Chapter 101: Daily Devotion
Eva had routines — precise, peculiar ones. She preferred her apple slices crescent - thin, her ribbons double - knotted at the nape, her bedtime stories whispered in voices like wind through leaves. But most of all, she preferred Seraphina.
"Ina," she would sing out the moment her feet hit the soft wool rug in her bedroom each morning, arms lifted like a pilgrim waiting for blessings. "It's a new day. Come spoil me!"
The Langford and Ainsley estates had, by now, accepted the terms of Eva's morning decree. Her tiny shoes barely hit the marble of the foyer before she marched across the garden path, her curls bouncing like protest banners, her pink fleece robe trailing dramatically behind her like royalty.
Seraphina always opened the gate before Eva even knocked.
"I felt you coming," she'd tease, lifting the latch with a smile. "Like a storm of sugar."
Eva would smirk, stepping inside without invitation. "You forgot to say your little moonbeam has arrived."
"Oh forgive me, little moonbeam," Seraphina would correct, bowing low, voice thick with theatrical reverence. "What grand demands shall I grant you today?"
Eva considered. "I want star - shaped pancakes. With lavender syrup. And a chocolate bunny. And no vegetables at all. Unless they're shaped like hearts."
"And how many hugs?"
"A hundred," Eva whispered. "And then a hundred more."
Seraphina would lift her like a song, spinning her until the air turned syrupy and dizzy. And thus, the day would begin.
Seraphina spoiled her.
That wasn't an opinion. That was a sacred, documented truth.
Every morning came with hand - warmed milk. Every evening ended with custom lullabies played on the ukulele Seraphina bought at a farmer's market in Bath.
There were love notes in Eva's coat pockets. Secret sticker books stored beneath the tea cabinet. A personalized pillow shaped like a crescent moon that whispered, in Seraphina's voice, "Goodnight, little thing" when pressed.
"She's ruining her," Vivienne said once, half - laughing, half - resigned, as she watched Eva kiss Seraphina's cheek a third time for a single jelly bean.
"She's happy," Evelyn replied. "And happy children are never truly ruined. Just temporarily impossible."
Eva's mére did spoil her too — but with restraint. Her snacks came with conditions. Her sweets arrived only after piano practice. Her bedtime story was only read once.
But Seraphina?
Seraphina said yes too quickly, hugged too long, and let Eva sit in her lap during entire movies just to stroke her hair.
"She's mine," Eva said one evening, crumbs dotting her chin. "You can't stop me from loving her forever."
Vivienne chuckled. "No one's trying to stop you."
"Good," Eva murmured, leaning on Seraphina's shoulder, mouth full of biscuit. "Because Ina's the only one that loves me right."
"Oh come on," Vivienne said, feigning a gasp. "I just gave you a cupcake for brushing your hair!"
"Still not the same," Eva mumbled.
*****
Eva had perfected the art of dramatics.
At five years old, she wielded emotion like an opera singer — grand, uncontainable, and thoroughly excessive.
She declared boredom with the solemnity of war. She mourned broken crayons with the gravity of funeral rites. She wept if Seraphina left her goodnight kiss on the forehead instead of the cheek.
"You wound me," she'd whisper, pulling Seraphina's arm back around her. "You forgot the rules of our love."
And Seraphina, unflappable, would obey. "Forgive me, little moonbeam. Shall I sing penance?"
"Yes," Eva replied. "And give me a cookie."
"No cookie. You've had three."
"I only had two," Eva said, blinking. "You counted the one I shared with you."
"That still counts."
Eva gasped. "So now even sharing counts against me?"
Seraphina broke, laughing. "You're impossible."
"I'm your impossible," Eva said. "Now kiss me and give me one more."
Seraphina broke off a corner of the last cookie and popped it into Eva's mouth, earning a cascade of sticky, smacking kisses in return.
"Bless you," Eva whispered. "You are the only thing in this world that still believes in mercy."
One afternoon, when the clouds pretended they weren't planning rain, Evelyn and Vivienne sat beneath the wisteria arch with tea and low voices.
"She's five," Evelyn said. "Barely. And already the world wants her to split herself between what's expected and what she feels."
"I know," Vivienne nodded. "But it's not that we don't want her to grow socially. We just… we don't want to stretch her so far that she snaps."
"She's not like other children," Evelyn murmured.
