The sitting room had been converted into a theater.

Lily had overseen the transformation personally. An airbed had been dragged from the storage closet and positioned before the television, its surface covered in blankets and pillows arranged in a specific order—largest to smallest, the system she’d explained to Franz four times before he understood it wasn’t random. The coffee table had been pushed against the wall. The curtains were drawn. A bowl of popcorn sat on the floor within arm’s reach of the airbed, already half-empty.

"It’s not a movie night without popcorn," Lily had announced. "It’s in the rules."

"Whose rules?" Franz had asked.

"Mine. I made them."

Leo had nodded solemnly beside her, his whale under one arm, the tablet in his other hand. He’d been the one to choose the movie—something animated, something with talking animals and a musical number, because Leo liked musical numbers even though he never sang along. Lily had approved the selection after a brief debate about whether documentaries counted as movies. They didn’t, she’d decided. Not for movie night.

Now the opening credits were rolling. The twins were sprawled on the airbed—Lily on her stomach, chin propped on her hands, her feet kicking slowly behind her. Leo cross-legged, the whale in his lap, his eyes fixed on the screen. The popcorn bowl was between them. Lily had already spilled some on the blanket and carefully picked up each piece, because movie night had rules but it also had standards.

Arianne sat on the couch behind them. Franz was beside her. Not touching. Just there.

But something was off.

He’d been quiet all evening. Not withdrawn—Franz didn’t withdraw from her, not anymore—but still. Thinking. There was a tension in his shoulders, a particular stillness that she’d learned to read over the past year. The way he held himself when he was working up to something. She’d seen it before the press conference. Before he’d asked her what she needed before she went to Evelyn’s. Before he’d told her he’d been waiting years and would wait longer if she needed him to.

She let the movie play for a few minutes. The animals sang their first song. The twins watched, transfixed. Then she turned to him.

"What’s wrong?"

He looked at her. "Nothing’s wrong."

"You’re nervous."

He didn’t deny it. His hand was resting on his knee, his fingers slightly curled. She reached over and covered it with hers.

"Tell me."

He exhaled. Not a sigh. Just a release.

"Our anniversary is coming up. A year."

"I know."

"I’ve been thinking about what to give you. I couldn’t figure it out. You’re not someone who wants things." He paused. "But there is one thing we don’t have. Something I should have thought of a year ago."

She waited.

"Our wedding was private. No guests. No photographer. No portraits." His voice was steady but careful, each word placed deliberately. "At the time, that was what we needed. It was a legal structure. It became something else. But we don’t have any record of it. Nothing that’s ours. Nothing we chose."

He turned his hand under hers. His fingers interlaced with her own.

"I want to take wedding photos. Official ones with a photographer. You in a dress. Me in a suit. Whatever you want to wear. Whatever you want it to look like." He paused. "I’ll arrange everything. The photographer. The location. The timing. You just need to appear."

Arianne opened her mouth to answer.

"Can we be in them too?"

Lily’s head had popped up from the airbed. Her chin was still shiny with butter from the popcorn. Her eyes were wide, calculating, the way they got when she’d spotted an opportunity and was already planning how to seize it.

"Can Leo and me be in the photos? We could stand next to you. We could wear nice clothes. Leo has a button shirt and I have my flower dress. The one I wore for our birthday. It’s still clean."

Leo sat up beside her. He reached for his tablet, typed quickly, and turned it around.

WANT TO SEE AUNT ARIA IN WEDDING DRESS.

"See?" Lily pointed at the screen. "Leo wants to see it too."

The mention of their parents landed softly. Lily said it without grief—just fact. They had been somewhere else. They had been with Alex and Layla. Now they were here, and they didn’t want to miss anything else.

"And I want a portrait," Lily continued, gaining momentum. "Like Mommy and Daddy’s portrait. The one at our old house. It was in the hallway. It was really big and Mommy was wearing a white dress and Daddy was in a black suit and they were both smiling. Everyone who came to visit saw it."

