Her parents arrived without warning on a Tuesday in the fourth week after the installation.
She came back from Dalla's session to find them in the receiving room off the main corridor, her mother standing near the window in the same careful posture she had passed on to Elowen without fully understanding what she was passing on, her father seated with his hands clasped and the expression of a man who is not certain whether he is welcome but has decided that uncertainty should not prevent him from coming.
She stopped in the doorway.
Her mother turned. The careful posture broke slightly, not dramatically, a small collapse of the held shoulders, and for a moment she looked simply like a woman who had not seen her daughter in a long time and was not sure what she would find.
"Elowen," her m
