Instead of using her cell, his mom would call on Fran’s landline every Sunday morning, which, due to the time difference, worked out as teatime in London. A little of the fizzy feeling returned.

The first phone call was today!

“Ah, there you are!” Fran smiled tentatively at Rio as he entered the kitchen. “Did you sleep well?”

Rio nodded, taking in the morning scene, where the smell of fresh coffee filled the air and Pirate was stretched out lazily in a patch of sunlight.

“That’s the ocean for you. Best medicine in the world.” She paused. “I don’t know what you normally eat for breakfast, but I can make pancakes, waffles, or eggs. What do you prefer?”

“I—I—I . . .” His voice tailed off. Normally all he ate was a bowl of cereal. Sometimes if there was no milk, he would eat it dry. But these weren’t things Rio liked to talk about.

“Tell you what!” Fran said, mistaking his silence for indecision. “Why don’t I make all of them and then you can decide?”

Rio raised his eyebrows. All of them? Without waiting for his answer, she plucked a frying pan from the cupboard, rolled the sleeves of her green jumpsuit up to the elbows, and was pulling various cooking implements out of drawers, when the phone rang.

The noise was so sudden and shrill that Pirate jumped into the air with shock.

Fran answered, and after a few words, she handed it over. It was all Rio could do not to snatch the receiver from her.

“Hello, Rio-cat,” his mom whispered down the phone.

On the other side of the kitchen, Fran was busy whisking batter, so Rio headed to the back door. Outside, the sky was bright blue with a yellow ball slung high, much brighter and fiercer than the weak sunshine back home. Hard to believe that yesterday he had woken up in the thick of winter.

He sat on the back steps and listened to his mother’s familiar voice wash over him as she chattered on about her first day in the hospital—which she called a clinic—and what she’d been doing. It was comforting in the way that sometimes rain is comforting. When all you want to do is stay indoors, curl up, and watch movies.

“I wish I were there with you,” he murmured, swallowing back the lump in his throat.

“It’s only four weeks,” she said. “It’ll be gone in no time, and when I see you next, you can tell me all about the things you’ve been up to.”

Like what? he wanted to say. What exactly was there to do in Ocean Bay for four whole weeks? But of course, he didn’t say that.

“How’s your grandmother?”

He snuck a look through the back door, where Fran was stirring something on the stove. There were many things he wanted to say, but in the end, he chose the simplest. “She’s not you.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” his mom answered in a sad voice. “Rio-cat?”