Papa's eyes stayed on the fog. "Not without her. Not properly. She made it… possible. This. All of it."

The stillness deepened. No birdsong. Just wind in the trees and the tiny ticking of cooling dew on wood.

"She made everything seem like it had a shape," Papa added. "Even when it didn't. Even when it hurt."

He looked down at Tima — her tiny sleeping face, the slight flutter of a dream behind her eyes.

"I don't know how to be a father without her," he said, almost like a confession. "She made it look possible. Like love was something you could carry in both hands and not drop."

Peter looked at Papa, his eyes on Tima, his mind stirring into some memory - like a big ol' cauldron.

The flat had been chaos, but warm chaos. The kind that felt alive.

She'd been standing at the window, one hand on her swollen belly, the other holding a paintbrush. The canvas on the easel was half-finished — all swirls of color, no clear subject yet, just movement. Orange bled into deep purple, shot through with streaks of something gold.

Music played from the old speaker on the shelf — Hot hot heat, of course. "When you go.. Into the middle of nowhere" She hummed along, off-key but committed, swaying slightly as she worked.

Papa had been sitting on the floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes and half-assembled baby furniture. An instruction manual lay open beside him, indecipherable diagrams mocking his efforts. A tiny sock — impossibly small — had fallen onto his knee.

"How," he'd said, holding up two identical-looking pieces of wood, "are these different?"

She'd turned, paintbrush still in hand, and laughed. "They're not. That's the trick. IKEA is performance art. You're not meant to succeed. You're meant to experience.

"I'm experiencing rage."

"Good. That's part of the design."

She'd come over, settled beside him with a small grunt, hand still on her belly. Up close, she smelled like acrylic paint and that lavender lotion she always used. Her hair was pulled back in a messy knot, a few strands escaping to frame her face.

"Here," she'd said, taking one of the pieces from him. "This one has the indent on the left. That one on the right. See?"

"I see nothing."

"That's because you're thinking too hard." She'd tapped his forehead lightly with the end of the paintbrush, leaving a tiny smudge of orange. "You philosophize furniture. Just feel it."

He'd laughed despite himself. "Feel the furniture."

"Yes. Ask it what it wants to be."

"A chair?"

"See? You're learning."

She'd leaned against him, her weight warm and solid. The baby had kicked — a little flutter against his side — and she'd taken his hand, pressed it to the spot.

"There," she'd whispered. "That's her. Saying hello."

"Hello," he'd said to the bump, feeling ridiculous and tender all at once.

"Tell her something," she'd urged. "Something true."