Only one message to her mother from a stop outside Orangeburg.
I’m coming in late. I’m okay.
Her mother had answered immediately.
Door’s open.
Eleanor was halfway up the walk when the front door opened.
Her mother stepped out first, reading glasses on, a navy wrap over her shoulders.
Then she said, very softly, “Oh, honey.”
That did it.
Something inside her gave.
She climbed the last steps and let her mother pull her in.
The embrace was warm and familiar. Eleanor closed her eyes and held on.
From somewhere deeper in the house, her father’s voice carried in.
“Is that Eleanor?”
“Yes,” her mother called back.
Her mother squeezed her hand and drew her inside.
Tall ceilings. Wide-planked floors. Lamps rather than overheads. Art that had hung in the same place for years.
Her father was already standing by the den doorway when she stepped into view.
He crossed to her in a few long strides and folded her into a hug.
“Hey, darling.”
She leaned into him. When she drew back, he kept his hands on her shoulders, and studied her face.
His expression changed.
“Bad?” he asked.
Eleanor glanced down, then back up.
“Yes.”
He nodded once.
“All right. Then sit down before your mother decides this requires soup and a full strategic response.”
“Too late,” her mother said from the doorway. “Both are already in motion.”
He looked at Eleanor with dry resignation. “You see what I live with.”
She took the corner of the sofa that had always been hers.
For a few minutes, neither of them pressed.
