I don’t have many words yet. Not the way my mother and father do, stacked and ordered into neat sentences. My words are mostly sounds—round things that roll out of my mouth and bump into the air like clumsy toys. But inside my head, where everything is soft and bright and still unnamed, I know what I feel.
They call me Elana.
I know that sound better than any other. It’s the coat I wear in their voices—light in Mother’s mouth, wrapped in a smile in Father’s, like my name is something they never get tired of saying. My world is small: arms, faces, fabric, light, the wood of our cottage, the soil and green of the garden. And yet it feels enormous, because it’s filled with them.
Mother first.
Elizabeth of Ar, they say. Physician of Ar. I don’t know what “physician” means, only that Mother smells like herbs and clean soap and something sharp that pricks my nose when she returns from the city—metal and stone and other people. When she leans over me after a long day, the smell changes: it becomes warmth and fatigue, a faint tremble in her hands that disappears the moment she cups my chest, my cheeks. Her hands are small but strong. I know them by their weight—never too heavy, never too light. The way they hold my head, the back of my neck. The way they press against my belly, two steady moons when I’m crying, and somehow, when her palms are there, the world stops wobbling so much.
I learned Mother’s laugh before I knew her face. I knew the sound before I understood that it belonged to the woman with the auburn hair pinned back loosely, threads escaping around her ears, her eyes always watchful. She laughs with a sudden burst, like it escapes her before she can catch it. It shows all her teeth, makes her eyes small and bright, turns her from the calm presence that checks my temperature and studies my cough into someone lighter, almost young.
She laughs most when Father is near.
Alexander of Ar. Builder of Ar. His is the big voice in the cottage—the one that fills the wood beams and shakes dust from the rafters, the one that turns quiet corners into places that feel awake. When he walks, the floor knows. It tells me, gently, in little vibrations that travel through my blanket and into my bones. Even before I understand “Dada,” I understand footsteps. I understand his shadow across the window. Father is all broad shapes: wide hands, wide shoulders, the arc of his grin. He has no pins in his hair. His hair is free, always falling onto his forehead, always pushed back with the same callused fingers that trace my tiny ribs with reverence, as if he were measuring a beam he plans to set into a house.
“This one,” he says sometimes, lifting me high enough that I can see the rafters he built, the lines of the ceiling that meet like folded arms. “This one will grow taller than our tallest wall.” Mother snorts, that small sharp sound that means she is teasing. “Not if you keep holding her like that,” she says. “Put her down, Alexander. She needs to learn the ground exists.”
But Father likes the air. Or he likes me in the air. He likes the way I squeal when he lifts me, how my arms flail like little wings. Up there, the cottage looks different—patchwork roof, the shimmer of the garden through the glass. Everything is wide. My father’s pride is wide, too.
“She’ll build palaces,” he tells Mother, pressing his cheek to mine until his beard tickles me and makes me squirm and laugh. “Better than any house I’ve raised from the dirt.”
Mother’s eyes soften when he says this. They always do when he imagines my future. She doesn’t laugh then. Her fingers touch my foot, my hand, like she is counting my possibilities. But she still teases him.
“She’ll be a physician,” she says. “Or a scholar. Hands too delicate for tools.” I don’t know what I’ll be. I only know what I am now: held. Seen. Loved. That’s enough.
Our cottage sits just outside Ar, where the city’s sharp stone thins into soft earth. Father built it himself—Mother told me once, as we sat in the faded chair near the window, my body curled into hers, her voice tracing the story aloud even though I couldn’t understand the words yet. The story still reached me in another language: the cadence of pride, the rhythm of gratitude, the warmth in her chest as she described how he had measured and cut and lifted every beam with his own hands.
“Your father,” she murmured, her chin resting on the top of my head, “built this place long before we knew you. As if he knew you’d need the space.” The cottage is not large, but to me it is endless. Every corner is a discovery. The kitchen, where the sunlight finds the wooden table in the mornings, painting long stripes across Father’s scribbled plans and Mother’s notes. The hearth, where warmth lives even after the fire dies, trapped in stone and ash and the wool blanket spread on the floor. The hallway where my hands trail along rough plaster, learning texture with slow, clumsy curiosity.
The best place is the window seat.
Mother calls it hers. Father calls it mine. It’s a shallow nook carved into the wall, lined with cushions that have been washed and faded so many times that their original color is lost somewhere between blue and gray and the softness of touch. Beneath the seat is a drawer full of strange objects—wooden animals whittled by Father, smooth stones Mother collected on her walks, a small red ribbon she ties in my hair when she feels sentimental.
