Porto in December was everything she'd needed it to be.
Clara came on the twenty-third and immediately absorbed Daniel into a program of activities that left Camila with stretches of unoccupied afternoon she didn't know what to do with. She cleaned things. She walked. She sat in the kitchen with her mother and drank coffee and talked about things that weren't the main thing until they were ready to talk about the main thing.
"You look different," her mother said on the twenty-fourth, while they were making rabanadas. "From when you came back from Lisbon in October."
"Different how?"
Her mother turned the bread in the egg. "Less like someone carrying something they don't want to drop." She looked at her sideways. "More like someone who's set it down and is deciding what to carry next."
