“Why didn’t your letters say anything about Mark and Sarah?” Daniel asked, even though he already understood the answer forming in Laura’s eyes. She’d written every week like always, she explained, but the last few letters had gotten lost somewhere between two hospital stays and exhausted nights at Sarah’s bedside. She hadn’t trusted herself to write anything that wouldn’t worry him.
He pulled her into a hug that lasted longer than either of them probably expected, the strange bathroom discoveries finally making sense piece by piece. Somewhere in his chest, the dread he’d been carrying since he opened that door eased into something gentler, something closer to pride in the person she’d become while he was gone.
From the steps, Mark managed a tired laugh. “Welcome home, by the way. Sorry about the police escort.” Upstairs, faintly, they heard Sarah’s voice asking if everything was okay. “Everything’s fine,” Laura called back, then looked up at Daniel like she still couldn’t quite believe he was standing there early. “You really weren’t supposed to see any of this until I’d had a chance to explain it properly.” Daniel just shook his head, holding on tighter. Some surprises, it turned out, went both ways.