Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I swear, the first thing she’s going to do when we walk through the door is ask when she’s getting more grandkids.”

Affectionately, Callie snorted softly and reached over the center console to fix a messy strand of hair on Arizona’s temple. “Maybe she has a point,” she murmured, teasingly waggling her eyebrows when her wife briefly turned away from the road to give her a lighthearted glare. “I mean,” Callie paused to chuckle, nodding towards the back seat, “she needs someone to fuss over when that one starts snoring, which is… often.”

Arizona let out a breath, possibly a disguised laugh. The corners of her lips tugged upwards just barely, but enough for Callie to notice. “You know, if I had any siblings, the whole ‘Barbara wants grandkids’ thing wouldn’t just fall on me,” she proclaimed, more rhetorical than anything.

Callie wisely chose not to answer.

“She’s going to bring up Gladys from her book club who has three grandkids and a golden retriever, and how full Gladys’ heart must be compared to my mother’s arms, as if she’s not actively squeezing Sofia to death. Then she’s going to bring out a photo album and use Sofia’s cuteness as leverage, which is not fair, and then I’ll say that our family is beautiful the way it is, but she won’t accept that because ‘one or two more babies will only make it more beautiful’.”

Callie laughed with fondness written all over her face. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘I’ll say’ and ‘she’ll say’. Are you sure you’re not -?”

“Calliope.” Arizona glanced over, her blue eyes narrowed but sparkling. “I am not stressed. I am calm. I am the definition of calm. I am a surgeon. I clip aneurysms for breakfast.”

“Uh-huh. And yet, your shoulders are practically in your ears.”

Stubbornly, Arizona pushed her shoulders down and sighed. “It’s just… holidays are… They’re loud. And ever since… Mom over-preps and Dad over-plans, like I… do,” she added reluctantly, wrinkling her nose. “She’s not trying to be controlling, I know that, but she has to have everything be perfect so maybe it makes up for certain people not being there, and every single time, she tries to not think about it and then there’s a picture, or a homemade Christmas ornament, or Sofia has entered a bedroom and left the door open, and Mom gets so… heartbroken and disappointed. Except she tries to hide it with a smile, which Dad can see right through and then he gets all… gloomy too.”

Callie reached over to gently squeeze Arizona’s wrist, just as Sofia, in the backseat, let out three little snores in quick succession. “There it is.”

“There what is?”

“The tiny little truth,” murmured Callie as she moved her hand to tuck that same rogue strand behind Arizona’s ear again. “You want it to go well. You want everyone to feel good. You want it to be perfect.”

Arizona scoffed quietly, her hands tightening on the wheel. “Christmas at my parents’ house will never be perfect again. We’ll make it the best ever for Sofia, but for me, it will never be perfect.”

Arizona eased the car to the curb and killed the engine. For a moment they just sat in the quiet, heater ticking as it cooled. The house in front of them glowed under a thick layer of snow, white string lights flickering. The reindeer that Tim knocked over at least once every holiday season stood proudly in its designated spot in the yard, its red knitted scarf folded with the Colonel’s precision. The house looked like it always did during Christmas – homey, warm and lived in.

Sofia blinked awake in the back, wearing her candy-cane neck pillow like a crooked scarf, and declared, “I wasn’t asleep,” to no one in particular. Arizona’s lips tugged up in a smile and she turned her head. “Ready?”

“Super ready!” Sofia exclaimed with a big grin, practically bouncing in her seat. (Callie’s eyebrows arched at the obvious perk Sofia had inherited.) Sofia unbuckled her seatbelt and rushed out of the car, her breath fogging the air immediately. It took all but two seconds before she reached the porch and flung herself into Barbara’s awaiting arms, wrapping her arms around her grandmother’s neck. “Hi.”

“Hi sweetheart,” Barbara murmured softly, kissing her hair. “I missed you.”

Sofia’s eyes sparkled. “I missed you more.”

