Free Web NovelChapter 370: The Decision Is Yours
The nursery was chaos.
Sky blue walls, freshly painted, the color of a summer sky at midday. The paint had dried a few days ago. A large box containing the unassembled crib sat in the middle of the carpeted floor. A smaller box with the mobile rested beside it. Franz was on the floor, surrounded by wooden pieces and screws and an instruction manual that he’d been studying for the past ten minutes.
Lily sat beside him, her checklist in her lap. She had made it the night before, writing down everything the baby would need. Crib. Mobile. Blankets. Clothes. Diapers. Toys. She’d shown it to Arianne at breakfast, and Arianne had gone through each item with her, explaining what was necessary and what could wait.
Leo was on Franz’s other side, the whale tucked against his knee. He’d claimed the box with the mobile as his responsibility, and he was removing each piece from its packaging with great care.
Arianne sat in the rocking chair near the window. It was a new addition to the room, a gift from Amanda, who had found it at an antique shop and had it restored. The wood was dark and polished, the cushions a soft cream. It rocked on its curved base, and Arianne had discovered that sitting in it made her feel strangely peaceful. Her feet were propped on a small stool. Her belly was rounder now that made the pregnancy impossible to hide. Twenty-two weeks. A boy. They had found out a few days ago, and Franz had held her hand in the doctor’s office and smiled the way he smiled when something was too big for words.
"I think these are the same parts," Lily said, pulling two identical wooden slats from the pile. "They look the same. Are they the same? Uncle Franz, are they supposed to be the same?"
Franz looked up from the manual. "I think so. Let me check."
"You said that five minutes ago and then you didn’t check."
"I’m checking now."
Lily sighed. Leo, meanwhile, had successfully extracted the mobile pieces from their packaging. The mobile was shaped like clouds and stars, painted in soft white and pale gold. He held up a star for Arianne to see.
Arianne nodded her approval. "That’s beautiful, Leo."
Leo typed on his tablet: FOR THE BABY. TO LOOK AT.
"He’ll love it."
Leo’s face broke into a wide smile—the real one, the one that crinkled his eyes. He returned to his work.
Lily abandoned the crib assembly and crossed the room to where Arianne sat. Her checklist was clutched in her hand, the edges crumpled. "Mommy Aria, is the baby kicking again? You were rubbing your belly earlier."
"No, he’s sleeping right now. I’m just resting my feet."
"Are your feet hurting? Do you need something? I can get you water. Or a snack. Aunt Estella made those little sandwiches you like. The ones with the cucumber."
Arianne reached out and placed her hand on Lily’s head. The dark hair was soft beneath her palm, a little tangled from the morning’s activities. "You’re a good big sister, Lily."
Lily’s face brightened. "I’m practicing. Leo’s practicing too. We’re both going to be so good at it."
Leo appeared at Lily’s side, his tablet held up: ME TOO. GOOD BIG BROTHER.
"Of course you are," Arianne said. "Both of you. The baby is lucky."
Franz looked up from the manual, which he had apparently been reading without actually understanding, and laughed. "Are you two helping me, or are you retired from crib assembly?"
"I’m helping," Lily said, her voice indignant. "I was just checking on Mommy Aria. You should put the same parts together first. All the long ones in one pile and the short ones in another. That’s what the picture shows."
"The picture is tiny."
"The picture is clear enough. You just need to look at it properly."
Franz held up the manual, squinting at the diagram. "You’re right. It is clear. I wasn’t looking at it properly."
"That’s what I said."
Leo had returned to his mobile assembly, but he paused to type: NEEDS GLASSES.
"I don’t need glasses. I need bigger pictures."
BIGGER GLASSES.
Franz laughed again, and the sound filled the nursery, warm and bright. Arianne watched them from the rocking chair—her husband on the floor with the children, surrounded by pieces of furniture that would become their baby’s room. The sky blue walls. The mobile shaped like clouds and stars. The crib that would soon hold their son.
Gio appeared at the doorway. freewёbnoνel.com
He didn’t knock. He never did. He paused at the threshold. The nursery was all chaos, the scattered crib parts, the half-assembled mobile, Lily’s crumpled checklist, Franz on the floor with the manual, Arianne in the rocking chair with her hand on her belly. Something in his expression moved, there and gone.
"Arianne. I have something to discuss with you."
