She’d taken only a few steps before she saw him down the corridor, stepping out of the wide doorway that must’ve opened to the family waiting room he’d already told her about, his phone in hand, his head tipped down toward its screen. When he looked up and over, spotting her, he moved so swiftly and so purposefully that she simply stilled in place, as though all the residual stress from her rush to the airport and her long, tense flight finally caught up to her, filling up her body like concrete, like lead.

She set a hand across her eyes, unbearably relieved to be back, and to have Will here, and with the full force of the chin quiver she’d tried so hard to hide last time she’d seen him, she started to cry.

“Nora,” he said, getting close, and then he was surrounding her, his arms encircling her, pulling her close and tight against him.

“He’s okay,” he said, ducking his head to put his mouth closer to her ear.

“He’s okay,” he repeated.

She nodded and kept right on crying, because she was glad Jonah was okay and also upset that he wasn’t, not in the way she wanted him to be. She cried because she hated this hospital and because she missed Nonna. And she cried because this hug, by this particular person, felt about as good as anything she could imagine, and she hadn’t even let herself realize how much—over the course of these past few days—she’d missed being held by him.

“I’ve got food down there for you,” he said softly, and she thought he might’ve said other stuff before that, too, doctor-type stuff, only she hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than his warmth and his strength and his familiar scent for long minutes. “Marian and Emily are here now, and Benny just took Mr. and Mrs. Salas home for the night.”

She nodded against his chest, felt his hand slip down the length of her hair, felt him let out an uneven breath as his arms tightened briefly around her. When he loosened them again, she leaned back so she could look at him even through her tears, and almost as soon as she did he moved, too, lifting his hands from her body so he could gently wipe his thumbs across her cheeks.

“Okay now,” he said softly, and she closed her eyes at the tenderness of it, a few more tears slipping out as she did.