She met them at the door.Not the hospital door, the house door — she was well enough for the house, had been home for two months, moving carefully but without the quality of someone who was being stopped by her body. She had the specific vitality of someone who had been through something and was, on the other side of it, more fully themselves than before.She looked at them with the grey-green eyes."You're early," she said."We wanted to come," Elian said."I know why you came early," she said. "Come in."The house was warm. She had lit the fireplace in the front room — the same fireplace where they'd sat on the night of the diagnosis, which now held a different kind of warmth, the specific warmth of a room that has been frightened in and is being warm in again.She had the novel on the side table.The copy Elian had sent her — printed and bound by her own hand, the way she did things she considered worth the effort. The pages had the specific quality of a book that had been read: t
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