Tris didn't get pregnant that month. She was disappointed, as was Tobias, but he insisted that only gave them more opportunity to "try."

They traveled to Rome in February to pick up Evelyn Eaton's ashes and what the Roman authorities referred to as her "personal effects." Tobias couldn't imagine that those items might include. Surely anything of any monetary value had long since been sold, and whatever clothing and things she had were better donated or thrown out. But the ashes came with her belongings, so Tobias didn't bother arguing. He figured he could deal with them when he had to.

The young couple flew to Rome on a Thursday evening after Tris' usual afternoon at the center and Tobias' day of business. The flight was a quick one, and they were in the Eternal City in time for dinner. They kept things simple that first night as Tobias was in no mood for sightseeing, and Tris' nerves were also on edge. They enjoyed a rich Italian dinner with plenty of red wine, then retired to their hotel suite for an evening of quiet relaxation.

On Friday morning they were at the funeral home bright and early. The mortician there had handled the cremation, and he met the couple with a sympathetic smile.

"Good morning," he said gravely in heavily-accented English. "I am Signore Antonio."

"Good morning," Tobias greeted the man with a firm handshake, "Tobias Eaton, and my wife, Tris."

"I am sorry for your loss," the mortician said as he greeted Tris with a slight bow and a kiss to the back of her hand.

"Thank you," Tris said simply.

"I have your mother's ashes right over here," Mr. Antonio said, gesturing to the white urn sitting on a nearby table. "The policeman, he said he would be here very soon. He has her things and your papers."

Tobias stared at the urn across the room. His jaw was tight and his posture rigid. Tris wondered if he even heard what the mortician had said.

"Thank you," she repeated on their behalf.

"I will leave you in peace while you wait," Mr. Antonio excused himself. "Please call on me if you need anything."

He left, and Tris went to her husband's side.

"Tobias?" she said gently. "T'keqen are you alright?"

Tobias nodded, but his eyes never left his mother's urn. "I ordered that," he said in a faraway voice. "Her first urn was silver. It had some gaudy gold floral print. Marcus picked it. I chose the white porcelain with the Greek-looking border in blue. It suits her better. My mother was Greek. She never assimilated to Albania. She was there for years, and she never even tried to fit in. She was miserable. Because of Marcus, but also because she didn't really try. My grandmother hated her. I think Roza was the only one she allowed to get close to her. Not even me. I'm sure she loved me - Roza says she did. But I don't know. She wasn't affectionate. I think she feared that I would turn out like Marcus. Maybe she hated that I have his eyes. I just can't believe that she was alive this whole time."

The words poured out in a gentle way, tumbling out one after another in a dazed and defeated cadence. Tris allowed her husband to get everything off his chest. She simply stood and listened, rubbing his back through his baby blue dress shirt.

"I know I should feel shame that she was a homeless prostitute, but I just… don't," he continued. "I feel sorrow that she was reduced to that life, but not shame. Sometimes I feel anger that she didn't seek me out after Marcus died. I wonder if she was afraid or who I'd become, or if she was ashamed of what she'd become. She could have met you. She could have been at our wedding. She and Roza could have been reunited. It would have been strange to explain that my dead mother was actually alive, but Marcus deserves to have his deeds outed for everyone to know. I'm sick of hiding his sins, but… but I just don't want the pity, or even the attention. Maybe Evelyn felt the same way. I'll never know."

He lapsed into silence, and for several long moments they just stood together.

"Signore and Signora Eaton," the mortician interrupted the couple's quiet grief, "the policeman is here."

With the quiet broken, Tobias' business facade returned. He greeted the Roman police officer cordially and introduced Tris as well. The officer didn't speak English or Albanian, so Mr. Antonio was pressed into service as a translator.

"Il corpo di tua madre è stato trovato nel quartiere Prati. Crediamo che sia morta per cause naturali. Gli altri senzatetto conoscevano solo il suo nome. Hanno preso tutti i suoi averi, ne sono sicuro, ma abbiamo trovato questo nella sua tasca," said the officer.

