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The ultrasound envelope sat untouched on the kitchen bench for hours.
Pedri had brought it in, laid it flat, and then walked away from it like it might bite. He didn’t mean to avoid it, but every time he thought about picking it up, something else needed doing - wiping down the table, soaking Alora’s paint-streaked jumper, checking if Ferran remembered to actually turn off the oven.
Now the day had quieted down, and it was just the three of them, all settled in the living room. Alora was cross-legged on the floor, chewing the end of a pencil, half-watching some animated film while Ferran and Pedri exchanged glances over her head.
Pedri cleared his throat.
“Alora?” he said, and his voice came out softer than intended. “Can you come here for a minute?”
She turned around instantly, wide-eyed. “Did they call?”
“Who?”
“My teacher. Because I made Camila cry.”
Pedri blinked. “You what?”
“I didn’t mean to,” she said quickly, like that made it better. “I just said her drawing looked like a bug and she cried. But I said sorry.”
Ferran, already holding back a laugh, patted the spot beside him on the couch. “You’re not in trouble.”
She eyed them both like she wasn’t totally convinced, but climbed up anyway, settling herself between them, arms folded tight across her chest. Defensive. Expectant.
Pedri smiled a little, brushing her hair back from her face. “No one's mad, cariño. We just wanted to talk to you.”
“Then why do you look like you’re about to tell me a secret?”
Ferran reached across her lap and grabbed the envelope off the coffee table. “Because we are.”
Alora stared at it.
Pedri leaned in. “Do you remember when we showed you our wedding album a while ago?”
She nodded slowly. “When you looked like a marshmallow.”
“Exactly,” Pedri said, deadpan. “And we told you how we hoped for you for a long time, and how we were already dreaming of being your parents?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Ferran said, holding the envelope between both hands now, “you’ve been our sunshine since then. Like, the actual best part of every day.”
“And we thought maybe it was time to share some of that sunshine,” Pedri added, gently now. “With someone new. With you.”
Alora sat still, head tilted. Then she blinked once. Twice.
“Is this about me getting a dog?” she asked.
Pedri laughed, it slipped out before he could stop it. Ferran looked like he might bite his lip in half.
“No,” Ferran said. “Not a dog.”
“Then what?”
Pedri reached for the envelope and opened it slowly, carefully, pulling the black-and-white printout just far enough out to show the blurry shape inside.
“This,” he said, “is your little sibling.”
Alora’s whole body went still.
Then: “You mean, like… another baby?”
Pedri nodded. “In my tummy, yeah.”
“But… really?”
Ferran leaned in, nodding too. “We went to the doctor this morning. It’s real.”
Alora turned to Pedri, eyes narrowing slightly. “So that’s why you’ve been lying down all the time.”
“Exactly.”
“And you said it was just ‘grown-up tiredness.’”
“I mean, technically-”
“You lied to my face!”
Ferran let out a short, surprised laugh. Pedri shrugged. “I was waiting for the right moment.”
Alora took the ultrasound photo in both hands, staring down at it like it might suddenly move. Then she looked back up at them, mouth slightly open.
“Do they know me?”
“Not yet,” Pedri said.
“But they will,” Ferran added. “And they’re going to love you.”
Alora stayed quiet, but her thumb crept up to her mouth, like it usually did when she was thinking something through. She looked down at Pedri’s stomach, then back at the picture.
“Is it gonna be loud?”
“Probably.”
“Will I have to share stuff?”
“Maybe a little.”
Alora’s brow furrowed. “Even my bath toys?”
“Only if you want to.”
She leaned her head against Ferran’s arm. “They can’t have my giraffe.”
“They won’t even know what a giraffe is,” Pedri said gently.
“Good.”
They sat in silence for a while after that, Alora still holding the printout, her thumb in her mouth, her eyes distant in that strange grown-up way she sometimes got.
Then she said, “If they cry too much, can we send them back?”
Ferran smiled. “We can’t.”
“I figured.”
She looked at Pedri again. “Will you still cuddle me?”
Pedri reached out and pulled her close. “Always.”
“Even when the baby’s there?”
“Even then.”
Alora leaned against his chest and sighed, like she’d made peace with it.
“Okay,” she whispered. “They can come.”
Pedri pressed his lips to her hair. “Gracias, amor.”
“And they better be cute.”
Ferran laughed softly. “They’ll have you as a big sister. They’ll be fine.”
Pedri had barely made it halfway down the hallway before Alora spotted him.
She came skidding around the corner in socks and stopped dead in front of him, arms stretched out like a barrier.
“Stop right there,” she said, with a seriousness only five-year-olds could pull off.
Pedri blinked, still groggy from the nap he’d just woken up from. “Why?”
“You were going to do something.”
“I was going to make tea.”