From that window, the garden unfurls like a story.
In the mornings, I see dew. I don’t know the word for it, but I know the glitter: tiny lights clinging to leaves and petals, trembling when the wind nudges them. The garden is Mother’s hands gone wild. Where inside she keeps everything neat—the jars, the books, the bedding—outside she lets things grow in half-tamed abundance. Tall stalks of herbs stand beside low beds of flowers whose names she whispers to me: rosemary, lavender, marigold.
My favorite is the lavender. Its color is soft, like the sky just before evening. Mother sometimes carries a sprig inside and tucks it near my cradle. The scent wraps itself around my sleep, making dreams gentle. When I wake, the smell is a thread that leads me back to her.
Sometimes, Father joins her in the garden. He doesn’t know plant names the way she does, but he knows how to build things for them. He creates trellises and little fences. He shapes beams into frames that protect the more delicate stems from the wind. He moves through the rows with a care that makes his big body seem smaller, as if he knows this is her domain and he is a guest among the green. They are different in the garden.
Mother is practical, focused. She checks leaves, pinches stems, frowns at pests. Father becomes almost childlike, fascinated by how things he did not build can still stand so proud. He crouches to watch ants, traces cracks in the soil with his fingertip. Sometimes, when he thinks no one is watching, he talks to the plants. “We’re all builders,” he says to a struggling vine, adjusting its string so it can climb closer to the light. “Just in different ways.”
When they are together among the rows, they tease each other with ease. Mother shakes her head when Father mislabels a plant. Father pretends to sulk until she nudges him with her hip and laughs. The laughter is what I remember most: it cuts through the rustle of leaves, through the creak of wood and the distant sounds of the city, anchoring me even when I’m inside, watching from the window, unable yet to walk out to them.
I feel them even when I cannot see them.
Their love is not quiet. It’s not hidden behind closed doors or small gestures. It’s loud in the way they say each other’s names. Elizabeth, Alexander. In the way they fight—sharp, quick, never cruel—and always, after, in the way they apologize, touching foreheads together, exchanging words that carry more warmth than all the fires in our hearth.
They do not try to hide things from me, even though I am small.
When Mother is tired, she says so, sitting heavily in the chair, letting her shoulders droop. Father sees, and his voice softens, his jokes become gentle nudges instead of wild, bouncing echoes. When Father is frustrated—when a beam doesn’t fit or a plan is denied in the city—he exhales long, his hand on his brow, his jaw tight. Mother sees, and her fingers find the back of his neck, her touch both soothing and firm.
In those moments, I am often in one of their arms. I feel the tension in their muscles, the slight tremble in their breath. I hear the way their voices change. I don’t understand the reasons, but I understand the shift. And I understand that, no matter what, their hands never forget how to hold me safely.
There’s a kind of teasing they save just for me.
Mother’s tease is soft. It comes with raised eyebrows and quiet smiles. She leans close and whispers, “You think you’re in charge, Elana? You think you decide when we sleep?” Her finger boops my nose. I blink, my face scrambling into a grin. She cups my cheeks and says, “You are wrong, my girl. But you are very cute.” Father’s tease is loud. He tosses words into the air like bouncing balls. “You,” he declares, hoisting me up, “are clearly destined to be a night watchman. Or a bellringer. Or a crow. You do not sleep. You make noise. You want everyone to know you exist.” He tickles my sides, and my body has no choice but to respond—squirming, laughing, gasping. The sensation is overwhelming, but it ends quickly, always before it becomes too much. He knows my limits somehow, the same way he knows how much weight a beam can bear.
They are not afraid to touch me, to hold me, to let their love be visible.
When I cry, they do not look away. They don’t hush me with impatience or pass me back and forth like a problem to be solved. They gather me between them, forming a small shelter with their arms, their bodies curved around mine in a shared circle. Mother’s hand strokes my back in steady lines; Father’s palm covers my head, his thumb tracing arcs along my soft hair.
“Here,” he says. “We’re here. Great builder’s promise.” “Doctor’s promise,” Mother adds, and even tired, even worried, there’s humor in her voice.
I feel safest when they are together.
Separate, they are strong. Mother—the steady observer. Father—the bold creator. Together, they are something else: the space between them becomes a home even when we are far from the cottage. When we walk into Ar, the city rises tall around us, stone and noise and strangers. It’s bigger than anything I’ve ever known. People move quickly, faster than my eyes can follow. Sounds pile on top of each other until my small chest tightens.
But in the midst of the crowd, I am always in someone’s arms.
