The room next to the twins’ bedroom had been empty since they moved in.

Not storage. Not a guest room. Just a room with bare walls and a window that let in the summer light. It had taken less than an hour to clear out the few boxes that had found their way there, and now it stood clean and bright and waiting.

Lily and Leo were helping.

This meant Lily was pushing a damp rag across the floor with great energy and little precision, while Leo followed behind her with his own rag, wiping the spots she’d missed. The whale sat on the windowsill, watching over the operation.

"The walls are boring," Lily announced. "They need paint. Can we paint them? At school, the art room has yellow walls. Yellow is nice. But blue is better."

"Why is blue better?" Franz asked from the doorway.

"Because it’s like the sky. And the ocean. And Leo’s whale. Blue is the best color. Everyone likes blue."

Leo paused his wiping and typed on his tablet: BLUE IS GOOD.

"See? Leo agrees. We should paint it blue."

Franz made a mental note to buy paint samples. Blue. He could work with blue.

Arianne appeared behind him. She was wearing a loose summer dress, pale gray, the fabric light in the heat. Her hand rested on the small curve of her belly, a gesture she did now without thinking. She looked better than she had in days. The morning sickness was finally letting go, and her appetite had come back. Last night she’d eaten two helpings of pasta and most of the garlic bread, and Franz had watched her with a relief so deep it caught him off guard.

"We’re painting the room blue," Lily told her. "For the baby."

"I heard." Arianne stepped into the room, her eyes moving over the bare walls. "Blue is a good choice."

"Mommy Aria." Lily stopped pushing her rag and stood up very straight, the way she did when she had an important question. "Is the beach trip still happening? The one Uncle Franz said we could go on. With the whales."

"What beach trip?"

"The one we talked about! Before. For a long time. We put it on the calendar and then we stopped because we didn’t know if we could still go. Because of the baby." She looked at Arianne’s belly, then back at her face. "Is the baby going to change it?"

Franz stepped into the room. "The trip isn’t canceled."

Lily spun around. "It’s not?"

"It’s not. Two weeks. We’re going to a beach in another country. There are whales there. You can see them from the boat or ship."

Lily’s whole face changed. Her mouth opened. Her eyes went wide. She grabbed Leo’s arm and shook it. "Leo! Did you hear? Whales! Real ones!"

Leo’s tablet clattered to the floor. He didn’t pick it up. He was staring at Franz with the same wide eyes as his sister.

REAL WHALES? he typed, when he finally retrieved his tablet.

"Real whales. Not pictures. You can see them in the water."

NOT PICTURES. Leo stared at his screen as if the words themselves were something precious. Then he looked up. CAN MY WHALE COME?

"Your whale can come. But he stays in the bag when we’re near the water. I don’t want him getting lost in the ocean."

Leo nodded. This was fair. The whale would be safe in the bag.

"Who else is coming?" Lily was already bouncing on her toes. "Is Kyle coming? Kyle has to come. He’s never seen a whale before. He’s going to be so excited he might fall over."

"Kyle is coming. Uncle Julian too. Your grandparents. Aunt Estella. All of us."

Lily let out a sound that was somewhere between a cheer and a shriek.

"We need to pack! We need swimming clothes and towels and the sun cream that doesn’t smell bad. And hats. Leo needs a hat even if he doesn’t like it."

Leo typed: I DON’T LIKE THE HAT.

"You have to wear it. The sun is hot." Lily turned back to Franz. "Can I bring my shells? The ones from the last trip? I want to find more shells. I’m going to make a collection."

"You can bring your shells."

"What about books? Can I bring my book about whales? It has pictures. We can look at the pictures and then see the real whales and see if they match."

"You can bring the whale book."

Lily looked like she might explode from happiness. She grabbed her rag and started wiping the floor again with renewed energy, though the floor was already as clean as it was going to get.

Franz turned to Arianne. "The flight is about ten hours. Are you going to be okay?"

Arianne raised an eyebrow. "I’m pregnant. I’m not sick. If I get tired, I can lie down. The doctor said I can travel."

"I know. I just wanted to ask."

"You asked yesterday. And the day before."

"I’m making sure."

"I’m fine, Franz." Her voice was gentle, though. She knew why he was asking. She’d collapsed in her office not long ago. She’d spent days throwing up everything she ate. He was allowed to worry.

Lily looked up from her scrubbing. "Babies need a crib. Not a big bed. Big beds are too high and they can roll off. I saw it in a book at school. The baby bed has bars so the baby doesn’t fall."

"Where did you learn all this?" Arianne asked.

"From books. And Leo and me talked about it. We made a list. Of all the things the baby needs. We wrote everything down." She looked at Leo. "Go get the list."

Leo scrambled to his feet and ran out of the room. He returned a moment later with several sheets of paper covered in both his careful handwriting and Lily’s larger, loopier letters. Drawings crowded the margins—a crib, a blanket, something that might have been a mobile.

"We put the crib first," Lily explained, pointing. "Because the baby needs somewhere to sleep. Then a blanket. But a little blanket, not a big one, because big blankets are too heavy. And clothes. Little clothes. And toys. But not too many toys because the baby will be very small and won’t know how to play yet."

"Oh. That’s a good idea." Lily turned back to Arianne. "Can we show you the rest of the list later? We have more things. We can explain all of them."

Arianne looked at the papers spread across the floor. At Lily’s careful list. At Leo’s drawings in the margins. At the children who had been preparing for this baby for weeks, making lists and drawing and deciding on paint colors.

"We’ll look at the lists together," she said. "Tonight. After dinner."

Lily’s whole face lit up. "Really? You want to see all of them?"

"All of them."

"We have a lot of lists."

"I have time."

Lily grabbed Leo’s arm again, her earlier calm entirely gone. "She’s going to look at our lists! All of them! We need to organize them. Some of them are out of order. The blanket one isn’t finished."

Leo typed: WE CAN FIX IT. BEFORE DINNER.

"Good. We’ll fix it now." Lily abandoned her rag entirely and gathered up the papers. "Come on, Leo. We have work to do."

They ran out of the nursery together, their lists clutched between them, their voices echoing down the hallway. Lily was already explaining something about the blanket list. Leo was typing responses as he ran.

The nursery was empty again. The summer light fell across the clean floor. The bare walls waited for their paint.

"Sky blue," Arianne said.

"Sky blue," Franz agreed.

She reached out and took his hand. They stood together in the empty room, listening to the children’s voices fade down the hall. Soon this room would have a crib and curtains and a baby who would never know how much planning had gone into its arrival.

They went downstairs together, following the sound of the twins’ voices, leaving the nursery bright and empty and waiting.