The lilacs along Maple Lane had grown taller over the years, their branches now reaching the second-floor windows in late spring. The house itself had changed in small, lived-in ways — a new coat of paint on the porch railing, a wooden swing set in the backyard that Elias had built himself, and the faint sound of a five-year-old’s laughter echoing from inside.
Lila was five now. She had Elias’s hazel eyes and my stubborn streak, and she had recently decided that every sentence needed to end with “because I said so.” Amina had come home for her birthday weekend, something she had started doing more consistently over the past couple of years.
She was twenty-six now. She had finished her master’s degree the year before and was working as a high school counselor two towns over. Noah had move