Mother carries me against her chest, tying me close with a fabric sling that smells like our cottage. I hear her heartbeat under the city’s roar—a familiar drum, steady and strong. Father walks beside us, his hand resting on my back, his knuckles bumping my foot in small, reassuring taps.
Sometimes they trade.
Father lifts me high to see the buildings, the towering stone he helped raise. “See that?” he asks. “I set that arch myself.” His voice is tinged with pride, but softer, because I am here. He points out lines and curves, how weight balances, how beauty emerges from function. I don’t understand, but I watch his face more than the structures—the way his eyes light, the way his mouth shapes certainty.
Mother watches him watch me. There’s something in her gaze then—a mixture of amusement and tenderness, a quiet awe that I suspect surprises even her. She reaches out, brushing a stray hair from his forehead, her fingers lingering longer than necessary.
They never leave me behind.
I don’t know words like “adoption.” I don’t know the story of how I came to them, the paperwork, the decisions, the waiting. I don’t know the moment they first saw me, small and uncertain, and decided: yes. I only know that I am theirs now, in ways that have nothing to do with blood. I know it in how Mother studies my face like it’s the first page of a book she’s waited her whole life to read. I know it in how Father’s voice changes when he says my name—suddenly gentle, almost reverent, like he is talking about the most delicate structure he has ever been entrusted with.
I know it in the cottage itself.
The walls have memories embedded in them—of other days, other projects, lives built carefully. But since I arrived, new things have appeared: a small carved bird on the shelf, its beak slightly crooked because Father laughed too much while whittling it; a blanket with tiny stitched stars Mother made on nights I refused to sleep; a mobile above my cradle, hanging from a beam, its pieces cut from leftover wood and shaped into little houses, little hearts.
They have woven me into everything.
When the sun sets, the cottage gathers shadows. The air cools. The garden turns quiet, plants folding into themselves. Inside, the hearth glows, the soft orange light painting Mother’s cheekbones, Father’s jaw. I sit mostly on the floor now, my legs learning to push me forward, my hands slapping the worn rug in triumph every time I move a little farther on my own.
Tonight, Mother is home early. Father is not. The cottage feels different. Not incomplete, but waiting.
Mother sits by the window, watching the path. I am near her feet, fascinated by the play of light on the wood. I raise my head occasionally, tracking the lines of her face. Her expression is calm, but her hand keeps drifting to her chest, fingers pressing lightly over her heart as if counting something.
The door opens.
Father’s footsteps enter first, the familiar thump-thump-thump, followed by the slight jangle of his tools. He smells like dust and effort. The moment he sees us, tiredness slips off him like a coat. “There they are,” he says, voice rising, filling the space. “My life’s finest works.” Mother rolls her eyes, but her smile gives her away. “You’re late,” she says. “Buildings take time,” he replies, setting down his bag. “Perfection is patient.” Mother snorts. “Perfection, is it?”
He crosses the room, leans down, and kisses her forehead. She closes her eyes briefly, exhaling something that sounds like relief. Then his gaze drops to me. “Come here, you.” His hands reach out, large and certain. I stretch my arms toward him without thinking. It’s a reflex now, as natural as blinking. He scoops me up, his grip firm but gentle, lifting me high enough that my toes dangle in the air, catching the hearth’s dancing light.
“How did the physician treat you today?” he asks, bouncing me lightly. Mother answers for me. “She kept her patient fed and dry and moderately entertained,” she says. “She also discovered that her patient is developing a will stronger than steel.” Father laughs, the sound booming, delighted. “Good,” he says, cradling me closer. “Steel bends. We’ll raise her like oak—supple, but rooted.”
He sits near Mother, pulling me onto his lap. Their shoulders touch. I lean back, resting my head against his chest, my feet pressing against Mother’s thigh. I feel them both at once, warmth on either side, like the center of something steady and sure.
Outside, the garden rests. Inside, the wood beams hold. The cottage breathes around us. I don’t have the words to name it: security, belonging, love. I only know the sensations—the way my stomach loosens when I’m near them, the way my breath settles, the way my body trusts their arms, their touch, their laughter and their teasing.
To me, at nine months, the world is simple. There is the cottage: wood and light and soft fabric. There is the garden: green and color and scent.
And there are my parents: Elizabeth, who listens to every breath I take; Alexander, who builds promises in the air and anchors them in his touch. Separate, they’re strong. Together, they’re home.
I don’t know what lies beyond Ar. I don’t know what I will grow into. But in this small, sturdy cottage with its sprawling garden and its beams that stretch above my head like protective arms, I know one thing with absolute, wordless certainty:
I am loved.
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