“You thought you were keeping us safe.” “Yes.” “I thought that too.” Maddie, who had been listening without understanding all of it, slid her hand over Bentley’s. “You made me sandwiches,” she said. His expression changed. “They were mostly bread.” “I liked them.” He gave a small laugh. We stayed at the table a long while after the dishes were empty. There was no single answer that could make those nine days right. Bentley had asked the question aloud. We owed him honest answers, even when they were hard to give. PART 26: THE FIRST DAY OF A NEW YEAR On New Year’s morning, Gloria arrived with a box of pancake mix and her old star-shaped cookie cutter. Maddie announced that everyone had to make one star. Doug’s looked like a puddle. Bentley’s came out with five distinct points. Mine tore when I tried to turn it. Amber’s was perfect until she slid it onto a plate, where one point folded underneath. Gloria declared hers the winner without asking for a vote. After breakfast, the children carried their plates to the sink. Bentley turned on the tap to rinse syrup from his fingers. Water ran clear and steady. He did not look at it. I did. Gloria came to stand beside me. “What are you thinking?” she asked. “That I’m grateful he doesn’t have to think about the tap anymore.” Across the kitchen, Bentley was teasing Doug about his pancake. Maddie was insisting that her rabbit deserved one too. Amber leaned against the counter and laughed. I took the clean plates from the rack. Outside, the two red key tags rested beside each other on their hook. The houses still had separate doors. The people inside them knew which doors they could open.
PART 27: THE LETTER BENTLEY HID
The trouble began with a white envelope from the school.
Bentley brought it home on a Thursday and slid it beneath a stack of library books in his bedroom.
Amber found it three days later while looking for a permission slip.
It was an invitation to a weekend science program in Indianapolis.
Bentley had been recommended by the teacher who ran his summer robotics program.
The school needed an answer by Monday.
Amber came to my door holding the letter.
“Did he tell you about this?”
I read it.
“No.”
“He tells you everything.”
“Not everything.”
She looked toward her house.
“He wanted that summer program so badly.”
“This one is farther away.”
“It’s two nights.”
She folded the letter.
“He thinks I won’t let him go.”
I did not know whether that was true.
Neither did Amber.
That night, after Maddie went to bed, Amber placed the envelope on the kitchen table.
Bentley stopped in the doorway when he saw it.
“You found it,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I was going to give it back to Mrs. Alvarez.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to go.”
Amber pulled out a chair.
“Sit with me.”
“I have homework.”
“It can wait.”
He sat down, keeping his hands in his lap.
Amber opened the letter.
“Your teacher thinks you’d enjoy this.”
“She doesn’t know me that well.”
“She knows you love building things.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to sleep somewhere else.”
“You don’t have to.”
His shoulders relaxed for an instant.
Then Amber said, “But I want to understand why you hid it.”
He looked at the table.
“I knew you’d be disappointed.”
“I’d be disappointed if you missed something you wanted because you were afraid to tell me.”
“I said I don’t want it.”
Amber waited.
Bentley reached for the envelope and pulled it closer.
“It’s in Indianapolis,” he said.
“Yes.”
“That’s where the hospital was.”
Amber’s face changed.
“I didn’t think of that.”
“I know.”
He had studied the program carefully.
The museum visit sounded wonderful.
The building challenge sounded better.
He had circled both in pencil before folding the letter away.
But the word Indianapolis at the top of the page brought back the day he had asked every hospital for his mother and found no answer.
Amber moved her chair beside his.
“We don’t have to send the form tomorrow,” she said.
“The deadline is Monday.”
“Then we have the weekend to talk.”
He looked at her.
“You won’t make me go?”
“No.”
“You won’t think I’m a baby?”
“Never.”
He laid the letter flat between them.
For the first time, he told her what he had imagined when he learned she was in a hospital sixty miles away.
He had pictured her calling for him from a room he could never find.
Amber listened until he ran out of words.
Then she told him about the hospital room she remembered.
She told him about the nurse named Denise, the yellow sticky note with my number, and the first time she heard that Bentley and Maddie were safe.
He knew pieces of that story.
He had never heard his mother tell it from beginning to end.
When I saw them the next morning, the letter was still on the table.
Bentley had not decided.
But it was no longer hidden.
