They went inside. The briefcase Nia had carried home on that early evening months ago lived now under the console, scuffed from commuting. The suitcase had been put away on a high shelf. Children's shoes waited by the stairs in a familiar pile. Life, in its stubborn ordinary way, had begun to resemble itself again—not the old self, polished and mortgaged beyond their means, but a self that could survive daylight.
On the anniversary of moving day—though they did not call it an anniversary, only a date that their bodies remembered—Nia came home from work to find Marcus and Amara in the kitchen with a sheet cake from the market and a single candle. No banner. No slogan. Just the three of them and a cake that said, in shaky icing Amara had insisted on writing, TRYING HOME.
Nia laughed and cried at the same time. "Who authorized this ceremony?"
"I did," Amara said. "Daddy said ceremonies can be small."
Marcus lit the candle. The flame leaned. "Make a wish," he said to Nia. "Or don't. Or just blow it out because sugar is waiting."