Her voice didn’t waver on the memory. She wasn’t sad. She was determined.

"I want that here. A portrait of our family. In the hallway. So everyone who visits sees it and knows we’re a family."

Leo typed again. Held up the tablet.

WANT PORTRAIT. OUR FAMILY.

Arianne looked at the screen. At Leo’s steady gaze behind it. At Lily’s eager face, still shiny with butter, still waiting for an answer. At Franz beside her—his hand in hers, his shoulders still carrying the tension of someone who’d asked for something and wasn’t sure he’d get it.

He’d arranged everything in his head already. She could see it. The photographer. The location. The timing. He’d thought about this for days.

They’d never had a proper wedding. Not really. They’d had a contract that became a marriage. They’d skipped the photographs and the portraits and the proof. At the time, she hadn’t wanted proof. Proof was dangerous. Proof made things real. But the marriage had become real anyway, somewhere in the months after—the twins, the estate, the long nights and early mornings and quiet moments in the kitchen when she made him food and he watched her like she was the only fixed point in the room.

"Yes."

The word came out before she could weigh it. She didn’t take it back.

She looked at Franz. "You can arrange it. I’ll appear."

Lily shrieked. The sound was loud enough that Leo flinched, then smiled. Lily scrambled off the airbed and threw her arms around Arianne’s knees, her face pressed against Arianne’s shins, her voice muffled but still perfectly audible.

"I’m going to wear my flower dress. And Leo’s going to wear his button shirt. And Uncle Franz is going to wear a suit. And you’re going to wear a wedding dress. A white one. With the long part in the back."

"A train," Arianne said.

"A train. Yes. That."

Leo typed furiously on his tablet. Held it up. The words came in rapid succession.

HAPPY.

EXCITED.

YES.

Then, after a pause:

CAN PETAL BE IN THE PICTURE?

"And my rabbit too?" Lily added, lifting her head. "Not Petal. Petal is mine. But the rabbit could be in it. Or the bear. Or both."

"We’ll see," Franz said.

"That means yes. When Uncle Franz says ’we’ll see,’ it means yes."

Franz looked at Arianne. "Does it?"

"It does now."

Lily scrambled back to the airbed, already narrating the photoshoot to Leo in elaborate detail. The flower dress. The button shirt. The train. The portrait that would hang in the hallway, replacing the empty space that had been there since they moved in. Leo listened, nodding at intervals, typing occasional suggestions that Lily read aloud and either approved or vetoed.

Arianne turned back to Franz. His shoulders had dropped. The tension was gone. He was watching the twins with something that wasn’t quite a smile—the expression he wore when he’d received something he’d been afraid to ask for.

"You’ve been thinking about this," she said.

"When you smiled at me outside the station. I wanted a photo of that moment. Then I realized we don’t have any. Not from our wedding. Not from anything that mattered." He paused. "We have press photos. Candid shots from airports. Screenshots from television coverage. Nothing we chose. Nothing that’s ours."

She understood. The public owned so much of their story already. The airport photos. The press conference footage. The grainy image of them outside the station, his hand on her shoulder, her face turned toward him. All of it captured by strangers. None of it theirs.

The wedding photos would be theirs. Just theirs. Or mostly theirs—the twins had already claimed their place, the flower dress and the button shirt and the train.

"Thank you," Franz said.

"You don’t have to thank me."

"I know. I’m doing it anyway."

On the airbed, Lily was still planning. "And we can put the portrait right in the hallway. Near the stairs. So it’s the first thing people see when they come in. That’s where Mommy and Daddy’s portrait was. The first thing."

"The first thing," Leo echoed on his tablet.

Arianne looked at the empty hallway beyond the sitting room door. She could picture it. The portrait on the wall. The family she hadn’t expected to have. The proof she’d once been afraid to create.

"Okay," she said. "The first thing."

The movie played on, ignored. The animals sang their third song. The popcorn bowl was nearly empty. Franz’s hand stayed in hers, and the twins planned their wedding appearance, and the hallway waited for its portrait.