Dirva came home to a blindingly new life. He knew what he was coming home to—Nisa convinced one of the other engineers to leave him a message at the Office of Foreign Relations—but knowing it and living it are two different things. Sorcha tells me he wept when he came through the door and saw her with the baby. He said it was silent and dignified, but that Dirva wept. No one had thought to leave me a message, though, and I came home to a complete surprise. Sorcha was in the kitchen drinking tea. I put my papers on the shelf next to the door, turned to ask him how his hand was, and heard the baby’s cry. Sorcha smiled. I just stared at him, transfixed, my mind a perfect blank. “It’s a boy,” Sorcha said. “He’s a beauty, he’s perfect and healthy. Nisa delivered like she’d already had a dozen. She’s tired, but she’s fine. Didn’t even tear.”

“Dirva?”

“Just got in.”

I laughed. Sorcha laughed with me. He stared into his cup and said very quietly that maybe he’d give up the violin and take up midwifery for good. “Since we’re sticking around, you know.”

I stared at him. It was another shock. “You want to stay?”

He smiled softly, very softly. “Yeah. If you’ll have me, if they’ll have me. A man doesn’t just bring a child into the world and then skip off, not if there’s space for him.”

Some hours later, well into the night, Dirva leaned through the bedroom door and beckoned us over. Sorcha and I had stayed awake playing djah and drinking tea; the kitchen table was littered with bent cards and half-empty teacups. Dirva was happier than I’d ever seen him. He carried in him a deep well of emotion, a sense of rightness. Nisa sat propped up with pillows. She looked exhausted, but she stared into the face of her child with a singular enveloping attention. The baby was a wrinkled, tiny thing, all balled fists and squinched features, but he was a treasure. He slept curled against her breast, his face tucked into the hollow of her shoulder.

“It’s time to name him,” Dirva said. Nisa nodded and handed him the baby. The child fit neatly into the crook of his arm. The baby stirred, and Dirva cooed it back to sleep. Sorcha stood against the wall just behind Dirva, peeking over his shoulder at the baby. All three of them had the same dark-gray skin. When the baby blinked, just before he settled back to sleep, I could see all three of them had the same green eyes. Everyone in the room had green eyes but Nisa. “His name is Nuri,” Dirva said. Sorcha’s eyes widened; his attention shifted from the infant in Dirva’s arms to Dirva himself. Dirva did not notice. “Nuri Nisa’Dirva.”