Carmen was already there.
She sat in a corner booth with both hands wrapped around a coffee mug as if it were the only warm thing in Pennsylvania. She looked older than thirty-three. Her dark hair was shorter than Elena remembered, cut blunt at the shoulders. There were new lines around her mouth. She wore a thrift-store jacket and a blouse that tried to be cheerful. When she saw Elena, she stood too quickly and then sat again, as if standing had been a presumption.
Elena slid into the booth across from her. For a long moment they simply looked. Sisters who had shared a bedroom, a mother, a language of glances across dinner tables, a thousand small violences and repairs. The diner smelled of fried potatoes and old vinyl. A trucker at the counter laughed too loudly at something on his phone.
"You look well," Carmen said finally.
"You look sober," Elena answered.
Carmen nodded. "Fourteen months and eleven days. I count them because the counting keeps me honest."
A waitress came. Elena ordered coffee she did not want. When they were alone again, Elena placed the perfume bottle on the table between them. Carmen's face changed—softened, then crumpled, then steadied.