“Not possible.” Barbara looked up, arms warm and smile warmer, and clicked Arizona walking up the porch steps with a suitcase trailing behind and a duffel bag over her shoulder. “I miss the times when you would run up the stairs to hug me,” she teased lightly as she stepped over to rest her daughter, one arm wrapping tightly around her shoulders as the other was still around Sofia.

“I’ve learned to let the younger generation take over that responsibility,” Arizona countered cheekily, hugging back and kissing her mother’s cheek. “Hey Mom.”

Barbara pulled back with a smile, patting Arizona’s cheek as she looked down the driveway. “Callie, come here!”

Arizona’s eyebrows quirked up. “Wow,” she mouthed sarcastically. “Talk about having favorites,” she mumbled under her breath, squeezing Sofia’s shoulder gently as she stepped around her to get to the door. She stopped just short of her stoic father, who surprisingly leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Hi Dad.”

“Battleship,” greeted Daniel with a curt nod. The hint of a smile on his face was evident only to those closest to him. “Drive okay?”

“It was okay. Some traffic but we made it in three whole pieces.”

At that, Barbara turned around and looked between Arizona and Callie. “Oh, so no… extra piece?” she asked hopefully, though a little disappointed.

Even as Callie ducked her head down to hide her laughter, Arizona rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “Mom, no. No extra piece. Just us three. Isn’t that good enough?”

Barbara couldn’t fight her own smile, as if she was half-teasing. “Oh it is. It’s perfect, but it could be more perfect.”

“Mom –“

“I’ll let it go. It’s Christmas. But I wouldn’t say no to a special present this year, just to put that out there.”

“Of course Barbara. We’ll discuss it.”

“I can’t believe you told my mother that we will think about more kids.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

Sighing heavily, which really seemed like her go-to reaction at the moment, Arizona turned slightly away from unpacking her suitcase and looked at Callie with a defeated but loving look. “Of course. We are thinking about it, and we’re discussing it, at length, but we both know it’s not that easy. You can’t get pregnant. I can, but I don’t want to lose it, because we both know how hard it was, for both of us. I don’t want that to happen but you know I want a kid more. But telling Mom is like telling the White House press secretary,” she said with a small wave of her hands. “She’s going to take it and spin it into some big announcement that we’re expecting triplets by Easter. And she’ll probably knit cute little outfits.”

Callie leaned against the dresser, watching her. “Okay, in my defense, she cornered us. I was just trying to get the conversation over with as soon as possible without disappointing her.”

Arizona shook her head, letting out a small laugh that was barely more than a puff of air. “I love you for that,” she murmured, abandoning the shirt in her hands to shuffle over to Callie and kiss her gently. “I love that you consider everyone and care about everyone’s feelings.”

Their foreheads touched first, simple and steadying. Callie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and tilted her chin. Arizona didn’t make her wait. Their kiss was soft, a gentle press of lips, then another. Arizona’s lip balm tasted like mint, a cool chock that made Callie hum.

“Minty,” Callie whispered, smiling against Arizona’s lips, and Arizona just grinned faintly, kissing her again as her fingers slipped beneath the hem of Callie’s sweater, just far enough to feel the warmth of her skin.

The moment was broken by three gentle taps on the door – Sofia’s signature knock – and they broke apart. Callie’s fingers squeezed Arizona’s wrist as she called out, “What is it?”

“Grandma says dinner is ready.”

“Okay. Thank you. We’ll be right out.”

“So how are you two doing?”

Sofia had gone to bed about half an hour before, and Arizona had counted the minutes until that question came out of her mother’s mouth. It wasn’t like she minded, quite the contrary really. Barbara had always been a little nosy about her love life, certainly when that love life revolved around Callie Torres, and Arizona had always shared. Maybe not everything, but more than enough to keep her mother happy. But Arizona knew her mother like the back of her hand, and she knew that Barbara was mostly trying to keep herself busy enough to not think about the fact that not everyone in the family were here celebrating the holidays with them.

She cleared her throat, dragging herself from her thoughts, and gave her mother a small smile. “We’re good. More than good. We just got married again a few months ago, and obviously we hadn’t been together for that long before that, but I think it’s going really well. We fit,” she finished simply, shrugging a little.