PART 28: THE DRIVE TO INDIANAPOLIS
On Saturday, Amber asked Bentley if he would take a drive with her.
He came over to ask whether I thought it was a good idea.
“What does she want to show you?” I asked.
“She said we can just drive around and come home.”
“Do you want to?”
“I think so.”
Amber did not take him to the hospital.
She took him to a diner outside Indianapolis that Gloria had recommended.
They ordered pancakes for lunch.
Afterward, they drove past the museum where the science program would take place.
Bentley saw children crossing the plaza with model rockets tucked under their arms.
He asked Amber to park.
They sat in the car for twenty minutes.
“Some of them are probably going next weekend,” he said.
“Maybe.”
“The building has a lot of windows.”
“It does.”
He pulled the letter from his jacket pocket.
“I could ask if you can visit during the day.”
“We can ask.”
“What about Maddie?”
“She’ll be with me.”
“And Miss Arlene?”
“I expect she’ll invite herself over for supper.”
When they returned, Bentley came into my kitchen while Amber took the groceries inside.
“I saw the place,” he told me.
“How was it?”
“Bigger than the school gym.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the clock.
“I’m still scared.”
“You can be scared and interested at the same time.”
“Mom said that too.”
“Your mother’s a smart woman.”
He smiled.
On Monday morning, he handed in the form.
Before he left, he had written three phone numbers inside the cover of his notebook.
Amber’s.
Mine.
Gloria’s.
He showed me the list as though he needed me to know it was there.
“I’ll answer,” I said.
“I know.”
PART 29: TWO NIGHTS AWAY
Bentley called the first night at 8:42.
Amber put him on speaker so Maddie could say goodnight.
“The robot we built can pick up a ball,” he said.
“Can it pick up my rabbit?” Maddie asked.
“It would probably drop him.”
“Then make it better.”
Bentley laughed.
After Maddie went to bed, he asked to speak to Amber alone.
She took the phone onto the porch.
I was outside watering the late flowers and heard only a little of their conversation.
He told her the room was strange.
He told her he missed home.
She asked whether he wanted her to come get him.
He thought about it.
“Can I decide in the morning?”
“Of course.”
At breakfast the next day, he called again.
He had slept.
He wanted to stay.
Amber let out a breath she had been holding since the night before.
On Sunday afternoon, Doug drove her, Maddie, and me to the program’s closing exhibition.
Bentley stood behind a table beside two other children.
Their small machine crossed a marked course, lifted a wooden block, and carried it to the finish line.
It dropped the block once.
The children adjusted a wheel and tried again.
This time it worked.
Maddie shouted his name across the room.
Bentley grinned so widely that I almost failed to recognize him as the boy who had hidden the letter under his books.
On the way home, he fell asleep in the back seat beside Maddie.
Amber looked back at them.
“He called me every day,” she said.
“You were glad he did.”
“I was.”
She turned toward the window.
“I was glad he stayed too.”
PART 30: THE NIGHT THE LIGHT WENT OUT
In November, I fell in the kitchen.
I had climbed onto a little step stool to reach a tin of holiday decorations above the cupboard.
Ray used to tell me I had no business standing on that stool.
I used to tell him he had no business putting things where I could not reach them.
This time there was no one in the room to argue with.
The stool shifted.
I grabbed the edge of the counter and went down hard.
For a moment, I lay there listening to the hum of the refrigerator.
My wrist hurt.
My hip hurt worse.
I could not stand.
My phone was on the table, only a few feet away.
It might as well have been across town.
I tried calling through the wall.
My voice sounded thin.
The children were at school, and Amber was at work.
Then I remembered the light.
I had promised to turn on my porch light when I got home from the grocery store so Doug would know I had collected the package he was expecting.
I had not turned it on.
At four, Doug drove up.
He saw the dark porch and came to the door.
I heard him knock.
“Ma?”
I answered as loudly as I could.
He called again.
Then I heard the key turn.
He found me on the kitchen floor and knelt beside me.
“Don’t move,” he said.
“I had not planned to.”
His hands shook while he called for help.
At the hospital, the doctor said my hip was bruised and my wrist was broken.
They put my arm in a cast and told me to use a walker for a while.
Doug wanted me to stay at his house.
Amber wanted to set up the guest room on her side.
