7

Elena's Point of View

My mom came down the porch steps almost running. She had her arms out before I even got Amelia out of the car seat, and she was crying already. She always cried.

"Oh, my girls," she kept saying. "My girls are home."

I laughed and let her hug us both. Amelia squeezed in between us, holding her rabbit up like she wanted my mom to say hello to it too.

"Hello, Mr. Rabbit," my mom said, wiping her eyes. "Aren't you handsome."

Then she took Amelia out of my arms, and Amelia let her. She never did that with strangers. But she looked at my mom's face for about two seconds, and then she patted her cheek like they had known each other forever.

I grabbed the bags, and Henry helped me carry them up the steps. My stomach was tight. All the way here I had been getting ready for the worst. I thought about what I'd say to my dad. I thought about how thin he might look, how tired, how many machines I'd see in his room. I had practiced a calm face in the airplane bathroom.

The front door was open. I walked into the living room.

And my dad was standing there next to the fireplace, in a clean blue shirt, holding a cup of coffee.

He looked fine.

He looked better than fine. His face had color. He was standing up straight. He was even a little bit heavier than the last time I saw him, which was at Christmas.

"There she is," he said, smiling. "My girl."

I just stood there with a suitcase in my hand.

"Dad?"

"Hi, sweetheart."

"You're... up."

"I am."

"You're drinking coffee."

"Decaf," he said. "Your mother checks."

I put the suitcase down and slowly turned around. My mom was standing in the doorway with Amelia on her hip. She was smiling a little too hard.

"Mom," I said. "What's happening?"

She looked at my dad. He looked at her.

"We lied about the sickness," they said at the same time.

I stared at them.

Then I frowned so hard my forehead hurt. "What do you mean, you lied?"

"Okay, let me explain," my dad said, putting his cup down.

"Please do."

"Your mother and I talked about it for a long time," he started. "And we knew if we just asked you to come home, you'd say no. Like you always do."

"I don't always say no."

"Elena," my mom said gently.

"Okay, I always say no."

"We miss you," my dad said. "We miss you, and we miss Amelia. Two visits a year is not enough. She's two years old and she doesn't even know what our house looks like. We can't keep flying across the world for a weekend and then watching you leave."

"So you told me you were dying."

"I never said dying," he said quickly. "I said the doctors told me to rest."

"Dad!"

"Which is true. They did. Last year. About something else."

I put my hand over my face. "I booked flights at midnight. I packed our whole apartment. I cried in the shower, Dad. I cried."

"I know," my mom said, and she looked guilty. "I felt terrible every time I heard your voice."

"Then why did you do it?"

"Because it worked," my dad said.

My mom hit his arm. He grinned and shrugged.

I stood there between them, trying to be angry. I really tried. I thought about how many hours I had spent being scared on that plane. I thought about how I had told my boss I was leaving for family reasons, and how I'd given up my apartment, and how I'd left Dona Clara crying at the door.

But then I looked at Amelia.

She was still sitting on my mom's hip, and she was looking around the living room with huge eyes. At the photos on the wall. At the big couch. At the fireplace. At my dad.

"Grandpa," she said, very seriously.

My dad's whole face changed.

"That's me," he said, and his voice cracked a little. "That's me, sweet pea."

She reached her arms out toward him. My mom handed her over, and my dad took her like she was made of glass. Amelia put her hand on his cheek. Then she held up her rabbit.

"For you," she said.

My dad stared at the rabbit. Then he looked at me, and I saw his eyes get wet.

"She's giving me her rabbit."

"I told you she would."

"Elena, she's giving me her rabbit."

"I know, Dad."

He hugged her carefully and whispered something into her curls. I couldn't hear it, but Amelia giggled.

That was when I stopped being angry. It just went away. I couldn't hold on to it with my daughter laughing like that.

"Fine," I said.

My mom blinked. "Fine?"

"Fine. You tricked me. But it's fine." I picked up my suitcase again and sighed. "Just so you know, I'm not forgetting this. I'll bring it up at Christmas."

"Of course you will," my mom said, relieved. She kissed my cheek. "Now come on, you must be starving. I made lasagna."

"You made lasagna when you thought I was coming to a sick house?"

"I always make lasagna."

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

We ate lunch together in the big kitchen. Amelia sat on two cushions in the chair next to my dad and refused to eat anything that wasn't cheese. My mom kept putting more pasta on my plate. My dad told stories I had heard a hundred times, about the old neighbors and the time the roof leaked. It was loud and warm and a little bit silly.

It felt like being a kid again.

After lunch, my mom took Amelia upstairs to show her the room she had set up for her. When they came back down, Amelia was wearing a pink hat I had never seen before, and she looked like the happiest kid in the world.

"Grandma bought me a hat," she told me.

"I see that."

"And a dinosaur."

"A dinosaur?"

"A big one."

I looked at my mom. She shrugged. "It was on sale."

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, and it was a message from Tessa asking if I had landed yet. I had forgotten to text her.

I stepped out onto the back porch and called her.

She picked up on the first ring.

"Finally! Where are you? Are you alive? I've been checking the flight tracker for twelve hours, and then it said you landed, and then nothing, and I thought you got kidnapped—"

"Tessa."

"—or that you changed your mind and went back, or—"

"Tessa. I'm in New York."

There was a short silence.

Then a scream so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear.

"YOU'RE HERE?"

"I'm at my parents' house."

"YOU'RE HERE, YOU'RE HERE, OH MY GOD!" I could hear her moving around, banging into something. "Why didn't you tell me? I need to see you right now. Where's my baby? Is she there? Does she remember me?"

"She's two, Tessa. She remembers your face from video calls."

"That counts! That absolutely counts!"

I leaned on the porch railing, laughing. For the first time in two years, I heard her voice without a screen between us.

"Okay, okay, I'm leaving work," she said. "I'm telling my boss it's a family emergency."

"You can't tell him that."

"Watch me. I'll be there in forty minutes. Do not go anywhere."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Good. Have wine ready."

"It's two in the afternoon."

"Elena," she said, in her most serious voice. "You have been gone for two years."

I smiled. "I'll find some wine."

She hung up still shouting. I stood there for a second with the phone in my hand.

Through the glass door, I could see into the living room. My dad was sitting on the floor, which he wasn't supposed to do because of his knees.

Amelia was standing in front of him wearing her pink hat and holding the new dinosaur. She was explaining something to him with a very serious face, pointing at the dinosaur's teeth. My dad nodded along like he understood every word.

Then she put the dinosaur on his head.

He didn't take it off. He just kept nodding, with a toy dinosaur sitting on his gray hair, while she giggled so hard she fell backward onto the rug.

I put the phone down and watched them through the glass.