"He says that your mother was found in the Prati, a very bad neighborhood of the… what is barbona? Street people?" said the mortician.

"Homeless?" Tris offered.

"Ci, ci, homeless," repeated Mr. Antonio. "The police, they think she died of natural causes. The other barbonas took her things, if she had any, but these papers were in her pocket."

Tobias took the old Greek passport that the officer held out to him. He opened the front cover and saw his mother's face, younger than he had ever known her. He didn't want to admit it, but part of him had been wondering all along if the body found in Rome was truly his mother, or if there was some kind of fantastic mixup.

"And you're sure the body you found was this same woman?" Tobias asked.

Mr. Antonio translated, and the officer confirmed it.

When he went to put the passport into his pocket, something slipped out and fell to the floor. Tris squatted to retrieve it, and smiled when she saw that it was a picture of Tobias as a small boy. The picture had been covered by clear packing tape to protect it, but it was soiled and creased anyway, as if by frequent handling.

She handed it to her husband, who gave a sad smile at his own image before turning it over in his hand.

"There's a note on the back," he said in a voice tinged with panic as he clutched Tris and pulled her closer for support.

She moved into his embrace, and they read the taped-over note together.

Tobias,

If this note ever finds you, I suppose that I will be dead. But I want you to know that I love you, and I never meant to leave you. I planned to run to Greece to escape Marcus. I thought that I could get a divorce and bring you home with me. But Marcus had me declared dead and all my plans changed. My credit cards and passport were no good, and I had no one to help me. I'm sorry I didn't take you, though I would never wish this life on you. I hope your father treats you better than he treated me.

Mother

The note was dated less than a year after Evelyn left.

Tobias held Tris tightly, her back to his chest, as they finished their business with the officer and mortician. Tris texted Amar while the men talked, asking him to pick them up, and to arrange a light lunch back in the hotel. She could tell by the tension in Tobias' posture and the way he clung to her that he was fighting a breakdown.

When the meeting finished, Tris hurried her husband to the waiting car. Tobias remained stone-faced all the way back to the hotel. When they drove up, Amar hurried to help Tris out of the car. He didn't say anything, just gave her a searching look and an eyebrow raise.

"She left him a note," Tris said quickly as Amar escorted her around the car. "She intended to run, get a divorce, and come back for him. When Marcus had her declared dead, it was all over."

Amar shook his head. "That bastard," he growled before handing Tris to her husband. He patted Tobias on the shoulder, and the couple linked arms and walked into the hotel.

.

As expected, Tobias broke down as soon as he and Tris were alone behind the locked door of their hotel suite. Unlike the other breakdowns he'd had since learning the truth about his mother, this time the tears were healing. Tobias wept as he felt his mother's love for the first time he could remember. She hadn't been a perfect parent. She'd never been affectionate, and she badly bumbled her attempt to free them from Marcus, but she had loved him. She had wanted him. She had tried. And that was more love than his parents had ever shown before.

Tris allowed her husband to vent his feelings. She listened as he talked and talked. He shared memories of his mother, talked through his feelings, and expressed hope that they might be the parents Marcus and Evelyn never were. They ended up making love tenderly, sharing kisses and sweet words. After all the hope and healing of their weekend in Rome, Tris hoped more than ever that she would become pregnant soon.

The urn Marcus interred when Tobias was a child was removed from the family vault, and the urn containing Evelyn's real ashes was stored in the office safe. Tobias intended to take it back to Greece and have it buried near Evelyn's parents.

.

One day, Tobias came home after a day of meetings in Tirana and found his wife sitting in the empty bedroom that had been Evelyn's.

"What are you doing, Zemra ime?" he greeted her.

Tris startled violently, then laughed at herself. "I was deep in thought, I guess," she said as she blushed.

"What about?" Tobias asked from the doorway.

"This room," she said with a sigh. "I hope it will have an occupant soon."

"Mmm," Tobias murmured in agreement. "Are you imagining how it will look as a nursery?"

