Peter flipped the eggs. For a moment, the kitchen was full of the sound of sizzling and breathing and the ghost of her melody.

"That's something," he said quietly. "Better than silence. She hated silence, didn't she?"

"She did," Papa said. "Said it made the world feel empty."

They didn't speak for a while after that. The fog pressed closer to the window panes. The fire hadn't been lit yet. But the day, somehow, had begun.

The gravel behind the cottage was still wet from the night's mist, soft underfoot as they stepped out. The cold bit at Papa's cheeks — not unpleasant, just sharp. A reminder that his body still worked, still felt things. Tima was asleep in the pram, her little fists tucked under her chin, the duck-blanket rising and falling with each breath. The wheels gave a familiar squeak on the path, the kind of sound that didn't wake her anymore.

Peter walked beside Papa, hands in his coat pockets. The air smelled of damp grass and woodsmoke from a chimney down the lane. Wood burning somewhere. Someone making breakfast. The world continuing. Their footsteps weren't quite in sync, but neither of them minded. Papa felt the weight of it all like a physical thing — not in his chest, exactly, but in his bones. In the way his shoulders carried forward. In the tiredness that wasn't just about sleep.

"She went down quick," Peter said quietly, nodding at the pram. "Must've worn herself out with all that babbling."

Papa gave a half-laugh, the kind that didn't make it past the chest. "She's been talking more lately. No real words, but… stories, maybe."

Peter smiled. "You're just hoping one of those stories ends in a nap aye."

They passed the broken fencepost by the elder tree, where the wind always felt a little colder. The fog hung in the dip of the hill beyond the garden, a low white sea in the fields. The sheep on the far slope looked like smudges.

"I barely slept, Again. I think I got maybe two hours in between feeds. I kept thinking about Heidegger's concept of thrownness — you know, being thrown into existence without consent. And I thought, that's what Tima is. Just... thrown into this world without her mother. Without consent. And I'm supposed to be the one catching her but I don't know if I'm even..." Papa said trailing off...

Peter didn't answer. He didn't need to.

"Everything's blurry," Papa continued after a beat. "Like the days don't even try to be separate anymore. They just… run together. Morning, night, feeding, crying, blinking. Repeat. No narrative structure. No arc. Just... duration."

Peter gave a small nod. "Aye. Yeah."

They reached the bench by the overgrown hedge — the one Peter had helped repair last spring. Papa stopped, resting his hands on the pram's handle, watching the mist shift like breath over the grass.

"I can't picture next week," he said.

Peter glanced sideways.