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“Both of us,” Luke says.

“Okay then,” Elena says. “Let’s do this.”

Mama Ortiz cries.

We tell her Tuesday, in the brownstone kitchen, when she comes with the Tupperware, and she is standing at the counter with a container of asopao in her hands when Luke says, “Mamá. We’ve decided. We’re doing it – Elena, the baby, all of it,” and she goes completely still, and then she puts the container down very slowly, like it’s suddenly precious, and then her eyes fill.

“I’m not crying,” she announces, crying.

“Mamá–”

“It’s the onions.”

“There are no onions,” Luke says gently.

“There are onions somewhere,” she says, and then she abandons the position entirely and grabs us – both of us, one strong arm each– and squeezes until something in Luke’s back cracks audibly, and she doesn’t let go. She’s saying something into the space between our shoulders, in Spanish, too fast for me to catch, and I hear mijo twice, and I hear gracias more times than that, and Luke’s arm comes around my back and grips, and we stand there in the kitchen, the three of us, being held.

Then she releases us, wipes her face, points at the asopao, says, “Eat. Both of you. You’re too skinny for what’s coming, babies take a lot of energy, you know,” – and sits down at our table, produces her knitting from her bag, and begins.

She doesn’t say what she’s knitting. She doesn’t have to. The wool is green, and there was a second skein in the bag, yellow, waiting, and her needles move like she’s making up for lost time.

Mother does not cry.

We tell her Wednesday night, over dinner, because she materialises at the brownstone at 19:00 with Duchess and a bottle of Chardonnay she describes as “adequate for a weeknight,” keeping an appointment nobody made with her. We’re halfway through the Chinese takeout from Wong’s Palace and Steak House – she’s been moving the same piece of broccoli beef around her plate with her fork for ten minutes – when I take Luke’s hand. I say, “Mother, we have news. We’ve decided to go ahead. The surrogacy. Elena. We’re having a baby.”

One second. Two.

“Well,” my mother says, abandoning her fork and any pretence of eating the meal. “Obviously.”

And then she reaches into her leather bag and produces a notebook.

Not a notepad. A notebook – leather, monogrammed, the exact navy of old money, dense with her razor-sharp handwriting and bristling with adhesive flags. She sets it on the table between the cartons with the soft, final thump of a verdict and opens it to a page headed, in block capitals, SURROGACY.

“Fertility specialists,” she says, turning pages. “Shortlisted to four, ranked by success rates, discretion, and whether their waiting rooms are acceptable. Legal counsel – you’ll want reproductive and estate law both, I’ve already retained one and flagged two if the one I selected isn’t acceptable. Nutrition consultants for Elena. A timeline, working backward from an optimal late July birth, though I’ve built in slack because your generation dawdles.” She looks up. “Questions.”

“Have you had us followed?”

“Don’t be absurd.” She turns a page. “I had you anticipated.”

“How long have you had this?”

“I began it the evening of your housewarming.” She turns another tab. “I anticipated your eventual surrender. Efficiency is a virtue, as you’re well aware.”

“You made this that night?”

“Preston.” My mother looks at me over the open notebook, and for a moment – one unguarded moment, the kind she’d deny under oath – there’s something underneath the efficiency, something that’s been waiting longer than three weeks. “I have been ready for this for years. I simply required the two of you to arrive.” She snaps the notebook shut and stands, smoothing her jacket. “Saturday. Dinner. Somewhere with tablecloths.” A glance at the cartons. “Grandmothers do not celebrate over takeout. Especially not Chinese.”

That night, after the house is quiet, we stand in the hallway outside the bedroom across from ours.

We’ve been walking past this door for weeks the way I used to walk past the NICU glass – aware, no business inside. Luke reaches out and opens it. The room is empty. Bare floors, large windows, the streetlight coming through in long stripes.

“Morning light,” Luke says. “This side of the house gets the morning light.”

“I know,” I say. “I noticed the day we moved in.”

“So did I.”

We stand in the doorway a moment longer, not going in yet.