Tris nodded. "I know we don't really have any choice, but I think I want two kids, a boy and a girl, like Caleb and I - only I hope they'll be closer than we were growing up. Here on the estate they probably won't have a choice. It's not like there's a neighborhood full of kids to play with. I'd have the boy first, Tobias the fifth. He'll need a nickname though. We are not calling him Marcus. In America he'd probably be called Toby. The girl would follow maybe two or three years later. Luriana, or maybe Lilliana. We could call her Lilly. Lilliana Natalie Eaton. Toby and Lilly.

"I can see them when I close my eyes. They look like you. Dark hair, blue eyes, golden skin that bronzes in the sun the way mine never does. He'll be tall, maybe she'll be petite like me. My mother will come stay when each of them are born. We'll take them to Chicago for Christmases. When they get a little older we'll take them to see the world. Amar and George will be like uncles, or grandfathers to them, and Edon and Eliria will be their older cousins. Tori and Rebekah will be like Aunties. When we go to the states my parents can spoil them, and Caleb and Myra will, too. It's so beautiful, Tobias. I just want it now."

Tobias watched Tris' expressive face as she imagined their family life. She was so beautiful to him, with her heart on her sleeve and hope and joy radiating from her face. She took his breath away, and he would do anything to give her what she wanted - what they both wanted.

"Then I open my eyes," Tris continued as her face sagged, "and I'm back here, in a room with bare walls and an unfinished dressing room and bathroom."

The happy little bubble burst, and Tobias too became aware of the unfinished room in which they were standing. The walls were bare plaster and drywall, primed in flat white. The floors were bare underlayment with bits of leftover tile in the bathroom. The dressing room was just studs. The bathroom was half finished with fixtures leftover from Evelyn's era, while other sections were missing altogether. Marcus had stripped the room down to the bare walls after Evelyn left. He'd enlarged the master closet and bathroom, but left the remainder of his wife's room in disarray. The room was the personification of the broken home it became when Evelyn left and Marcus took to beating his son.

"I'm calling the decorator," Tobias said authoritatively. "We can get the bathroom and dressing room done, have the walls painted, and put down some flooring. Things can be changed for decoration, but the space itself should be finished now."

Tris smiled hopefully. "I want a door between our dressing room and the nursery," she said. "We can seal it up again after the kids are all born and sleeping through the night, but I want easy access to my baby in the night."

"Anything you want," Tobias said.

"Anything?" she asked.

"Anything," he replied confidently. "I can probably afford anything you can dream of. If you want it, it's yours."

"What I want won't cost a thing," Tris said, biting her lip as she fingered the top button on her blouse. "I want you. Now."

"So demanding," Tobias purred, closing and locking the door behind himself as he walked farther into the room.

.

Tobias made the appointment with his decorator the very next day. She offered to rearrange her schedule and come down right away, but he insisted that they were in no rush. They ended up scheduling the appointment two weeks out.

Tris spent the next two weeks looking online at pictures of opulent nurseries. She was fond of the neutral rooms - they matched the Mediterranean-style house, suited babies of either gender, and just looked decadent to her. She found one particular image of an all-ivory nursery with a crib that looked like wrought iron. It was such a perfect compliment to the house that she emailed it straight away to the decorator.

She also sent pictures of luxurious bathrooms and dressing rooms that inspired her. One bathroom had a built-in infant tub and a toddler-sized toilet. Tris had never seen a miniature potty training toilet that was actually plumbed in. It looked like a normal toilet, but tiny. The sight of it gave her a fit of giggles, and she couldn't help but take a screenshot and send it to her mom, Myra, and Christina.

The young couple didn't just work on the nursery, they also worked on producing its first occupant. Married only eight months, it didn't take much incentive for Tobias and Tris to end up in bed (or in the bathtub, shower, his office, on the balcony - the possibilities were endless), but the realization that they were building their family inspired them even more than usual.

As the time for Tris' period approached again, she couldn't help but feel nervous. According to her tracking app, her period was due on a Sunday. It didn't come that day, and she tried not to get her hopes up. She was tired (a common PMS symptom for her), and a bit nauseated (a common side-effect of nerves). She went to bed that night trying to convince herself that her period would start the next day.

