Amira stood in the doorway with Hope already in her arms, scooped up from the floor the moment the door had given way enough to reach her, holding her the way you hold something you have been told you have to let go of and have not yet managed to let go of.
Her face was a thing that could not be looked at for too long.
It was full. So full. Full of the grief that had been sitting behind that door and full of something else now, something that was arriving too quickly to be named cleanly, something that felt, cautiously, like the first small suggestion of an open door.
She looked at Yvette.
Hope pressed her face into Amira's neck and held on with her whole body, those small hands finding the fabric of Amira's shirt and gripping it, those legs wrapping themselves tight, her whole small self communicating the single message it had been trying to deliver from the moment its feet hit the floor and began to run.
Here. This is here. This is home.
