“Yes.”
She thought for a long moment.
“Would she still have her own coffee mug?”
“I assume so.”
“And her slippers?”
“Yes.”
“Would Wednesdays still be Thai sometimes?”
“Yes.”
She returned to her worksheet.
“Okay.”
“That’s it?”
She shrugged.
“She already kind of lives here.”
I laughed.
Then she grew serious.
“Is she going to be my new mom?”
There it was.
The question I had been afraid to answer from the beginning.
I moved my chair closer.
“No.”
Sophie looked at me.
“Not because she doesn’t love you.”
“Does she?”
“Yes.”
“I love her too.”
“I know.”
Sophie looked down.
“Then why not?”
“Because you already have a mom.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
I continued.
“No one replaces her. Ever. Laurel doesn’t have to become Hannah to belong here.”
“What is she then?”
I thought about it.
“She’s Laurel.”
Sophie wiped one eye.
“That’s kind of a bad answer.”
“It’s the best one I have.”
She thought again.
Then nodded.
“I think Laurel is enough.”
Three weeks later, Laurel moved in.
Not dramatically.
No moving truck full of furniture.
Mostly boxes, books, clothes, kitchen things, and one plant Sophie immediately named Walter.
Our first morning in the same house, I woke before both of them and made coffee.
Two cups.
I carried them to the porch.
Laurel was already there wrapped in a blanket, watching sunlight move across the old brick houses.
She accepted one.
“This is better than the hospital machine.”
“That is a very low standard.”
“It still counts.”
The back door opened.
Sophie stepped outside in pajamas.
“You made her coffee and not me?”
“You are eight.”
“I drink hot chocolate.”
“It’s six-thirty in the morning.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
Laurel moved the blanket aside.
Sophie sat between us.
I went back inside and made a third drink.
Nearly a year after the accident, we returned to St. Catherine’s for a rehabilitation fundraiser Clare helped organize.
Denise was still at the nurse’s station.