“I expect she will, and many at that, ” Julian chuckled as he stepped closer. “We will answer what we can, and what we cannot, we will learn to answer together.”
“Very well,” she said.
They went together. The garden was quieter than the house, the air carrying the calm of late afternoon, untouched by the anticipation building inside. Lily sat beneath one of the trees, a book open in her lap, though she was not reading it. Instead, she seemed to be tracing the edge of the page absently, her attention drifting somewhere beyond it.
She looked up when she heard them approach.
“Julian,” she said, her voice brightening at once, though her attention shifted quickly to Eleanor as well. “You are both here.”
Eleanor smiled, though there was something more careful in it than usual.
“We wished to speak with you.”
Lily’s eyes widened slightly, curiosity immediate.
“Have I done something wrong?”
“No,” Julian said at once. “You have done nothing wrong.”
“Then why do you both look as though you are about to tell me something serious?”
Eleanor glanced briefly at Julian, then back to Lily. She took a seat beside her on the bench, sighing softly.
“Because we are.”
Lily closed her book and set it aside, her attention now entirely fixed on them.
“Is it bad?”
“No,” he said. “It is not bad.”
“Then why do you sound as though it might be?”
Eleanor let out a quiet laugh, the hint of nervousness still there. They had little doubt that Lily would be excited about what they were going to tell her, but there was always going to be a chance that she would be furious, too.
“Because it is important,” she said. “And we wish to tell you properly.”
Julian reached for Eleanor’s hand without looking at her, and she took it, the contact grounding them both.
“There is going to be a change,” he said.
“A change?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of change?”
Julian paused briefly, then continued, his voice steady despite the unfamiliarity of the words. They had hardly discussed it with one another, having only learned of it the day before.
“There is going to be a baby.”
The silence that followed lasted only a fraction of a second, then Lily’s eyes widened completely, the meaning of his words settling in all at once.
“A baby?” she said. “You mean truly? Not just… not just someday, but actually?”
Eleanor felt something shift in her chest at the way she asked it, at the careful hope within it.
“Truly,” he said.