I wanted to go home.
For once, everybody listened before deciding what was best for me.
Doug moved a bed to the downstairs room.
Amber made sure I could reach the kettle without climbing or stretching.
Gloria filled my freezer with soup.
Bentley brought over a notebook and drew a map of everything I might need during the day.
Maddie added stars beside the important places.
One star by my chair.
One by the bathroom.
Three by the cookie jar.
PART 31: THE PERSON ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR
I had expected the broken wrist to be the hardest part.
It was asking for help.
I disliked having someone bring in my groceries.
I disliked watching Doug carry the laundry basket I had always carried myself.
When Amber came over to wash dishes, I told her I could manage.
She looked at my cast.
“I know you can manage a lot,” she said.
“I’m still going to wash these.”
On the fourth day, Bentley found me trying to pull a heavy pan from the bottom cupboard.
He took it before I could protest.
“You shouldn’t do that.”
“I was careful.”
“That’s what I said when I tried to fix the robot without reading the instructions.”
“You were right about the robot.”
“And I’m right about the pan.”
He set it on the counter.
Then his expression softened.
“Does it feel strange when we come over to help?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you keep saying you’re fine?”
I looked at him.
“Sometimes.”
He leaned against the counter.
“When I said we were okay, you made me grilled cheese anyway.”
“That’s true.”
“You can let us make you grilled cheese.”
So I did.
He burned the first sandwich.
The second was excellent.
We ate at the kitchen table while rain traced the windows.
I let him carry the plates to the sink.
PART 32: RAY’S CHAIR
During the weeks I recovered, I spent more time sitting in Ray’s old recliner than I had in years.
It faced the window toward the shared porch.
I could see who came and went without leaving the room.
One afternoon, Doug arrived with a bag of groceries and found me holding Ray’s photograph.
“You miss him,” he said.
“Every day.”
He put the bag on the counter and sat beside me.
“I used to think you kept all his things because you didn’t want anything to change.”
“Some of that was true.”
“And now?”
I looked toward the wooden shelf he had made.
There were six coats hanging on it.
Maddie’s was the smallest.
“Things changed anyway.”
Doug nodded.
“I wish he could see us.”
“Me too.”
“I think about what he’d say when I get something wrong.”
“He’d probably say a great deal.”
Doug laughed.
“He always did.”
“He would also see how hard you’ve worked to put things right.”
My son looked down at his hands.
“I needed to hear that.”
Outside, the school bus stopped at the corner.
Bentley stepped off first and waited for Maddie.
She took his hand before crossing the street.
Doug watched them from Ray’s chair.
After a while, he said, “I think Dad would have liked the noise next door.”
“He would have invited himself over for pancakes.”
“Then told Gloria how to make them.”
“She’d have put him to work.”
For a little while, remembering Ray felt less lonely.
PART 33: THE NEW RULE
By December, I could move around the house without the walker.
The cast remained.
Amber still checked on me each morning before work.
Bentley checked after school.
Maddie checked whenever she wanted a cookie.
One evening, we sat together decorating a small tree in my living room.
Bentley hung the ornaments high.
Maddie hung seven on the same lower branch.
Doug kept moving them when she looked away.
She kept putting them back.
Amber found a plain wooden ornament near the bottom of the box.
Ray had made it during our first Christmas in the duplex.
The paint had faded, and one corner was chipped.
“What’s this one?” she asked.
“The year we moved in.”
She handed it to me.
I held it for a moment, then asked Maddie to choose a place for it.
She picked the crowded branch.
Doug opened his mouth.
“Leave it,” I said.
He closed his mouth.
When the lights were on, Bentley stood back to inspect the tree.
“It’s leaning,” he said.
“So was your birthday cake,” I reminded him.
“That cake was supposed to.”
“Of course.”
He moved closer to me.
“I have a new rule,” he said.
“For what?”
“For everybody.”
He counted on his fingers.
“If something is wrong, we tell someone.”
“If we need help, we ask.”
“And if somebody says they’re fine but they fell off a stool, we check anyway.”
“That last one sounds very specific.”
“It is.”
Amber raised her mug.
“I agree to Bentley’s rules.”
Doug did too.
Gloria, who had arrived with a plate of pancakes for no reason anyone could explain, agreed after adding one of her own.
