"Oui."
"Mon Dieu, Ethan!" My God, Ethan.
There it is. The sound. Not a scream — Maman doesn't scream — but a series of small explosions in rapid French that contain joy and relief andI told you soandwhy didn't you tell me soonerand something that sounds like she might be crying, which she will deny.
"Je le savais," she says. "Je le savais depuis l'hôpital."
Everyone knew since the hospital.
"Maman—"
"Tu l'invites pour Pâques. Non — je l'invite. Donne-moi son numéro. Non, j'ai déjà son numéro. Ethan, elle aime le sucre à la crème?"
She has already moved from discovery into logistics: Easter, Nora's number, dessert, the whole future apparently needing a menu before breakfast.
"Maman, it's seven in the morning—"
"Le sucre à la crème, Ethan!" The maple fudge, Ethan.
"Yes. She likes sucre à la crème. She likes everything you make."
"Bon." A pause. Then, softer: "She stayed."
"She stayed."
"Good. Tu lui dis que je l'embrasse. Et que Pâques c'est le 5."
Tell Nora I send her love. Easter is on the fifth. Maman has turned the invitation into a fact before I can argue with either part.
I wait for the urge to correct her. It doesn't come.
She hangs up. Maman always hangs up first. She does it the same way she arrives — completely, without warning, leaving a wake of warmth and noise that takes several seconds to settle.
I put down the phone. I start the coffee. Her ratio.
The coffee maker does its thing. When it finishes, I pour a cup into the green mug. The kitchen is quiet. The light through the window is different from last night — morning light, pale, the kind that doesn't flatter anything and doesn't need to.
Footsteps in the hallway. Soft. The pad of bare feet on hardwood.
She appears in the doorway. She's wearing my T-shirt — one of the old ones she's been sleeping in for weeks. It's too big. The sleeves cover her hands. Her hair is a wreck. Her eyes are puffy from sleep and the leftover weight of everything we said out loud.
No mascara. No concealer. No performance.
"Is that coffee?" she says.
"Your ratio."
She looks at me. The look lasts one beat longer than the sentence requires.
"You used my ratio."
"I've been using your ratio for three weeks. It was always good."
She walks to the counter. She picks up the green mug — her mug, the one with the chipped handle, the one that's been hers since Week One. She takes a sip. She looks at me over the rim.
She doesn't fix her hair. She doesn't wipe under her eyes. She doesn't adjust.
"Good morning," she says.
