Peter snorted, downshifting as we took the exit toward the valleys. "Too right we aren't. I've had enough of your mother's 'constructive' silences to last me a lifetime. If I have to hear one more lecture about 'the reality of the situation' while eating a cucumber sandwich, I'll sprout a tail."

The banter was our safety net. It was the only thing that kept the gravity of the situation from pulling us through the floorboards of the car. We were seventeen, and I was still the boy who kept flying back to Sweden, caught between two lives, while she was here, growing a life inside her.

"You think your dad actually likes those sandwiches?" I asked. "Or is it part of the performance?"

"It's the performance," she murmured, finally leaning her head back against the seat. "Everything is a performance there. Even the way they breathe."

She turned her head slightly, her eyes meeting mine. They were wide and searching. For a moment, she looked entirely herself—not the girl who had been performing for her parents all week, but the one who liked to draw on the back of receipts and walk barefoot in the grass.

"I'm glad we're back," she said.

The car began the climb. The road narrowed, flanked by stone walls covered in ancient, neon-green moss. The hills of Risca and Crosskeys began to lean in, cradling the road. They looked like giant, sleeping animals covered in wet velvet.

"Look," she whispered, pointing out the window at a garden passing by as we slowed for a junction.

Tucked against a grey stone wall, defying the cooling autumn air, was a single, stubborn yellow flower—late-blooming and bright.

"A daffodil?" I asked, leaning closer.

"No," she smiled, and it was the first real smile I'd seen since we left the coast. "Too early. It's just a weed, probably. But it looks like one. A little bit of gold in the mud."

Peter turned the indicator on, the clicking sound echoing in the quiet cabin as we turned toward the valley floor. "Welcome home, you lot. Let's go put the kettle on and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist for an hour."

The cottage didn't just welcome us; it exhaled.

As soon as Peter killed the engine, the silence of the valley rushed in—thick, damp, and smelling of wet slate. Inside, the air was cool and smelled of the dried lavender Mama kept in a jar by the door. We didn't do much. There was no grand unpacking. We were too tired for the geography of suitcases.