“No climbing on stools.”
Everyone looked at me.
I held up my cast.
“I believe I have learned that lesson.”
Maddie tugged my sleeve.
“Can I have a rule?”
“Certainly.”
She thought for a long time.
“Everybody gets a star on the tree.”
So we made room for one more ornament on her crowded branch.
PART 34: THE MORNING AFTER CHRISTMAS
The morning after Christmas, I woke before sunrise.
My wrist ached a little.
Downstairs, the living room smelled faintly of pine and cinnamon.
There were wrapping papers in a bag by the door and two forgotten toy cars beneath the table.
I made coffee with my good hand.
At 7:10, there was a knock.
School was closed for the holiday.
I opened the door.
Amber stood there holding a covered dish.
Bentley carried a bag of oranges.
Maddie held her rabbit by one ear.
Gloria was walking up the path behind them.
Doug’s car pulled in at the curb.
“What is all this?” I asked.
“Breakfast,” Amber said.
“At my house?”
“You have the biggest table,” Bentley answered.
“And,” Doug said as he came up the steps, “you’re not allowed to carry anything heavy yet.”
They came in, filling the quiet rooms with coats and voices.
Gloria set her dish on the counter.
Maddie went straight to her hook.
Bentley placed the oranges in the bowl beneath Ray’s photograph.
Amber squeezed my shoulder as she passed.
I stood at the door for a moment after Doug shut it against the cold.
I thought of the first time Bentley had knocked at 7:10.
He had stood alone with a water bottle in his hand, trying to ask for as little as possible.
Now there were people around my table asking one another to pass the plates.
When I turned back toward the kitchen, Bentley was pulling out a chair for me.
“Sit down, Miss Arlene,” he said.
“We’ve got breakfast.”
I sat.
And I let them take care of me.
PART 35: THE WOMAN AT THE GATE
Three days after Christmas, I saw a woman standing outside the front gate with a camera.
She photographed the porch, the shared driveway, and the roofline.
When she noticed me at the window, she lowered the camera.
I went outside.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I thought the place was empty.”
“There are five people inside.”
She glanced toward the right side of the duplex.
“Are you Mrs. Whitaker?”
“Yes.”
Her expression changed.
“My name is Lena Price.”
“I’m with a company that buys older properties in this area.”
“We sent your son a letter.”
I remembered Doug mentioning something in the mail and dismissing it.
“We aren’t selling,” I said.
“I understand.”
But she did not leave.
“These older buildings can become expensive to maintain,” she said.
“Our offer would be enough for you to move somewhere with less work.”
I thought of Ray’s notebook.
I thought of Bentley’s key.
“You’ve seen the roof,” I said.
“You haven’t seen the home.”
She apologized and went back to her car.
I watched her drive away, more unsettled than I wanted to admit.
That night, I called Doug.
“She took pictures?”
“From the sidewalk.”
“She shouldn’t have told you the place looked empty.”
“She didn’t know anyone lived here.”
“That tells me how carefully she looked.”
I sat down at the kitchen table.
“What did her letter offer?”
“A lot,” he said.
“How much?”
He told me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
It was more money than Ray and I had ever imagined getting for the duplex.
“I told you I wasn’t interested,” Doug said.
“I know.”
“Ma?”
“I’m here.”
“I’ll come over tomorrow.”
After we hung up, I looked at the two red tags hanging near the door.
For the first time in years, I wondered what would happen to the duplex when I was no longer there to open either side.
PART 36: WHAT BELONGED TO WHOM
Doug arrived the next morning with a folder.
He had brought the letter from the property company, copies of the deed, and a page of notes.
“You don’t need to decide anything today,” he said.
“I’d like to understand what I own before I decide what happens to it.”
He nodded.
We spread the papers across the table.
Ray and I had bought the duplex together in 1981.
After he died, the property became mine.
Doug managed the rental, but his name was not on the deed.
He had never claimed otherwise.
Still, I had spent years letting him make decisions without asking many questions.
“I should have looked at these sooner,” I said.
“We both should have talked sooner.”
Doug tapped one page.
“The company buys several houses on a street at once.”
“What happens to the people living in them?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the first question I’d ask.”
He looked toward the wall we shared with Amber.
“Me too.”
