follows with two more.
“The unofficial York genealogy, the official one is currently in my deposit box in Geneva. I’ll be sure to have it available for when the children are born though,” she announces, setting the first volume on our dining table with the reverence other families reserve for caskets. “Complete since 1688. I flagged the viable name candidates.”
Forty-one flags. I count them while Preston pours coffee and quietly fails to establish whose idea this was.
Mamá arrives at 14:20 with pasteles, because Catherine texted her. They text now. Nobody in this family is at peace with that development. Elena descends for the pasteles and stays for the show, settling at the end of the table with a plate and the expression of a woman holding front-row seats.
"Octavia," Catherine reads. "Wentworth. Bartholomew. Regina. There has been a Regina in every generation since the Restoration, Lucas. I don't make the rules."
"You brought the rules," Elena says. "In three volumes."
"You cannot put Wentworth on a child," Mamá says. "Wentworth is a building."
"A distinguished building."
Mamá doesn't argue candidates. She has criteria. "Two syllables. You shout it across a playground, you spell it to a pharmacist, it fits on a wristband. That's the whole science."
"A wristband." Catherine turns a page. "I'm planning for donor plaques, Rosa, and you're planning for field trips."
"Somebody has to."
They’re both right.
Catherine works the flags. One name she strikes out herself: a single line through it, unexplained, the pen never slowing. I glimpse the first four letters. We don't ask.
"They must harmonise," she continues. "They're twins. The names will appear together on invitations for the next ninety years. Octavia and Bartholomew. Regina and Sebastian. You cannot pair a Regina with a, Lord forgive me, a Bob."
"I knew a great Bob in Seattle," Elena says. "Always paid his invoices on time, plus he tipped. Never a discrepancy in his billing, and the paperwork was gorgeous."
"Every name on your list sounds like they work at a personal injury law firm," Catherine says.
"One of them does," Mamá replies.
Preston attempts diplomacy at the half-hour mark, a hybrid proposal, one name from each tradition, delivered with full hand gestures. Both mothers turn to look at him. He sits back down.
Elena raises her fork. "Point of order. I want the committee reminded that I am currently the building these tenants occupy, and the landlord gets approval on the lease. Keep this up and the birth certificates read Baby A and Baby B, and I'll frame them."
