She turned around and looked at the other pregnant lady across the way. The woman was just leaving, and when Nora turned back to me she seemed so angry, with an even deeper frown on her brow.

“Why do you call me whale?”

I felt my eyes go wide.

“Balenë,” she said, “is whale.”

A blush started at my throat and spread like a rash to my cheeks as I stammered, “I—I know! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .” I shook my head. “It’s just the only other word I know in Albanian, and I learned it the other day, and . . .”

“Where did you learn this word? This whale?”

Her voice was deep and steady; her accent seemed to curl around the e’s and r’s beautifully. I couldn’t believe she was talking to me.

“There were whales! In Port Phillip Bay the other day!” I said, and I couldn’t stop my voice from rising awkwardly at the end of each sentence. “My dad—you might know him? He’s a policeman who volunteers at the haven. His name is Luca? Well, he went on this ferry ride with all these other volunteers and kids from the haven to show them the whales and he said the kids kept leaning over the railing and saying ‘Balenë! Balenë! Balenë!’ He said they were so excited. . . .” My voice got smaller the more I talked, until finally I finished by saying, “So now I know hello! and whale in your language.”

“Good morning” was all Nora said.

“Ummm. . . .” I wondered if maybe her English wasn’t so good after all.

She rolled her eyes at me. “Mirëdita is good morning,” she explained. “Çkemi is hello.”

“Oh!” I could feel myself blush again. “Then I’ve been using that wrong.”

She nodded once.

“I wanted to ask how your baby was, but I didn’t know how. . . .”

At that, she opened her mouth and then closed it again, pulled her big brown jacket closed over her belly and shrugged. “Fine, thank you,” she said with very proper, clipped words.

She turned away from me, and I figured she didn’t want to talk. We were the last ones left in the atrium, and it suddenly felt too quiet and small, so I nodded and stood up, swinging my bag onto my shoulders.

“Thank you,” Nora said.

I turned back to her.

“The other day,” she said quickly, like she was bored of having to still talk about it. “Thank you—for the help.”

When I just kept looking at her, she sighed. “And for the television. Thank your mother for helping me. . . .”

“Oh, she’s not my mom,” I said quickly.

Nora raised her brows, and I couldn’t help but babble on. “She’s Sam’s mom. Sam? The boy who I’m normally with? He’s Anika’s son, but she’s not my mom.”

“Më fal—sorry,” she said. “Do thank Anika for me.”