The kitchen was bright with spring sunlight, pale and clean through the windows. Arianne stood at the counter making coffee, the familiar ritual grounding her after a night of fractured sleep. She'd lain awake for hours in her bedroom after everyone left, turning over the details Gilbert had delivered. She'd finally drifted off somewhere near dawn, and when she'd woken, the smell of coffee was already filling the house.
Leo sat at the kitchen table, his tablet propped before him, his stylus moving in careful strokes. The whale was on the chair beside him, its button eyes facing the window. He was drawing something—the kitchen, she could see, the window and the coffee maker and the calendar on the refrigerator. He'd been working on it all morning.
