He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Elena said her mom would never invite people to stay at someone else’s house without asking. Then she looked at me like I had lost my mind.”
I sat in the porch chair beside him.
“Had you?”
“Maybe temporarily.”
I smiled despite myself.
His apology, when it came, was awkward and incomplete.
“I should have asked.”
I waited.
He looked at me.
“And I should not have told them you were excited when I had not even talked to you.”
I waited again.
He sighed.
“And I should have congratulated you before turning your house into a solution.”
“Yes.”
“You could make this easier.”
There was the old Julian, trying one last door.
“I could,” I said. “I am choosing not to.”
To my surprise, he nodded.
Saturday arrived bright and cold.
I knew Elena’s family had reached Boulder because Elena sent one message: “Everyone made it. Hotel chaos, but alive.”
I replied with a smiling face, then spent the morning hanging pictures.
At noon, the doorbell rang.
I opened it to find Elena alone, holding a paper bag.
“I asked before coming,” she said.
“You did.”
“May I come in?”
I stepped aside.
The bag contained a loaf of bread, a jar of preserves her mother had made, and a small potted rosemary plant.
“My mom wanted you to have these,” Elena said. “She also wants you to know she is mortified.”