We were quiet for a while.
Then Doug said, “I don’t want you holding on to a building because you think we expect you to.”
“Who is we?”
“Amber.”
“The kids.”
“Me.”
I closed the folder.
“I loved this place before any of you asked me to.”
“I know.”
“But I need to make a plan.”
Doug waited.
“I don’t want Amber hearing about a sale from a stranger with a camera.”
“She won’t.”
“I’ll tell her myself.”
PART 37: THE CONVERSATION AMBER FEARED
Amber came over after supper.
She sat down, saw the folder on my table, and became still.
“Is this about the woman outside?”
“You saw her?”
“Bentley did.”
“He thought she was taking pictures for the city.”
I slid the letter toward her.
“A company made an offer for the duplex.”
Amber read the first page.
Her eyes went straight to the number.
“That’s a good offer.”
“It’s a large one.”
“You should think about it.”
“I am.”
She put the paper down carefully.
“I don’t want you to feel trapped here because of us.”
“I don’t.”
“You were hurt last month.”
“You need a house that’s easier to manage.”
“Amber.”
“I mean it.”
She tried to smile.
“We could find another place.”
Bentley had been practicing his trumpet in the next room.
The same three notes had sounded again and again while we talked.
Now the music stopped.
I could picture him listening through the wall.
“We are only discussing the offer,” I said.
“I wanted you to hear it from me.”
Amber nodded, but her hands stayed clasped so tightly that her knuckles had gone pale.
When she left, the trumpet did not start again.
An hour later, Bentley knocked on my door.
He stood with the instrument case in one hand.
“Are we moving?”
“I haven’t decided to sell.”
“But you might.”
“I might make changes someday.”
He looked past me into the kitchen.
“Will you tell us before you do?”
“Yes.”
He held my gaze.
“I need you to mean that.”
“I do.”
His shoulders eased a little.
“Mom says houses get sold.”
“She’s right.”
“Does that mean people have to stop being neighbors?”
“Sometimes.”
He looked down at his trumpet case.
I did not ask him to stop worrying.
I told him what I could promise.
“If a decision affects your home, Amber will know what’s happening and have time to plan.”
Bentley nodded.
It was not the answer he wanted.
It was an answer he could trust.
PART 38: THE COST OF STAYING
The next week, Doug hired someone to inspect the duplex from roof to foundation.
I followed the inspector through both sides with my notebook and my wrist still in its cast.
There was work to do.
Some of it was small.
Some of it was expensive.
The inspector showed us a damp patch near the basement wall and an old section of wiring that needed replacing.
He pointed out a loose porch step Doug had fixed twice already.
“I can repair these,” Doug said.
The inspector nodded.
“Get proper estimates first.”
That evening, Doug and I sat at my table adding numbers.
Repairs.
Taxes.
Insurance.
The monthly amount Amber paid.
The savings Ray and I had put aside.
The company’s offer stayed in its folder at the far end of the table.
I had not looked at it since Amber came over.
“This will use more of your savings than I thought,” Doug said.
“I can afford it.”
“I know.”
“You sound as though there’s more.”
“I want you to have enough for yourself too.”
“So do I.”
He studied the figures.
“We should talk to someone who can help you plan.”
“I agree.”
He looked up, surprised.
“You do?”
“I’m seventy-two, Doug.”
“I know when I need another pair of eyes.”
We made an appointment with an estate attorney.
I told Amber we were getting advice about the property.
She thanked me for telling her.
Then she went to work, and I went back to my notebook.
PART 39: THE PLAN ON PAPER
The attorney’s office was on the second floor of a brick building downtown.
Doug came with me.
I brought Ray’s old notebook, though I was not sure why.
The attorney listened as I explained the duplex and the people who lived there.
She asked what I wanted for my own life.
I had expected her to begin with money.
The question caught me off guard.
“I want to stay in my home as long as it’s safe for me,” I said.
“I want repairs made before they become emergencies.”
“And I want the people renting the other side to know where they stand.”
She wrote it down.
Over the next hour, we discussed ways to pay for repairs, what would happen if I needed more care, and how Doug could handle the property if I could not.
I asked questions until I understood the answers.
At one point, Doug reached for his pen.
The attorney smiled at him.
“Let your mother tell me what she wants first.”
