It was early. Not quite dawn, but enough light had slipped between the slats of the blinds to cast a soft gray across the bedroom walls. The kind of morning where everything felt suspended, quiet, heavy, and still clinging to sleep. Van was half-sprawled on her side of the bed, one arm bent behind her head, the other draped across the empty space beside her. A patch of sunlight crept up the curve of her bare arm, the cotton of her tank top wrinkled from a night of restless dreams, boxers twisted low on her hips. She didn’t stir at the sound of small footsteps slapping the hardwood down the hall. She never did.

The bedroom door creaked open just enough for a tiny figure to slip through, barefoot, wobbling slightly, hair a soft mess from sleep and movement. A thumb was jammed in her mouth, the other hand clutching a plush cat that had already lost one eye and most of its stuffing. Her eyes, though, Van’s eyes, unmistakably, were sharp despite the hour. She knew exactly where to go. She toddled past the threshold and climbed up, knee by knee, pulling herself between the two sleeping forms like she’d been doing it for as long as she could walk. The plush cat got tossed aside; the child flopped down between them and immediately burrowed under Van’s arm like a heat-seeking missile.

It was a ritual now. Every morning, like clockwork, she made the migration from her little bed to theirs. It didn’t matter if Van had only just dozed off after an overnight shift at the shop or if her wife had barely managed to stumble back from a late editing session at the studio. Their daughter came anyway. A permanent fixture, like the faded movie posters on the walls or the quiet hum of the street outside.

Van stirred, finally. One eye cracked open, then the other. Her mouth curled into a lopsided smirk when she caught sight of the tiny body wedged against her ribs. She reached over and brushed a bit of hair from the girl's face, fingers gentle but clumsy with sleep. The toddler giggled in her chest, not loud, just that hiccupping baby-chuckle that vibrated like a secret. Then she was asleep again, thumb still tucked in, her body completely relaxed between the two women.

Most mornings at the VHS store started like this, groggy, slow-moving, and thick with the kind of love that didn’t need to be spoken aloud. The regulars knew. The teenagers who loitered in the aisles and camped out in the horror section saw the way the baby lit up when she saw Van behind the counter. They knew to keep their music low when she napped in the back, and they all agreed that her first word had probably been “Beetlejuice.”

Seven years of marriage before the baby came. Long nights spent talking about it, about what kind of donor, what kind of boundaries, what it would mean to look at their child and see echoes of Van but not of the one who carried her. But none of it mattered now. Not really. Not when this tiny, sleepy hurricane was already back to snoring against her chest, her existence louder than any question ever could be.

Van exhaled, low and long. She shifted her gaze to her wife, barely visible on the other side of the small body between them. There was a moment, unspoken, just the weight of it passing between them like the hush before a record spins up.

“Guess it’s our turn to make breakfast,” Van muttered.