"I am proud of you for coming," Carmen answered.
They drove home separately. Elena sat in her car in the church parking lot for a moment and texted Marco: She did a year. I said I was proud. He replied: I am proud of both of you. Then, a second later: And I am still sorry. Elena typed, I know. Keep being sorry by being honest. Then she drove back to the townhouse through a Pennsylvania dusk the color of slate.
Months later, in early spring, when the rain returned as a gentler season, Sofia turned seven.
The party was small—classmates, cousins, cake with too much frosting. Carmen came with a carefully wrapped gift and left early so as not to overstay the fragile welcome. After the guests were gone, Sofia put on the pale-pink cardigan again for fun and danced in the family room until she fell laughing onto the navy sectional. Elena watched her and felt the old fear and the newer hope occupy the same chest without canceling each other.
Marco washed dishes. Elena dried. Through the doorway they could see Sofia arranging dinosaurs into a parade. The sparkly necklace flashed. Somewhere in Carmen's apartment, a perfume bottle stood on a shelf beside a plastic triceratops and a framed photo of two little girls in Allentown, arms around each other, squinting into a sun that had not yet taught them how much weather a family could survive.
Elena hung the dish towel and walked into the family room. She sat beside her daughter. Sofia leaned into her immediately, smelling of cake and childhood.
"Mommy," Sofia said, "do you think Aunt Carmen is pretty?"