"She is a child, though. Just one with a different soul map."
There was a pause. A soft silence.
"She tried so hard at the garden party," Evelyn said. "She did play. And then she cried for hours."
Vivienne sighed. "I think it's time we stop trying to make her fit. And start asking her what shape she wants to be."
That evening, they sat Eva down at the kitchen counter, a bowl of grapes between them.
Vivienne went first. "Little nightingale, we've been talking about you."
Eva's eyes widened. "Did I do something wrong?"
Evelyn smiled. "Not at all. We wanted to tell you… we don't want to force you to play with other children if it makes your chest feel like it's full of rocks."
"You don't?" Eva whispered.
"No," Vivienne said gently. "You're allowed to love how you love. We just want to make sure you don't feel alone."
"I'm not alone," Eva said, cheeks flushed. "I have Ina."
"We know," Evelyn said, brushing a curl behind her ear. "And we love her too. We just… wanted to make sure you knew we weren't disappointed. That you're enough, exactly how you are."
Eva stared at them for a moment, very still.
Then she launched off her stool and kissed Evelyn's cheek, then Vivienne's.
"Thank you, Maman," she whispered. "Thank you, Mère. I love you both. I wish Mère was my real other mama next to Maman."
Vivienne blinked.
Evelyn choked on her tea.
"You two should get married," Eva giggled, eyes glinting. "I'll be your flower girl again. Or better — your violinist!"
Vivienne smirked and turned to Evelyn, mouthing, We should get married again.
Evelyn turned scarlet. "You are unbelievable."
Vivienne leaned closer, eyes twinkling. "Let's have a honeymoon. Just you, me, and the child who's rewritten all our laws of gravity."
Evelyn laughed and kissed her wife secretly while her spoiled daughter distractions. "Only if we bring the moonbeam."
*****
Eva's obsession only intensified.
One afternoon, Seraphina returned from school to find Eva waiting on the porch with a bouquet of weeds, a paper crown, and a veil made from lace curtain scraps.
"I'm ready," she declared.
Seraphina blinked. "For what?"
"To marry you."
Seraphina knelt. "You are five."
"I'll wait," Eva said solemnly. "But I need you to know it now. I don't want anyone else. I already chose. I want to live in your house, eat your cookies, steal your sweaters, and sleep in your arms until I'm one hundred."
"You'll be stealing my cane, not my sweaters, by then."
Eva climbed into her lap and kissed her cheek. "Promise you'll marry me when we're both bigger."
Seraphina kissed her forehead. "I'll promise to always love you. In every way that's true. In every way that's safe."
Eva accepted this. Then leaned close to whisper something in L••••.
"Te sola audio. Te sola vivo. Te sola sum."
"I only hear you. I only live you. I only am you."
Seraphina closed her eyes.
Eva kissed her cheek again and sighed. "If we weren't meant to be, then why do you taste like all the poems I haven't written yet?"
Their love was eccentric. Intense. Unapologetically theirs.
Eva wore Seraphina's old cardigans like badges of devotion. She wrote poems in secret notebooks and stashed them beneath her bed like talismans. She kept a lock of Seraphina's hair taped in her diary, labeled "moonbeam fuel."
When they walked through the park, Eva held Seraphina's pinky and glared at any stranger who stared too long.
"She's mine," she'd mutter. "Look away."
"You're impossible," Seraphina would laugh.
"And irreplaceable," Eva replied.
The days passed like verses. Their lives, a hymn sung only in glances, gestures, and stolen crumbs.
Some children grew up in playgrounds or sleepovers.
Eva grew up in the curve of Seraphina's hand. In the sound of tea being poured. In the weight of a gaze that saw her completely.
Late one night, after a particularly long bath in which Eva refused to come out unless Seraphina personally wrapped her in towels and carried her, the two lay on the couch watching an old cartoon.
Eva was half - asleep, arms around Seraphina's neck, breath warm against her collarbone.
"I hope I never get too big to be in your lap," she murmured.
"You'll never be too big for me," Seraphina whispered.
"You're my poem, Ina."
"You are."
"Then write me forever."
"I already am."
Eva smiled, eyes fluttering shut.
Outside, the wind rattled the garden gate. Inside, the night held its breath.
And Eva, dream-drunk and syrupy, whispered one last thing before sleep:
"Only you love me right."