Arianne looked up. "What is it?"
"The land deed for your family home. The Summers estate." He stepped into the room, careful to avoid the scattered crib pieces. "You can keep the land or sell it. The decision is yours. There’s something else. Recent inspection shows the estate isn’t safe anymore. The structure is too old, the foundation compromised. It’s unlivable, and it’s becoming a hazard. They’re recommending demolition."
Arianne absorbed this. The Summers estate. The house where she had grown up. The house where her mother had played piano in the sitting room, the music drifting up the stairs. The house where she had found her mother’s body, cold and unmoving, when she was thirteen years old. The house where her father had named her after a dead woman and taught her finance on Saturdays as if she were a replacement rather than a child.
She had not been back there since their last visit. She had not wanted to go back.
"Schedule the demolition," she said. "If it’s unsafe, it needs to come down."
Gio nodded. "There’s something else you should consider. The house isn’t empty. There are things inside, furniture, personal belongings, family records. Some of it may be worth keeping. We don’t have enough storage to hold everything."
Franz looked up from the crib manual. "There’s the guest house."
Arianne turned to him. The guest house was a small building near the edge of the estate, meant for visitors who needed a place to stay. They had never used it. No one had ever stayed there.
"Are you sure?"
Franz shrugged. "We never have guests. It’s just sitting there. We could store things there temporarily, until you decide what to do with them. It’s your family’s things. You should have the chance to go through them."
Lily, who had been listening with the intensity she brought to all important conversations, tugged at Arianne’s sleeve.
"Mommy Aria, can we go with you? When you get the things? I want to see your baby pictures again. The baby should see what you looked like when you were little. We could put them in the nursery so the baby knows what his mommy looked like."
Leo typed: ME TOO. WANT TO SEE BABY MOMMY ARIA.
Arianne looked at them. At Lily’s eager face. At Leo’s steady gaze. At Franz, sitting on the floor with the crib manual in his hand, watching her with an expression she’d come to know — patient, unhurried, giving her room.
"You can come," she said. "We’ll go together."
Lily beamed. "And the piano too! Can we bring the piano? You said you used to play it. Leo and I could learn to play it too. The baby could listen to us play."
Arianne held for a beat. The piano. Her mother’s piano. The one she had played, the only thing she could do that made her mother look at her like she mattered. After Ysabella died, she couldn’t touch the keys without remembering.
"I’ll see what we can do," she said. "It’s old. It probably needs maintenance before it can be played again. We can try."
Lily nodded, satisfied. "We can fix it. We’re good at fixing things. We fixed the Lion, remember? Leo’s Lion was broken and we fixed him. We can fix a piano too."
"That’s different. The Lion was fabric and stuffing. A piano is strings and wood and years of neglect. It will need a professional."
"We can help. We can watch the professional and learn how to fix pianos." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
"You want to learn how to fix pianos?"
"I want to learn everything."
Arianne reached out and touched Lily’s hair again. The gesture was becoming more natural, less hesitant. "I know you do."
Gio, waiting in the doorway, cleared his throat. "I’ll schedule the demolition and arrange for the belongings to be moved to the guest house. Take your time going through them. There’s no rush."
"Thank you, Gio."
He nodded once and turned to leave, then paused. "The nursery looks good. The color suits the room."
"Lily picked it."
"Sky blue," Lily said. "Like the beach."
Gio’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes warmed. "Good choice." He left, his footsteps fading down the hallway.
The crib assembly resumed. Franz had finally sorted the parts into piles, and Lily was directing him. Leo had finished the mobile and was now helping Franz hold pieces in place while he screwed them together.
The past was coming to live with them—her mother’s piano, her own baby pictures, the remnants of a childhood she had tried to leave behind.
Here, surrounded by the people she loved, it didn’t feel as heavy as it once had.
Outside the window, the autumn sun was warm and golden. The rocking chair creaked as she moved. The crib was taking shape on the carpeted floor.
"We need the next piece," Lily announced. "The big one. The one that goes on the bottom."
"The base," Franz said.
"That’s what I said. The bottom."
Franz reached for the base of the crib, and Lily held the instructions up for him to see, and Leo typed something on his tablet that made Franz laugh. The mobile spun in the breeze. The rocking chair creaked. And Arianne sat in the middle of it all, her hand on her belly, watching her family build a room for the child who was coming.