“Yeah,” corroborated Callie, her arm draped over the back of the couch behind Arizona. “And we’ve talked about everything that went wrong back in Seattle. Crashes, legs, visiting surgeons, custody battles included. We’re working through everything at our own pace in a way that works best for us. I think that’s the most we can do. There’s no right way to do it but it’s what works for us.”

Barbara’s eyes softened (although Daniel barely moved from his seat in the leather recliner, just flipped the page of his newspaper, pretending not to care). “You do fit,” she agreed softly. “And you look peaceful. For the first time in a while.”

Arizona glanced over at Callie, who was already looking at her. “Yeah, I guess we do,” she said, and she heard the honesty in her own voice.

They fell into easier topics then. The kind that was less conversation and more chit-chat – Barbara and Callie traded recipes, plans were debated and then abandoned, Daniel produces a box of Christmas ornaments from Arizona’s childhood just to keep the women busy with something so he could read his newspaper in peace. At some point, Barbara rose from the couch and reached for the matchbook on the mantle. The room was already soft with gently yellow tree lights, but the scrape of the match was sharp, a hiss in the silence. She lit the first candle and put it to the right, directly in front of the picture of Tim in his dress uniform. Arizona’s chest tightened, as did Callie’s hand in hers.

Then Barbara struck another match.

This time, Arizonas spine went rigid. “Mom,” she warned quietly, and she hated the hint of plea in her tone. Barbara didn’t look back. “Mom…”

Her mother blew out the match and set it aside, her thumb brushing against the wide grin in the photo on the left side of the mantle, pressing her lips together briefly. “It’s Christmas. I’m going to light two,” she finally replied, decisive.

“Okay then, why not light three?”

Barbara turned around and gave Arizona a small smile. “I don’t need to light three. You’re here,” she explained simply. “I get to look at you. I’ve lost that with Tim, and… I’m not sure I’m ever going to get that chance with… your sister again either. I’m lighting two candles for my children that can’t be here. She didn’t stop being my daughter just because she made choices none of us understood, or liked.”

“She didn’t stop being our daughter,” Daniel said, lowering the newspaper as he kept his voice level, “but we don’t have to –“ He broke off, just long enough to swallow a lump in his throat. “We don’t have to do this.”

“She chose this,” Arizona continued, lifting her eyebrows. “You know she did. She made it very clear she was done. Why are we… memorializing that next to Tim?”

Barbara’s eyes flickered as she brushed her hands down the sides of her cardigan. “It’s not a memorial. It’s… a light on the mantle. In case she wants to find her way home. I’ll wait,” she added quietly. “You don’t have to like it – I knew you had your differences and I know it just got worse after we lost Tim – but I am her mother and I get to hope.”

For a second, no one said anything, but eventually, Arizona held up her hands in front of her and nodded, backing down. “Okay,” she conceded quietly. “You’re right. But I won’t. She hasn’t cared enough to call me or just tell me she’s alive, for eleven years. I’m not going to go around hoping anymore,” she admitted honestly, shaking her head slightly as she stood up. She walked over to Barbara and kissed her cheek, then stepped over to kiss the top of Daniel’s head. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight. I love you.”

“Goodnight, Battleship.”

Arizona tilted her head on her pillow and twisted her hands on her stomach. “Are you not going to tell me I was too harsh?” she asked, blinking slowly.

“Mm, no,” replied Callie without looking up from her phone. “It’s not my place. Your feelings are valid. They might not be the same as your mother’s, but they’re still valid, and understandable. The situations are different but you would never tell me I was too harsh with my dad if I said what I felt about my sister.”

There was a teeny tiny pout on Arizona’s lips as she shifted to lay curled up against Callie’s side, putting her head on her shoulder and halfheartedly watching along as Callie scrolled through her social media feed. “What do you think?”

