At two and a half, Eli and Cara had become people.
Not in the way they hadn't been people before — they had always been people, from the first scan image where they faced each other in the dark. But at two and a half they were people with consistent characteristics, established preferences, and opinions they expressed with increasing linguistic precision.
Eli had decided that yellow was the correct colour for most things.
This was not a phase. It had been four months. Everything yellow if possible, and if yellow was not possible then a negotiation followed.
Cara had decided that she was responsible for her brother's wellbeing in the specific way of someone who had been appointed to a role and took it seriously.
She had not been appointed.
She had appointed herself.
This had been true since the scan image.
Saturday.
The penthouse in the specific morning quality of a weekend — looser than weekdays, the schedule softer, the particular ease of a space that knew what day it was.
