Month Eighty-Two: November 1st
Twenty-eight days until Killian came home.
Four weeks. Less than a month. Countable in hours if Isla wanted to drive herself insane.
Six hundred and seventy-two hours. Forty thousand three hundred and twenty minutes. Two million four hundred and nineteen thousand two hundred seconds.
She was counting. Obsessively. Compulsively. Unable to think about anything else.
"Mama, you're staring at the calendar again," Sera said.
"I know. I'm just—thinking."
"About dada coming home?"
"Yes."
"Are you excited?"
"Yes. And terrified. And—and not ready. But also so ready I can't stand waiting anymore."
Sera climbed onto Isla's lap. Almost too big for it now. Growing up too fast.
"Mama, what if dada doesn't like how we live? What if he thinks we do things wrong?"
"Then we talk about it. We compromise. We figure out what works for all three of us."
"What if we can't compromise? What if dada wants everything his way?"