“About the situation?”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t say anything for several seconds, just let her thumb hover above her screen as she thought. “I think…” She paused, put her phone down and wrapped her arm around Arizona’s shoulders, squeezing gently. “I think she has a niece she has never met. I think words were exchanged that both sides regret. I think your father has a hard time even saying her name. I think I don’t know the whole story. You haven’t told me all the details. So what I think, isn’t something you should base your approach on. You know exactly what happened, who said what and how everyone reacted. I don’t want you to take my words as the truth when I don’t know the whole story. But I can tell you that from an outside perspective it looks like four people who didn’t know how to grieve a son or a brother, collectively in a way that helped everyone. Now, I’m not really sure how the Colonel works because he’s a quiet man, but I think your mom and you are people who wanted to grieve Tim together, with each other and with your sister. I just think your sister didn’t know how to give you guys that in a way that benefitted her.”

Arizona sighed, shifting onto her back. “He feels guilty,” she proclaimed as she directed her gaze up at the ceiling. “About Tim, for helping him enlist, which is not Dad’s fault because Tim would have done it alone if he had to. About being proud of his son being a marine when in the end that’s what killed him. About…”

She paused and swallowed a thick lump in her throat, then biting her lip until it turned white from the pressure. “About telling…” It took a few seconds before she continued, using the time to rub at her face with her palms. “About telling Vanessa that if she went through with it and enlisted in the Marines after Tim died… he wouldn’t consider her his daughter anymore.”

Chapter Text

At breakfast, no one mentioned the mantle.

Neither Arizona nor Callie needed to mention it for it to be true; Sofia was the center of the room’s gravity. Barbara cut pancakes into lopsided stars and found the best berries to place on Sofia’s plate. She laughed too hard at Sofia’s terrible jokes and remembered every single detail about Sofia’s school art project before Christmas, just so she could ask about it. Like always, Daniel pretended to read the paper but never turned the page. His coffee cooled as he watched Sofia butter her toast with grave concentration. When she reached for the jam, his hand was already there to steady the bottle. When he noticed she was a little too far away from the table, he pulled her closer with a careful tug. When she got whipped cream on her flushed cheek, he wiped it away with the corner of his napkin and teasingly bopped her nose to make her laugh. When Sofia leaned into him, his shoulders eased and Barbara’s eyes softened significantly.

Barbara caught her daughter by the sink after Sofia had declared her tummy full and ran off to play with Arizona’s old toys. She gently bumped Arizonas hip with her own and handed her another plate to clean as she reached for the towel. “Thank you for bringing her,” she finally said, her voice soft and warm. “Sofia. This house feels… better, with her.”

For a moment, Arizona just nodded, but then she opened her mouth, lips tugging up in a smile as she did. “Yeah. Everything feels better with her. It always has and it always will.”

“Of course. She’s your daughter.”

An uncomfortable pause followed. When Arizona finally turned to meet Barbara’s gaze, she saw the still raw and misty hurt in her mother’s usually clear eyes. “Mom…” she murmured quietly, letting out a soft sigh as she shook her hands to rid herself off water and stepped forward to embrace her tightly. “I’m sorry about last night.”

Barbara shook her head against Arizona’s shoulder. “No, no. It’s just… it’s Christmas, and Timothy loved Christmas and Vanessa –“

She stopped in the name like it had sharp edges, taking a deep breath. “And the house remembers, even if we try not to.”

Arizona’s fingers tightened on her mother’s back, not quite a rub. “I know. I know, Mom,” she whispered back, giving Barbara half a smile when they leaned back so their eyes met.

“He’d always steal the candy canes and she’d move the reindeer three inches to the left just to watch your father notice,” Barbara recalled with a soft, wet laugh. “You were very different children, all of you. Every time we went to the playground, you would sit on the swings, Tim would be on the monkey bars and Vanessa would jump from the roof of the playhouse to test gravity.”

“Demolition truck.”

With familiar, fond exasperation, Barbara looked at Arizona’s grin and huffed out a laugh. “She really was. Dove head first into everything, sometimes literally.”

“All the time, Mom,” corrected Arizona, rubbing Barbara’s upper arms. “It was all the time. She would bulldoze her way through soccer, knock down everyone in her way and yell ‘shark’ every two seconds. She would knock someone down, hover over them with a genuine frown and ask ‘why you cry? Just a fall’ like she hadn’t just knocked the wind out of that poor child,” she pointed out, then she tilted her head and shrugged. “I know none of us like it, but were any of us really surprised when she enlisted? I mean, it’s in character.”

