They didn't speak much when they were alone, not unless it was about her.
The little girl's shoes clicked along the cobbled pavement as they walked side by side, her hand tucked neatly into his gloved one. She didn't swing it. She didn't skip. She didn't complain about the cold. She had been taught silence before she could write her name.
"You watched her again," Lelo said, softly, like a question already answered.
The man beside her — her father, her god, her only mirror — didn't look down. "Yes."
"She's thinner than the pictures," Lelo said. "I don't like her shoes."
He smiled. "She'll adjust."
They stopped in front of the café window. From where they stood, they could see inside — through the glass, past the customers, past the counter — to the girl behind the register. She was tying her apron with one hand and tucking a curl of hair behind her ear with the other. Nothing remarkable. Nothing loud.
And yet they watched like she was a fire they had started. Quiet. Controlled. Patient.
"She doesn't look like a mother," Lelo said after a moment, almost pouting.
"She will," the man replied.
It wasn't a desire. It was a decision.
He had chosen her the moment he saw the footage — the one with her asleep in the university library, curled like a child beneath her books. There had been hundreds of others on the screen, but his eyes never left her. There was something so beautifully… solitary about her. Not weak. Just separate. Unclaimed.
Lelo had seen the image later. "She's soft," she had said. "Like someone who never wins arguments."
"She won't need to argue," he'd told her. "Not with us."
Now they stood outside, watching their future like it was already in motion. She was laughing at something a customer said. Her smile wasn't wide. Just real.
Lelo stared hard. She liked when people looked small. It meant they could fit inside things easier. Things like cages. Things like rooms with no clocks.
"She's not ready," the child said.
"She doesn't need to be," the father replied.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a photo — not the first, not the last — creased from fingers, not time.
"Do you want to go inside today?" he asked.
Lelo looked at the door. Looked at the girl. Then shook her head.
"No," she said. "Let's wait until she notices me again."
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