Chapter 8: Four Weeks
I didn't say anything for a moment.
"Say something," Daniel said.
"You're scaring me."
"I'm here," I said.
"I'm just—" My voice broke on the last word and I let it.
"Four weeks."
"Four weeks."
"Daniel."
"I know."
Lily made a small sound from her car seat.
I turned to look at her — still asleep, one fist curled under her chin.
"She's going to be awake when you get here," I said.
"She's going to look at you and she's going to know who you are."
"How do you know that?"
"Because she already knows your voice.
Every time I play the recordings you send, she goes completely still.
She listens to every word." I pressed my hand flat on the steering wheel.
"She's been listening to you this whole time."
Daniel didn't speak for a moment.
When he did, his voice was different — lower, quieter, the way it got when he was somewhere past words.
"Four weeks," he said again.
Like he was testing whether it was real.
"Four weeks," I said.
We stayed on the call for twenty minutes — the same length as the Tuesday call, I realized, though neither of us said so.
We talked about logistics: the airport, the timing, what Lily would be wearing, whether I should tell his parents or let him call them himself.
We talked about small things because the large thing was too big to talk about directly yet.
Before he had to go, he said: "Tell Carol."
"I will."
"And tell Tom.
The manager."
I laughed, surprised.
"You want me to tell the café manager?"
"He held the line when it mattered," Daniel said simply.
"People like that should know when things turn out okay."
After we hung up, I sat in the car for a long time.
Four weeks.
Twenty-eight days.
Lily would be nearly three months old.
She would be able to track a face, hold a gaze, respond to a voice she recognized.
She would look at her father and she would know him.
I drove home slowly, not because I needed to, but because I wanted the feeling to last — that particular quality of happiness that sits just at the edge of being too much to hold.
That afternoon I called Daniel's parents.
His mother, Ruth, cried immediately and then apologized for crying and then cried again.
His father, Alan, said "Good" in a voice that meant something much larger than the word.
They came over that evening — not because I'd asked them to, but because Ruth said she needed to see Lily's face when she told her.
"She can't understand," Alan pointed out.
"She'll understand the feeling," Ruth said firmly, and picked Lily up and told her that her daddy was coming home.
Lily stared at Ruth with great seriousness and then grabbed her necklace.
"She agrees," Ruth said.
I texted Carol that night: *He's coming home.
Four weeks early.
Rotation changed.*
She replied in under a minute: *I'm going to pretend I'm not crying in my kitchen right now.*
Then: *Bring him to Thursday when he's ready.
We like to meet the ones who've been keeping the other seat warm.*
I sent the same message to Tom — a longer one, explaining who I was, thanking him for the text about Patricia, telling him that Daniel was coming home.
I wasn't sure he'd remember me.
There must be hundreds of customers in a week.
He replied the next morning: *I remember you.
That was a Tuesday I won't forget either.
Tell your husband welcome home from all of us here.*
I showed Daniel the message on our next call.
He read it twice.
"Good man," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"He is."
The four weeks moved the way time moves when you're waiting for something — slowly in the days, quickly in the weeks.
I went to Carol's group every Thursday.
I learned that Deb's husband was due back in three months, that Priya had started sleeping better, that Margaret's shortbread edges were, in fact, always the best part.
I told them, the Thursday after Daniel's call, that he was coming home early.
The room reacted the way those rooms react — not with noise, but with a particular quality of shared relief, the kind that comes from people who understand exactly what the waiting costs.
Deb reached across and squeezed my hand once.
That was all.
It was enough.
On the last Thursday before Daniel's flight, Carol walked me to my car again.
"Ready?" she said.
"I've been ready for seven months," I said.
"That's not what I mean." She looked at me steadily.
"The adjustment is real.
Coming back is its own thing.
It takes time for everyone to find the new shape."
"I know," I said.
"We've talked about it."
"Good.
Keep talking." She paused.
"And come back to Thursday even after he's home.
Both of you, when you're ready.
The group isn't only for the waiting.
It's for all of it."
I said I would.
I meant it.
She hugged me before I got in the car — a proper one, both arms, brief but real.
It was the first time she'd done that.
"Carol," I said, when she stepped back.
"Yes."
"Thank you.
For Tuesday.
For all of it."
She shook her head slightly.
"You would have been fine."
"Maybe," I said.
"But I didn't have to find out."
She smiled — the full one, the one that changed her whole face.
I drove home to pack the bag I'd been mentally packing for weeks.
Lily sat in her bouncer in the doorway of the bedroom and watched me with her father's serious eyes, tracking every movement, missing nothing.
"Four more days," I told her.
She blinked.
"He's going to love you so much," I said.
"He already does.
He's been loving you from six thousand miles away for seven months.
When he actually gets to hold you—"
I stopped folding.
Pressed the shirt I was holding against my chest.
"You have no idea what's about to happen to him," I said softly.
Lily made a small sound.
Reached one hand toward me.
May you like
I crossed the room and picked her up, and she settled against my shoulder exactly the way she always did — like that was the place she'd been designed for.
Four days.