Barbara pulled away slightly and went back to drying the dishes, her brain going numb from the pain and emotion the topic brought. “No,” she agreed after a long while. “No, I guess not. It’s just…”

“Not how you wanted it to happen?”

“God no. Never in a million years.”

“Cold?”

Arizona tucked her gloved hand into the crook of Callie’s elbow, leaning closer as they strolled lazily through the neighborhood. “I’m okay. You’re warm,” she murmured. They’d decided to go for a walk when Sofia said her grandparents were in charge of bedtime, and had barely stepped off the porch when the snow started drizzling, like powdered sugar. The kind that never really sticks until it does.

Callie wrinkled her nose with a teasing gleam in her eyes. “I’ve met you. We’ll keep it short. Fifteen minutes, tops,” she said, smiling.

“Ha ha ha,” replied Arizona sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “I love the snow. I do. It’s Christmas paradise. But I’m not as warm-blooded as you,” she tried to excuse, breaking out into a smile when Callie chuckled.

They crossed the street. A lonely dog barked once on a porch, then thought better of getting up. A car turned into a driveway and parked slowly, the engine turning off merely seconds later. Somewhere else, a siren sounded through the night and then faded off.

“My leg’s fine,” Arizona said after a while, completely unprompted, which was something Callie knew she was trying to get better at (in return, Callie was trying to not ask as often, to let Arizona come to her). “It’s just… the socket hates the cold when I’ve been still all day, and then when I start moving again, it’s like – well, I just feel like I’ve climbed Mount Everest, really.”

“Want to turn back?”

“No,” answered Arizona with a shake of her head, her gentle smile back. “I like walking with my wife. She’s very good at holding hands,” she added and reached down to entwine her mitten with Callie’s. “And it’s peaceful. I like the peace.”

Callie stopped, tugged Arizona to a halt and dragged her closer, wrapping her arms around Arizona’s waist. “You know what I like?” she asked, mostly rhetorical, as she grinned charmingly. “You.”

Arizona’s breath puffed between them. “Good taste,” she whispered before tilting her head just right to brush her lips against Callie’s – soft, short and sweet. “I like you too, for the record.”

“I would be sad if you didn’t.”

“I’m gonna go take a shower,” Arizona said and smiled as she leaned in to peck Callie’s lips, grinning slightly when Callie curled her fingers into her shirt to keep her close so their kiss could carry on. “You’re really distracting,” she murmured quietly directly against her lips.

Callie grinned, draping her arms over Arizona’s shoulders, and she gently started nibbling on her bottom lip before pulling back, biting the corner of her lip. “Can I join –“

“Absolutely not,” muttered Daniel harshly from the other side of the kitchen, walking over and dragging the two women apart before lightly pushing Arizona towards the stairs. “The same rules apply as before. Whatever you do at home, that’s your business, but here there will be no shared showers or inappropriate clothing or innuendos or late night giggling from your room. Arizona, go take a shower. Callie… just stay downstairs.”

Arizona chuckled, shooting Callie a wink before disappearing upstairs, leaving her wife with her terrifying father. Callie cleared her throat awkwardly and too thoroughly dried her hands just to have something to do as Daniel glared at her. “So…” she started uncomfortably, “how’s retirement?”

“Retirement is fine,” he replied, folding his arms over his chest as he eyed her.

Callie nodded and swallowed but forced herself to look up at Daniel, biting her lip. “Are we going to pretend that we don’t both know you referred a bunch of your army buddies to my veteran program?” she asked quietly, and Barbara stopped what she was doing to look at her husband in silent shock.

Daniel shook his head once. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied dismissively, clearly not being entirely truthful. Callie just gave him a small look, and surprisingly, he sighed quietly, moving over to sort through the pile of mail that were laying on the kitchen island to be read through at some point. “You do great work, Dr. Torres. It would be a shame if the ones who needed that work didn’t know about it. I was only trying to help my men out.”

