Hana sniffs. “We don’t read that one.”

“He’d like to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Background.” Her lips purse tight. She’s five-feet-nothing, bones light as a bird’s, but inside she’s a lion. “So,” I say, loud enough to carry, “I thought maybe we could have dinner together, spend the night?” Slam the door. Now.

“You haven’t wanted to have dinner for the past six years,” Hana says.

“You never invited me back.” Do it. Please.

“Your old room hasn’t been dusted.”

What is she thinking? A few moments ago I was desperate for her to shut me out. Now I hold my breath like a convict awaiting the jury’s decree—death, life, without the possibility of parole, or a commuted sentence?

Hana says, “Your hair is long.”

“It grew.”

Mom’s mouth twitches sideways, a signal that could mean acquiescence or that her fuse has been lit. “It looked better short.” She sniffs. “I’ll pull out fresh sheets.”

Did I just win or lose? Thomas joins us at the front door, Chris dangling at his side in her carrier. I reach up and tousle Thomas’s hair in a pantomime of intimacy. It’s thick, soft, and my fingers tingle. “Hana Young, this is Thomas Holmes. Thomas, my mother.” They shake hands.

Mom asks, “What’s in the pink bag?”

“My cat. Apologies, I couldn’t find someone to watch her.”

“We have a barn that needs a mouser.”

Thomas’s face turns the color of white linen washed too many times. “Um. She’s an indoor cat.”

Hana frowns. I know exactly what she’s thinking.

“Where’s Daddy?”

“Out with Eddie. He’ll be back by dinnertime.”

She opens the door wide. It’s a step back in time. I know every knot in the worn boards beneath my feet. Walls are adorned with photos of the fields, mountain, pear trees—and me. Did I imagine she’d take them down? Yes.

I scan the photographs. I’m seven, driving the old green John Deere tractor for the first time, a grin stretched ear to ear. Eight, dressed as an apiary for Halloween, head poking out of a white box, bees glued to my skin. Age nine, pigtails flying, as I rode my new bike with red plastic flowers stuck to a front wicker basket. Ten, Christmas Eve, Mom, Dad, and me side by side before a tree hung with popcorn, cranberries, and origami animals coated with glitter, plus the ornaments Mom’s grandparents made while interred in California during World War Two . . .

Hung at the start of a short hall that leads into the kitchen is the last photo my parents ever took of me—high school graduation. The three of us, me in the middle in a shiny blue-and-gold robe and square cap, the tassel switched to the right side. I’m turned slightly toward Dad. I wanted to tell him that I was headed to SF, not college. That I appreciated him, both of them, the life they’d given me, but needed to figure out where I fit. In the end I was a coward, blindsided them a few days later, bag already packed, one foot out the door. There was a battle, all of us gravely wounded in the skirmish.