The house feels like it's swarming with kids. It doesn't take many to fill the rooms, full spectrums of joy and whining and fighting and playing. It's fun. After school, I take them on long walks, and then I come back to stay with Mom while Becky's family heads over to her house.

It's a pattern. I'm getting used to it. I think about not going back to Norway or Chile. The days are getting longer, and so it's easier to think that.

Lydia's letters are worded carefully, to avoid any allegiance. And what do I have there? A shop, friends, light. Here, a family, all of it I've got. How could this be so hard?

And on another day, I realize that I just might miss the solstice, that I'm missing my favorite season in my favorite place, and then it feels hard, a tearing kind of hard.

All this time lets me wallow in worry and wondering. I need some kind of a job.