“Nope,” she said, grabbing his hand and turning him back the way he came. “You’re not allowed to carry hot things anymore. You said last time your arms felt jelly.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I also said I was fine.”
“That doesn’t count.”
He let her guide him back into the lounge, where a nest of pillows waited for him on the couch, a blanket already draped in anticipation. She helped him sit, hands fluttering around him like she wasn’t sure if she was meant to fluff pillows or check his pulse.
Then she pointed a finger right at his bump.
“And you,” she told it, “are also banned from helping.”
Pedri bit back a smile. “They’ve been trying to help?”
“Yes,” Alora said immediately. “And they’re always kicking when you try to get up too fast. I think they’re trying to warn me.”
Pedri stretched out with a sigh, hand resting absently over his stomach. “You’re quite the little detective.”
“I’m your helper,” she corrected. “Papi said so.”
“Did he now?”
Alora nodded proudly, then darted off to the kitchen. A few minutes later she returned, gripping a mug with both hands and walking like it was radioactive.
She placed it on the table in front of him with ceremony. “One mint tea. Not too hot.”
Pedri blinked at it. “You boiled water?”
“I told Papi you weren’t allowed,” she said sweetly. “He made it. I supervised.”
Alora waddled into the kitchen in her fluffy socks, hair sticking up in six directions, clutching her stuffed unicorn like it owed her money.
“Hi,” she mumbled, rubbing one eye.
Pedri looked up from where he was hunched over the counter, spoon halfway to his mouth. “Morning, baby.”
Alora froze. Stared. Squinted.
“...What is that.”
Pedri blinked innocently, then glanced at the jar of pickles, the open tub of vanilla ice cream, and the spoon now hovering over both.
“Breakfast,” he said.
Alora took one cautious step forward. “No it’s not.”
Pedri grinned. “Yes it is. You dip the pickle in the ice cream. It’s cold and salty. Sweet and sour. Kind of amazing.”
Alora looked genuinely distressed. “Papá lets you eat that?”
“He’s at training. He doesn’t know.”
She gasped like she’d walked in on a crime scene.
“You need help,” she declared. “Like real grown-up help.”
Pedri licked the spoon dramatically. “Mmm. Crunchy.”
Alora turned slowly, clutching her unicorn tighter. “I’m telling Papí.”
“You love me, you wouldn’t,” Pedri reminded her, laughing.
“Not today,” she called over her shoulder as she marched out. “Today you’re just gross.”
Pedri laughed again and dipped another pickle.
“Still worth it.”
The bathroom door had been shut for about four minutes when Alora started pacing.
She wasn’t even supposed to be awake - it was ten minutes past bedtime, and Ferran had just finished reading her the third version of The Hungry Dinosaur Who Got Lost in Madrid. But she’d heard Pedri get up, heard the shuffle of his feet toward the bathroom, and suddenly she’d been wide awake again.
Ferran leaned on the doorframe, watching her trail back and forth in her little pajama set, thumbs tucked into her fists.
“You okay?” he asked.
She didn’t stop pacing. “He’s been in there a long time.”
“Amorcito, he’s pregnant, not trapped.”
Alora frowned. “What if he falls asleep again?”
“He’s not gonna fall asleep again.”
Pedri had fallen asleep brushing his teeth last week. That had been a whole thing.
Just then, the bathroom door opened. Pedri stepped out slowly, rubbing his eyes, hoodie rumpled and bump obvious under the fabric. He looked at Alora, then at Ferran.
“I was peeing. What’s the emergency?”
Alora crossed her arms. “You didn’t answer when I knocked.”
Pedri walked past her, ruffling her hair. “I had my headphones in.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Exactly.”
Ferran grinned, and Pedri flopped onto the couch like a man twice his age. Alora followed and climbed up beside him, hands immediately landing on his stomach like a default setting.
“I was just making sure you were alive,” she mumbled, already curling into his side.
“I appreciate it,” he said.
Then she whispered to the bump, “Tell him to pee faster next time.”
Pedri was sitting at the dining table with a piece of toast he wasn’t eating and a glass of juice he was just moving in circles. He was wearing one of Ferran’s oversized sleep shirts, pulled tight around him like a blanket, and he looked every bit like a man who had been awake since 4 AM thanks to heartburn.
Alora dragged her school backpack across the kitchen floor and plopped it at his feet.
“Time for our talk,” she said, already climbing onto the bench beside him.
Pedri blinked at her. “Can it wait until after toast?”
“No,” she said. “They need a pep talk for today.”
“We’re not even going anywhere.”
“You’re not. They are. Inside you.”
He snorted, amused despite himself. “What do they need a pep talk for?”
“I’m going to do math,” Alora said, “and they’re going to be inside your stomach. They might as well learn something.”
With the confidence of a child who’d never been interrupted mid-sentence in her life, Alora reached over, placed her hand flat on Pedri’s bump, and began explaining addition.