“Oh Daniel, you know you love me,” Callie pointed out with a dramatically big grin, jumping over to hug him tightly and press a smacking kiss to his cheek. “I’m your favorite daughter-in-law.”

“You’re also my only one, Callie,” he reasoned easily, uncomfortably patting her arm to get her to let go, which she eventually did. “But I do know there is no one else who is able to put that smile on her face.”

Callie blushed and looked down at her feet, somewhat embarrassed, twisting her lips when she eventually looked back up at him, then let her eyes bounce between the elderly couple. “Thanks for… not, y’know, beating me up too much over my previous… actions.”

“Oh honey,” murmured Barbara. “You both made decisions that were questionable, at best. It’s not our right to judge. If you’ve forgiven each other and moved on, good for you and we’ll support you. We love you like a daughter, Callie. That has never changed. Do you know what I see? I see two people who love each other very deeply. I see a stubborn blonde who willingly brings up her feelings about things that happened, something she never would have done before. I see a young girl who smiles more than she ever has. I see you who looks at her wife with such blinding love and affection. I see two mothers with the utmost respect for each other. That’s what matters. Not what’s in the past. Let that fall between the cracks and focus on the future, your future.”

Daniel grunted, which in his language meant agreement. He squared the stack of mail with his hands and placed it in the far corner of the countertop. “I stand by my rules,” he added, because clearly he could only be vulnerable for a few seconds at a time. “This is my house.”

“Understood, Colonel,” Callie said, mouth curling into a smile. “Separate water pipes. Modest clothing. Lights out at a reasonable hour.”

He hovered for a few moments, then he cleared his throat. “For the record,” he started, his eyes on the window, “your program, it’s good. My men, who became your patients, they speak very highly of you. Say what you do helped.”

“I’m glad,” Callie said. “You can tell them it’s mutual. Veterans make very stubborn, very excellent patients.”

“That’s how I trained them.”

There was a familiar, melodic knock on the door, and Arizona let out a tiny groan into her pillow, turning her head towards the door eventually. “Come in.”

The door pushed open slowly and Sofia shuffled in, sleepily and tired, before suddenly running towards the bed and jumping up on it with her stuffed penguin in her hand, immediately slipping under the covers to hug her moms. “Hi mommies, I can’t sleep,” she mumbled, tucking her toes up against Callie’s calf. They were cold enough that Callie yelped quietly and swore under her breath. “I just kept looking at the pictures on the wall and now I’m thinking about them and I can’t sleep.”

Arizona let out a hum of acknowledgment and kissed Sofia’s cheek, barely even opening her eyes. “We can take them down while we’re here if you don’t want them there,” she offered quietly. “Or you can sleep somewhere else.”

Sofia shook her head. “No. I want to see them. That’s the problem, I think. I just get so curious. What were they like? Were they nice? Why did she only have one dimple but you and uncle Tim have two? Did they like to play? Did they like chocolate as much as I do? Could they do ballet?” she rambled on.

Arizona almost laughed into her pillow. “Try rugby,” she corrected amused. She peeked her eyes open further and looked at Sofia’s excited face, just waiting for her mother to start talking. Arizona let out a small breath, almost a sigh. “Tim passed away, sweetie, but Vanessa didn’t. It’s –“

“I know it’s not the same,” Sofia interrupted, tugging the duvet up further. “I know you aren’t really friends anymore, and that Grandma and Grandpa don’t talk to her either, and I will probably never meet her, but I want to know something. Can you tell me something about them?”

For only a hot second, Arizona’s eyes met Callie’s over their daughter’s head before she looked back at Sofia. “Vanessa has two dimples but the right one doesn’t often come out because her smile is crooked. They played all the time. They had so much energy, and your grandma used to get Tim to take Vanessa to the playground just so they could release some of their energy. Grandpa would send them to cut the grass or wash his car if they made too much noise. They loved chocolate. Candy, in general. But they could not do ballet. I don’t think any of them ever tried,” she told, tucking some of Sofia’s hair behind her ear.

