Melissa set down her bag and stood still for a moment in the hallway, just listening. Three days of conference rooms and careful language and the relentless performance of competence, and she’d walked through her own front door into candlelight and the sound of June’s voice explaining collective nouns to her daughter. The contrast was almost physical—like stepping out of cold water into warmth, her whole body needing a moment to adjust.
She followed the voices.
The living room had been transformed into something unrecognizable. Blankets were draped over the furniture, creating a makeshift tent. Flashlights were lined up on the coffee table like soldiers. Pillows were scattered everywhere, and in the middle of it all sat June and Lila, cross-legged, surrounded by books and snacks and what appeared to be every stuffed animal Lila owned.
“Mom!” Lila scrambled up and launched herself at Melissa, nearly knocking her over. “You’re home! Miss Hollis said you’d be home before the storm got really bad, and you are!”
Melissa held her daughter tight, breathing in the familiar smell of strawberry shampoo together with something sweeter—cookies, maybe, or the vanilla candles flickering on the mantel.
“I’m home,” she said. “What’s all this?”
“Storm camp.” Lila pulled back, her face bright with excitement. “Miss Hollis said storms can be scary, but they’re less scary if you’re prepared. So we made a fort and got flashlights and picked out books to read and made snacks that don’t need cooking in case the power goes out.”
“That’s very smart.” Melissa looked up and found June watching her from the blanket fort, something soft and relieved in her expression—and underneath that, something else. Heat. Melissa’s body answered immediately, like a frequency she’d been tuned to without realizing.
“Very smart indeed,” Melissa said, and hoped her voice came out steadier than she felt.
“Come inside!” Lila tugged at her hand. “You have to come inside the fort. It’s the rules.”
“I should probably change first—”
“Later. Fort first.”
Melissa let herself be dragged into the pile of blankets and pillows, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten. June shifted to make room, their shoulders brushing as Melissa settled onto the floor, and even that—just the brief press of June’s shoulder against hers—made Melissa aware of exactly how long three days had been.
“Welcome back,” June said quietly.
“Thank you.” Melissa held her gaze for just a moment—long enough to see everything there, the questions and the warmth and the same want she felt herself—before Lila demanded her attention again.
“We have crackers and cheese and grapes and these little sandwiches Miss Hollis made with the crusts cut off, and there’sapple juice in a cooler because she said we might need drinks, and—”
Thunder rumbled outside, low and ominous, and Lila’s chatter cut off abruptly. Her eyes went wide.
“That was close,” she whispered.
“It’s just thunder,” Melissa said, pulling her daughter into her lap. “It can’t hurt us.”
“I know. But it sounds angry.”
Lightning flashed through the windows, bright enough to make them all flinch, and a moment later the thunder cracked overhead—not a rumble this time but a sharp, violent explosion of sound. Lila pressed her face into Melissa’s shoulder.
“I’ve got you,” Melissa murmured. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
June moved closer, her hand coming to rest on Lila’s back, which meant she was close enough that Melissa could feel the warmth of her even through the blankets. Close enough that if Melissa turned her head, she’d be able to—
But not with Lila there.
“You know what I like to do during storms?” June said. “I count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder. The longer the count, the farther away the storm is.”
Lila’s voice was muffled. “How do you count?”
“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. Like that. Want to try?”
They waited for the next flash of lightning. When it came, June started counting aloud, and after a moment Lila joined in, her voice small but steady.
“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four—”
Thunder rolled, and Lila looked up with something like triumph.
