It was a Tuesday evening in November when Mia brought it up.
Charlotte was nearly two—language exploding now, full sentences, opinions about everything, a specific bossy quality that everyone agreed was entirely her father's and that Dante found, despite his best efforts, impossible to discipline because he was too charmed by it.
They were in the garden—the tomato plants long finished for the season, the bed now holding winter herbs, Charlotte's "watering" having evolved into actual, occasionally useful participation.
"I've been thinking," Mia said, "about what Lucia asked. Last year. About more children."
Dante looked at her.
"I think I'm ready," Mia said. "Not 'ready' like I have it all figured out—I don't think anyone has that figured out. But ready in the sense that—I want to. Del