Sofia beamed. “Thank you.”

Again, Callie’s and Arizona’s eyes met. This time, Callie gave her a smile, reached for her wrist to squeeze and mouthed “you did good.”

Chapter Text

Sofia didn’t mean to snoop.

(Maybe a little.)

Barbara had sent her up to get the “good blanket” from the closet. The one with the soft edges and the bright colors. The house had gone quiet after lunch: Barbara was knitting a blue scarf for Sofia, Daniel was in his den, Arizona was on the phone with Nicole over a patient, and Callie was reading a book in the living room. The snow was falling down heavily outside, which had had Sofia’s face plastered up against the window to watch earlier.

She’d been sleeping in Vanessa’s old room for the last couple nights, because she’d gotten to pick and sleeping in Tim’s room didn’t feel quite right, but Sofia hadn’t really dared to look through her aunt’s things yet. She knew her mommy wouldn’t approve.

But the closet felt like a treasure chest.

Sofia opened the closet with both hands. It smelled like laundry soap and wood. On the top shelf were shoeboxes labeled in neat handwriting, probably Barbara’s. There were forgotten clothes hanging on the bar, and straight ahead were neatly folded blankets and linens.

She should have just grabbed the blanket and shut the door, like her grandmother said. Instead, Sofia crouched down and tugged a box forward, just a little. It had a uneven piece of masking tape for a label: blocky letters read “VANESSA’S STUFF – ARIZONA DO NOT TOUCH”. That felt like a dare. The cardboard box hadn’t been closed properly and folded open a little, as if it had been expecting to be picked up again someday. She sat down on the floor, cross-legged, and opened it further.

A string of photo booth pictures lay at the top, where three equally blonde kids tried four different versions of ridiculous expressions. Vanessa’s high school chemistry notebook was filled with meaningless doodles, probably because she’d been bored during class, but a yellow sticky note with ripped edges was taped to the back:

• Chemistry homework (ugh) Friday
• Ask Mom to wash soccer cleats
• Say sorry like you mean it
• Be nice to Arizona when she’s bossy       (she’s nervous, don’t be mean)

Sofia bit back a laugh, but a smile still made its way to her face. If this was what it was like to have younger siblings, Sofia wanted every second of it.

The box wasn’t as organized as her mom’s things: a bunch of bracelets were tangled together into one big thing, envelopes with old birthday cards weren’t stacked together with a rubber band around them like Arizona would have done, shin guards still had old grass caught against the plastic, a manila folder titled COLLEGE STUFF was crumpled (and very uninteresting in Sofia’s opinion). There was a U14 soccer trophy, a couple band tees, folded notes passed in class, and even some dirty socks that had Sofia wrinkle her nose in disgust.

At the very bottom, something cream colored and slightly bent at the corners practically lit up, like it wanted to be found. It wasn’t inside an envelope. The first line was visible despite the folding.

Mom

Sofia’s hands went very, very still. For some reason, the paper felt much heavier than any other piece of paper. It probably wasn’t: her nerves were doing tricks. The handwriting was all caps, written like a person who was too fast for their own hands. The paper felt like stepping down onto the last step of the staircase and discovering it was lower than you though. It felt… important.

A shadow moved in the hall. Three soft taps on the closet door – Sofia’s own signature. “You okay, kiddo?” Callie asked, peeking her head around the door. “Your grandma is pretending not to wonder where that blanket went.”

She held the letter in both hands, like a delicate little flower. “I think… I found something,” she whispered, voice small but clear.

Callie took in the scene. The open closet, the box of not so random stuff, the look on her daughter’s face. Her expression shifted. “Okay,” she answered softly. “Do you want to bring it to Grandma? Or should I get Mommy?”

Sofia looked down at the paper. The word “Mom” looked back, thick from being traced twice, as if one pen had run out of ink midway through. “I want Grandma.”

By the time they reached the living room, Sofia had the letter pressed tightly up against her chest. Barbara sat under the lamp with her knitting, a half scarf draped over her knee. She looked up at the sound of them and, before Sofia could say anything, her face changed.

