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"A road trip. Just us," Charlie said, pausing Katie's list of things like the world's smallest cheese cutter as possible stops.

"Yeah. Just us. All the way to California," Katie added.

"Please say 'yes.'"

Helen's eyes bounced back and forth between Charlie and Katie and saw the pleading look in both their faces. Charlie watched as the argument battled in Helen's mind. But in a single instant she saw her expression change when Helen relented, and Charlie knew they had her.

"Oh, all right, girls," Helen said, causing Katie to jump in place and Charlie to stand up from her chair, move to Helen, and wrap her in a hug. Moments later, Katie was there, too, arms around both of them. "But does it always have to be diner meals?" Charlie and Katie laughed.

Within an hour, Helen was packing a suitcase while muttering about the indignity of being strong-armed by these children.

When they talked about this moment during the holidays later that year, Charlie and Katie mentioned that they knew Helen was always going to agree with them. When Helen asked how it was they knew so assuredly, Charlie said they had learned their persuasion skills from Helen herself after all, so it was bound to work. Helen smiled at Charlie with a twinkle in her eye, patted her on the cheek, and responded with "That's damn right."

The drive back was three days. Helen sat in the back seat of the Plymouth, and Katie twisted around from the front to talk to her for most of the way. They played Katie's mixtapes and Helen tolerated them. They playedRumoursand Helen actually liked it. They stopped at diners and Helen critiqued everything, as expected. So Charlie tried to look for restaurants with a bit more variety and, though they did find some and ate better, Helen still believed that no restaurant on Earth could match her kitchen, and she was probably right.

In California, they showed Helen everything. The apartment, which Helen walked through slowly, touching the countertops and looking at the pictures on the fridge and the textbooks stacked on every surface. She didn't say anything, just stood in the middle of the small living room and looked around. Then she turned to the girls and said, "You built this together."

It wasn't a question, but a recognition. One of many that had happened within the walls of that very apartment.

Within the hour, Helen had her sleeves rolled up and was teaching them to clean behind the refrigerator, scrub the inside of the oven, and attack the tile grout in the bathroom with a toothbrush and baking soda. "If this is your home," she said, on her knees beside the bathtub with Charlie handing her supplies like a surgical nurse, "then you take care of it properly."

They visited the Caltech campus, where Helen stood in the quad and looked at the buildings and said, "Frank would have loved this."

They went to UCLA, where Katie walked her through the anthropology building and introduced her to the professors. Charlie could see Helen ensure that she shook the hands of each of those professors and lectured them about the importance of teaching Katie properly. The professors took it well, at least in Charlie's opinion. Katie turned the color of a tomato.

They took Helen to the ocean. She stood at the edge of the water, barefoot, her shoes dangling from her fingers, and she looked out at the Pacific for a long time. Charlie and Katie both stood next to her, looking out at the water and absorbing its sounds and sights before them.

"Frank always said the Pacific was the most beautiful thing he ever saw," she said. "After me, of course."

Charlie and Katie smiled at that.

"That sounds like Dad," Katie said, and the word landed in the air between them like something that had been waiting a long time to be said out loud.

Charlie looked at Katie. Katie looked at Charlie. They'd been doing this for a while now, calling Frank and Helen "Mom" and "Dad" when it was just the two of them. Whether they were in the apartment or in conversation, the words had simply started fitting one day and never stopped.

Helen turned to look at Katie. "What did you say?"

Charlie jumped in. "It's how we've started talking about you two," Charlie said. "It just... happened. And it stuck. Do you mind?"

Helen stared at her. Then Charlie saw tears well in her eyes. "Do Imind?" Helen whispered. A single tear rolled down her cheek. But then her face scrunched up and her brows knitted together. "But are you both sure?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, smaller than Charlie had ever heard Helen Beckman speak.

Katie sniffled and nodded. "It's what I want."

"It's what I want, too," Charlie said. Then, a deep breath. "Mom."

Helen grabbed Charlie and wrapped her arms tightly around her shoulders before turning them both and reaching for Katie. Katie rushed in and they embraced one another on the shore of the Pacific. Basking in the completeness that came from thisofficial recognition; another one. They could even feel Frank was there in the roll of the waves, splashing against their feet, tickling them with his approval.

"I love the both of you, so very much," Helen said.

"We love you too, Mom," Katie replied, trying the word on for size. Helen squeezed them both tighter, and the three of them stayed like that, holding each other on the sandy edge of California with the sun setting over the horizon, bathing them in sparkling gold.

Helen flewhome at the end of the week. Charlie and Katie drove her to the airport, and Helen held them each in turn in the terminal, hugging them tightly and kissing their cheeks.

"Thank you," Helen said. "For showing me your lives."

"Thank you for always being an important part of them," Charlie said.

On the drive back from the airport, Charlie battled with feelings she couldn't understand. She felt an immense sense of love and belonging, knowing that Helen was now a piece of her she could hold forever intheirway. But, at times, she gripped the steering wheel and swallowed hard, because something about that hug in the terminal had felt off, and she didn't know why. A hunch you could call it. But over what?