It didn't. All day on Monday Tris was on edge. She struggled with her Albanian lesson. She couldn't concentrate on her book. When she had her weekly meeting with Roza, she basically told the housekeeper to do whatever she wanted.

I'll take a test tomorrow, Tris thought to herself. No one has to know I'm being impatient. I'll just take the test and stash the evidence. I'm probably not pregnant. I'll probably get my period by morning anyway.

She didn't.

On Tuesday morning Tobias went to work in his home office. The decorator's long-anticipated appointment was scheduled for the afternoon, and he had a lot to check in on before then. His American tech holdings were doing especially well, and Tobias was determined to make a large contribution to something worthwhile with the additional money. Tris had suggested grants to help a number of smaller nonprofits update their computers, but he'd been thinking about funding a clinic facility somewhere that desperately needed it.

He was scrolling through an email of suggestions from a contact at the UN when he faintly heard Tris call his name. Before he could decide if it was real or his imagination, there was a flurry of activity, and Tris called his name again.

Amar rose from his desk across the room, and Tobias leapt up to follow him. They exited the office and heard someone running down the stairs as they made their way through to the living room.

"Tobias!" Tris' voice called again.

Roza stepped out of the kitchen as Tobias passed Amar and met his wife - who was being chased by an anxious-looking Rebekah and Besa - at the bottom of the stairs.

"I'm pregnant!" Tris announced as she threw herself in her husband's arms.

Roza gasped. Rebekah and Besa froze in place so they wouldn't intrude on the couple's moment. Amar's face broke into a broad grin.

Tris and Tobias saw none of it. In their eyes, the only things that existed in that moment were each other, and the plastic stick still clutched in Tris' hand. Tobias swung his wife around in circles before setting her on the second step so they could be eye-to-eye.

"I love you," Tris said.

"When?" Tobias asked, talking at the same time.

"All the time," Tris teased, "and I think the baby is due in November."

Tris showed her husband the positive test. Tobias squatted down and nuzzled his wife's flat belly.

"I love you," he said to the child who couldn't hear him. "Your mother is a wonderful person, and we're going to love you the way you deserve. I will never hurt you. We will be a real family."

Tears were pouring down Tris' face when Tobias stood up again. He wiped them gently away.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you," Tobias repeated, then kissed his wife.

Amar interrupted by clearing his throat. The parents-to-be startled as they became aware that they were not alone. Tobias wrapped his arms around Tris as they turned their attention to his assistant.

"Congratulations," Amar said with a merry twinkle in his eye.

Chaos ensued as everyone moved to hug Tris and Tobias at once. Roza wiped tears from her eyes. Rebekah translated for Besa. Amar called George and Tori at the shop. Within minutes the other cleaning girls came to see what the commotion was about.

Tris clung to Tobias. She hadn't considered their staff when she called for him, and she hadn't intended to have an audience for her announcement.

"We need to keep this quiet for now," she said. "I haven't told my family, and I need to see a doctor. It's very early."

Amar was still on the phone with George, and Tris heard him pass along the warning to keep it quiet before he hung up. "I'll go call the doctor and make you an appointment," he said before leaving the room.

Roza translated for the girls, warning them not to tell anyone until Mrs. Eaton had a chance to see a doctor. They agreed, grinning eagerly as they each hugged Tris again before heading back to work.

"Everyone loves babies," Rebekah remarked as they watched the girls chatter and giggle on the way back to their chores.

"You can tell Jorik," Tris said to her assistant, knowing Rebekah probably would with or without her blessing. The two had been inseparable since Tris and Tobias left them over Christmas break. Rebekah had confided to Tris that they were getting serious, and had even talked about getting married, though Jorik's mother wasn't crazy about it. "Just remind him to keep it quiet for a while. It's very early."

Turning to Tobias, Tris eagerly remarked that she needed to call her parents.

"It's four o'clock in the morning in Chicago," he reminded her.

Tris laughed. "I'd better wait a little longer then," she said.