She’d realized she was finally strong enough to open herself to her parents in hopes that they could find their way back to each other again and recapture that closeness they’d had before.

She knew they loved her. They just didn’t understand why she hadn’t moved back home. Her insistence at being independent and getting her degree had been perceived as a rejection of them and their attempts to help. They’d wanted to give her money, but it would have dented their savings, and they needed it now that her father had retired after an injury he suffered on the job. They’d wanted her to live at home while finishing school so she wouldn’t have the pressure of paying rent and having to work at the café.

How could she explain that paying her rent, having a job, finishing school, making her own choices to make her way in her life gave her the sense of control she needed after having none for so long? They didn’t understand it when she’d made an attempt to say so, to tiptoe around how every day for a few years, someone had made every possible choice for her until she had nothing. Had made her nothing. Bill had told her what to wear, how to look, who her friends were, what party to vote for. Just paying rent with the salary from her job meant something to her in a way she felt impossible to get across.

The small house in the nearby working-class suburb of Des Moines was the one she’d grown up in. Her father had been an ironworker, her mom stayed at home with her and later on, she’d run a day care. James and Moira Tipton were good people in the best sense of the word. They worked hard and raised a family—Ella, the baby, and Michael, also known as Mick, who was seven years older.

Her family had given her all the foundation she needed to build her life from the ashes, and she never wanted to forget that. Perhaps it was time to say that to them.

She let herself in with her keys and hung her coat in the hall closet. The house smelled of garlic and onions and the hint of cinnamon she knew was a result of her mom’s apple pie. This was what had built the person she was. Home and hearth and people who loved you and were happy to see you even when things weren’t perfect.

“Hey there!” she called as she came through into the family room adjacent to the kitchen where her mother currently stood at the stove. Her father was in his favorite chair, so she leaned down to hug and kiss him. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hey, sweetheart.” He patted her hand and smiled. “Glad you’re here.”

She leaned in. “Yeah? That ’cause Mom wouldn’t let you have any roast until I got here?”

Her mother hooted with laughter. “She’s got your number, James. You’ve got some color in your cheeks today, Ella. Come and let me look at you.”

Her father got up as she did, moving to the table.

Placing her package on the counter first, Ella hugged her mother, letting the pleasure of that simple contact comfort her. No matter the strain she had with them at times, a hug could always make her feel better. Keep that connection despite their disagreements.

“I brought a pie, but that was silly of me.” Ella carried the platter of meat to the table as her mom followed with bread still warm from the oven.

“A man can always eat more pie.”

“Not if his doctor told him to slow down on the sweets.” Her mother shot him a look, and he snorted.

“So, how are things, Ella?” Her father turned to look in her direction as she sat down.

Gah! Dangerous territory right away. He was totally throwing her under the bus to get around the pie conversation. Sneaky.

“Good. Busy, but that’s all right. I talked to Uncle Michael day before yesterday. He and Mick were on their way to some remote village. Sounded great. Mick got on for a few minutes. He’s met a new woman. She’s English, which he knows is risky and all.” She grinned at her mother, who tsked and rolled her eyes.

“Why does that boy torment himself with Englishwomen?”

Mick had been married for three years. Rebecca had been an aid worker too, but she’d wanted to get out. To move to London or Seattle and start a family. Mick wasn’t ready, and things had fallen apart. Mick took responsibility for it, and Rebecca had been a lovely woman. But they got divorced anyway, and Rebecca was now someone else’s wife with a toddler and a thriving medical practice in Virginia.

Four years later, Mick was still single, but this new woman had possibilities. Even better, in Mick’s letters over the last eighteen months, she’d found a man who was maturing at long last, a man who seemed ready to start thinking about a family.

“She seems nice, Mom. She’s an American; I was just teasing. Her father is English, but her mother is American, and she grew up here in the States.” Ella paused to butter the warm roll and sigh happily after the first bite. “So good. Anyway, Mick sounded happier than I’ve heard him sound in a long time.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it. He calls you far more than he calls us.” Her mother sniffed her annoyance. Mick did call her more often because he’d ended up on Ella’s side of this divide she had with their parents. He’d understood why it was important to her to do things for herself. Ella figured he called her more often to fill in the gap, make sure she felt connected and loved, even when he was out of the country.

But Mick wasn’t her mother, and he wasn’t just a few miles away where she could see him all the time and hang out. She’d missed that ease and closeness she’d grown up with. The loneliness of it had been difficult to bear, and it wasn’t until the last four or five months that she’d begun to deepen her friendships with what she’d always thought of as Erin’s crowd. Now they were her crowd too.