“Two crayons and two more crayons,” she said, “is four crayons. If you steal one, that’s three crayons and a timeout.”
Pedri smiled, watching her gesture with her free hand like a tiny professor.
Ferran, walking past with car keys in hand, leaned down and kissed Pedri’s temple. “Ready to go?” he asked Alora.
She nodded, but then whispered to the bump, “I’ll be back later. Don’t grow too fast without me.”
It started quietly. Almost too quietly to notice.
Pedri was standing at the kitchen counter, slicing strawberries for Alora’s after-school snack, when he felt the tightness ripple through his back. Not painful exactly - just enough to make him shift his weight, press a hand to the edge of the sink, and pause.
“Everything okay?” Ferran asked, halfway into unpacking Alora’s school bag.
“Yeah,” Pedri said automatically. “Just… tight.”
Ferran stilled. “Like tight tight?”
“Not dramatic tight. Just… give me a sec.”
Alora came skidding into the kitchen, jumper sleeves pushed up and glitter on her cheek. “Can I have the yogurt with the strawberry guy on it?”
Pedri nodded and slid the bowl toward her. He leaned back slightly, stretching his shoulders, trying to breathe through it without making a show. It passed. He blinked. Then moved on.
But ten minutes later, it came again.
This time sharper. Lower.
Ferran noticed.
Pedri didn’t say anything, but Ferran’s eyes were already on him, jaw twitching slightly. “That one looked different.”
“I know,” Pedri muttered.
“You want to call?”
“Not yet. Let’s wait.”
Alora, oblivious, was lying on the rug in the living room drawing a picture of their family, again, but this time, apparently, she’d given the baby a jetpack.
Another hour passed. Then another.
By the time they hit the early evening lull, Pedri had stopped pretending he wasn’t counting the time between cramps.
Ferran hovered like a man trying not to hover.
And eventually, Alora stood up with her hands on her hips and said, “Are you guys acting weird, or am I sick?”
That was when Pedri smiled. Not big. Just enough to soften the lines around his eyes.
“Come here, cariño,” he said gently.
She walked over, squinting at both of them like they were trying to prank her.
Pedri sat back against the cushions, one hand resting on his stomach. “Remember how we said the baby would come when they were ready?”
Alora nodded slowly.
“Well,” he exhaled, “I think they might be ready.”
Alora blinked. Then looked at Ferran. Then back at Pedri.
“Now?” she asked.
“Soon.”
She dropped to her knees beside the couch, hands flat on his bump. “Are they coming out right now?”
Pedri huffed a laugh. “Not quite yet.”
“But like… today?”
“Maybe tonight.”
Alora’s voice went small. “Do I get to stay with you?”
Ferran crouched next to her, hand resting lightly on her back. “Not this time, reina. You’re going to have a sleepover.”
“With who?”
“Tío Fer,” Pedri said. “Remember, we talked about it?”
“But I’m not ready yet,” she said quickly. “I don’t even have my duck pajamas.”
“You do,” Ferran said, smoothing her hair down. “They’re already packed.”
Alora leaned into Pedri, hugging his side - half careful, half still confused. “But I wanted to be there.”
“You will be,” Pedri promised. “Just not for the very beginning. You’ll meet them after.”
She was quiet, her little fingers curling against his sleeve. Then she whispered, “You’re not scared?”
Pedri smiled, even though his stomach was starting to clench again. “No. I’ve got Papí with me.”
Alora’s eyes flicked toward Ferran, who nodded with that serious face he always used when something important was happening.
“I want to say goodbye before I leave,” she said, like it was a dealbreaker.
“You will,” Pedri said.
Ferran stood up. “I’ll call Fer now.”
Half an hour later, Fer was at the door, car idling out front, jacket already dusted with snack crumbs from the back seat of his own car.
He stepped inside, gave Pedri a once-over, and immediately looked at Ferran. “She packed snacks, right?”
“Three snack boxes and her bunny,” Ferran confirmed.
Alora clung to Pedri’s side on the couch, face still unsure.
“You’re gonna miss the boring part, Alora,” Fer said, crouching down to her level. “It’s just waiting and hospital lights and grown-ups being tired. You get the best bit. You get the after.”
She sniffed. “But I want to see the baby first.”
“You will.” Pedri kissed her forehead. “First thing tomorrow.”
“You promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
She wrapped her arms around his stomach carefully. “Tell them I said hi.”
“I will.”
She pulled back slightly. “Tell them I already love them.”
Pedri smiled. “I’ll tell them everything.”
She nodded once like it had to be enough, then stood and let Fer take her backpack.
Before she left, she paused in the doorway. “Also, if you cry, that’s okay.”
Pedri blinked. “Thank you?”
“Te amo!”
And then she was gone.
- sofía ✎ᝰ.