Page 94 of Smoke Signals

"She's shy at first," I say. "That's about it. She doesn’t speak. She knows how but hasn’t since her dad passed."

They take us back for her screening and let me come with in case she needs someone to translate.

The lady lays out out picture cards on a table.

"Can you tell me what this one is?" She holds up a card. A dog.

Alaska doesn't say anything.

My stomach drops so fast I have to put both hands flat on my knees.

Then she reaches over, picks the D out of the pile of letters, and sets it down next to the card. The way she's done it a hundred times at our kitchen table.

Her eyebrows go up. "Okay," she says. "Let's do a few more."

They do a few more. Ball. Sun. Tree.

"She's ready," The lady says, stacking the cards. "You know that, right?"

"People keep telling me she isn't."

She writes something on her form. "I'll see her on the first day of school."

The first weekend we don’t have to drive anywhere or unpack anything, we all end up in the backyard. Alaska digs a hole near the fence and acts like she’s burying treasure, soaking up the last few months before kindergarten starts and she’s done with daycare during the week.

Stellan grills burgers, a Belvidere Fire Department t-shirt stretched across his back, the pace here slower than anything we left behind. I sit on the porch steps with a glass of iced tea and watch them both move through the sunlight. I still can’t believe this is my life.

Stellan glances over at me from the grill.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re smiling.”

I shake my head. “No, I’m not.”

He laughs. “You are.”

Maybe I am.

The fear is still there. I don’t think that part of me will ever disappear completely. I still watch the clock when he’s on shift. I still hold my breath a little when the news cuts to a fire somewhere in town.

But now when the fear shows up, it has to make room for something else.

Safety.

Not the kind that promises nothing bad will ever happen.

The kind that comes from knowing I’m not carrying everything alone anymore.

That night, after Alaska is asleep and the dishes are done, I stand in the kitchen with the lights low and my hands braced against the counter while Stellan comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist.

“You disappeared,” he murmurs against my neck.

“I was thinking.”

“You do that a lot.”

I lean back into him.