Doug put the pen down.
“I deserved that,” he said.
On the way home, he stopped for coffee.
I took Ray’s notebook from my bag.
“I brought this because I thought it might tell me what he would do.”
“Did it?”
“Maybe.”
I ran my thumb along the worn cover.
“But the decision belongs to me.”
Doug raised his cup.
“To you, then.”
“To all of us being honest about what this place needs.”
PART 40: THE PORCH STEP
Repairs began in early spring.
The electrician arrived first.
The basement work came later.
Doug replaced the porch step on a Saturday morning with Bentley’s help.
I watched from a chair in the yard.
“You’ve measured that three times,” Bentley said.
“Because somebody keeps moving the pencil.”
“Maddie moved it once.”
“Somebody also put it behind his ear.”
Bentley looked at Doug.
Doug found the pencil above his own ear.
Maddie laughed so hard she sat down on the grass.
Amber came out carrying lemonade.
For a few hours, the future felt as ordinary as a new board laid across an old porch.
When Doug finished, he asked me to try the step.
I stood, holding the rail.
It did not shift.
“Good,” I said.
“That is a very modest review,” he complained.
“It’s a step.”
“It’s an excellent step.”
I went up and down it again.
“It’s an excellent step.”
He bowed.
That evening, I put the property company’s letter in the recycling.
I had decided to stay.
PART 41: THE THING BENTLEY WANTED TO KNOW
I told Amber first.
She listened without interrupting.
“I’m making the repairs,” I said.
“The duplex is staying as it is.”
Her eyes filled.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to make that choice for us.”
“I made it for myself.”
She nodded slowly.
“Then I’m glad.”
Bentley was doing homework at the kitchen table when I told him.
He set his pencil down.
“So we’re not moving?”
“No.”
“For how long?”
“I can’t promise what every year will bring.”
He frowned.
“I know.”
“But there’s a plan.”
“The repairs are being done, and your mother will hear about any future change from me.”
He looked at Amber, who nodded.
“That’s what I wanted,” he said.
I had thought he wanted a promise that nothing would ever change.
What he wanted was to know that he would not be the last person to find out.
PART 42: THE RECITAL
At the end of the school year, Bentley played trumpet in a small concert at the middle school.
For months, the shared wall had carried the sound of scales, missed notes, and long pauses while he tried again.
On the night of the recital, Maddie wore a yellow dress and carried a handmade sign.
It said GO BENTLEY in letters so large they barely fit.
Amber, Gloria, Doug, and I took up most of a row.
Bentley spotted us from the stage.
He lifted his trumpet.
The first song began.
He missed one note.
His cheeks flushed.
He looked down at the music, took a breath, and found his place again.
I watched his hands steady.
When the concert ended, Maddie waved her sign over her head.
Bentley came toward us carrying his trumpet case.
“I made a mistake,” he said before anyone could tell him how well he had played.
“You did,” I said.
He blinked.
“And then you kept playing.”
Amber kissed his cheek.
“That was my favorite part.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Doug offered to buy everyone ice cream.
Bentley agreed, provided nobody told the woman at the counter about the missed note.
Maddie told her before we had finished ordering.
“She also told her you were wonderful,” Amber said.
Bentley shook his head, but he was smiling.
PART 43: THE BOOK ON THE SHELF
The following autumn, Mrs. Alvarez retired.
She invited former students and their families to the school library for a small celebration.
Bentley brought Charlotte’s Web.
Its cover was worn, and one corner had been repaired with clear tape.
“You’re returning it now?” I asked.
“No.”
He showed me a note tucked inside.
Mrs. Alvarez, thank you for leaving a place for me when I came back.
He handed the book to her near the end of the afternoon.
She read the note and held it against her chest.
“I’m glad you came back,” she told him.
Bentley stood awkwardly while she hugged him.
Then she took him to the library’s front display.
There was a small shelf of books she had chosen for children who needed something familiar to hold.
She placed his copy beside the others.
“Can it stay there?” Bentley asked.
“If you want it to.”
He nodded.
On the drive home, he was quiet.
I thought he might be sad to part with it.
Then he said, “Maybe another kid will take it home.”
“Maybe.”
“I hope they bring it back eventually.”
“You took your time.”
“I had a lot going on.”
