Finn walked down the beach until she was just out of earshot, then dialed Kathy’s number. “Hey, it’s Finn,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. “I just wanted to let you know I’m coming home.”

My girl is a woman now. The epiphany was a gut punch. The last time Nora had seen Finn, she wore braces and still needed a night-light to sleep. Now Finn was taller than she was, an adult not just in stature but in comportment and ambition. Her daughter had endured a lot of pain to find her, but by the easiness of her smile you’d never know it.

As she watched Finn from a distance, Nora mourned the time she’d lost. Five years. Over a quarter of her younger daughter’s life. She owed a debt of gratitude to the couple who had raised her during that time. The Andersons must have made sure that Nora’s absence didn’t crush Finn’s spirit. That, or Finn’s spirit was too resilient to be crushed.

Zadie’s scars, on the other hand, were plainer. It pained Nora to know that she had put them there, and she searched for the magic words that would help them heal. But the longer she sat with her daughter, breathing in rhythm with the waves, the more apparent it became that no such words existed. Their scars would heal, but only with time. If Zadie would have her, she would be a part of her life for as long as she wanted. Hers and her grandchild’s.

“How far along are you?”

Zadie looked surprised. “Eight weeks … I didn’t think you could actually hear me.” Her daughter paused as though waiting for Nora to give her some sage piece of wisdom about motherhood that she would later pass on to her kid, but Nora didn’t. Instead, she patted Zadie on the back of the hand and said, “Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out.”

“Is it hard?”

Nora gazed out over the ocean as if the story of those eighteen years of motherhood were a boat on the horizon. “Every day you’ll wonder if you’re doing it right. There will be days when you know you didn’t. Those are the hardest…” she said as her voice trailed off.

After a few moments of silence, Nora went on. “I should have told you what I was going through.”

Zadie nodded, then reached out and squeezed her mother’s hand.

When they returned to the house, Nora declared she needed to lie down and excused herself to her bedroom. For the first time in two days, Zadie and Finn were alone. Silence settled like dust. There was so much to talk about, but neither of them knew exactly where to begin.

“Let’s take a walk,” Zadie said.

Finn nodded.