She called her mother on Tuesday.
Not in the kitchen, not at the table — she went upstairs to her room, to the childhood desk with the diary in the second drawer, the pressed wildflower between its pages, and she sat in the same chair where she'd sat on the first night home and thought this is going to be a problem, and she called her mother.
Vivienne answered on the second ring.
"Lena," she said. The word carrying, as it always did, the specific combination of relief and composure that was her mother's particular greeting — relief that Lena was calling, composure because Vivienne did not express relief audibly, preferring to perform equanimity and hope nobody noticed the layers underneath.
"Hi, Mum," Lena said.
"How is the house?" Vivienne asked. The first question always, before any