“Oh,” she breathed. Her needles stilled in her hands.

Sofia stopped by the recliner, unsure. “I wasn’t trying to - I’m sorry, I was getting the blanket and then –“

“You got curious,” Barbara finished, a tiny smile in the corner of her mouth. “That’s okay, sweetheart. You’re allowed to be curious. You’re allowed to ask. You’re allowed to look.” She set her knitting aside, smoothed her pants and reached for her granddaughter to pull her into her lap. “I’ve read that a hundred times. Maybe more,” she said, putting her arms loosely around Sofia’s waist and keeping her eyes on the letter. “I found it at the kitchen counter in the morning after she’d left.”

Sofia blinked, innocent but emotional. “She didn’t say goodbye?”

“Not in person,” replied Barbara honestly. “She was never one for emotional conversation. Actually, she hated it. I was surprised she even left a letter, and didn’t just leave. This was the most she could give, and I’m proud of her for that. Eventually I put it at the bottom of her box so I would stop reading it. It didn’t work, for a while. I always knew it was there.”

Sofia tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “What does it say?”

Barbara exhaled slowly. “You can read it yourself. You’re her niece. You deserve to know as much as the rest of us,” she proclaimed and kissed Sofia’s cheek gently.

It took a while before Sofia responded, and when she did, her voice was quiet and unsure. “Can you… can you tell me something about her before I read? So I know her a little more.”

Barbara nodded, thoughtful. “She was the baby,” she began, voice warm and familiar. “Three years younger than Tim and five younger than your mom, which meant she grew up trying to keep up with two people who ran fast in their own directions.”

Sofia smiled as she tucked her feet up on the chair. “Was she small?”

“Small but mighty. What she lacked in size, she made up for in speed and courage. From the start. If there was a puddle, she was in it. If there was a tree, she was halfway up it. If there was a rule, she was negotiating. Bedtime rules, school rules, base rules –“

“Base rules?” Sofia asked confused, frowning.

“When they were young, we moved around a lot, from base to base. There were a lot of rules at the military bases. She wanted to stretch the rules as far as possible.”

Sofia giggled a little. “Did she get in trouble a lot?”

“All the time,” said Barbara fondly. “But she knew how to get out of it too. If there was a loophole, she found it and she used it. She had a murky relationship with rules but a great one with curiosity. She loved science and lessons that let her take something apart. When she was seven, I found her in the garage with my radio and a screwdriver promising that she was improving it.”

“Did she?”

“It only told the weather after that, but she insisted that’s what your grandfather only liked anyway,” she responded dryly, huffing out a laugh as she shook her head. “Your mother was always a little scared of her father, Tim would nod very solemnly and take it, but whenever your grandfather used his colonel voice on your aunt, she would put her hands behind her back like a very serious little soldier and say ‘noted’. He would try very hard not to laugh. He’d clear his throat, do the colonel stance, and she’d… walk right up to him and stand on his shoes so he had to look down at her. He learned very early that it’s hard to be mad at a child attached to his shoes.”

Sofia pressed her fingers against her lips as she giggled again, picturing the scene.

“She was obsessed with sharks. She used to say she was born in the wrong species. Maybe it’s true. She could never sit still like everyone else,” Barbara said, her eyebrows pinching in a way that made her look exactly like Arizona when she’s working. “After… after Tim, she ran. She refused to sit down. She lifted weights. She jumped rope in her kitchen while the food cooked. She wasn’t running away, but everything was louder when she was standing still. She lived in an apartment downtown at that point, and every time I showed up, she was either coming home from the gym with her hair damp, or she was tying her shoes to go. Motion was her safe place.”

At this point, Callie had leaned a little closer on the couch, legs up beneath her, to listen in. The same curiosity that Sofia wore had formed its way onto Callie’s face as well.

Everything Barbara had said was slowly filling itself into her heart and mind, but Sofia still had an infinite number of questions to ask. She hummed and tapped her chin repeatedly. “What was her voice like?” she finally landed on.

“Lower than you’d expect,” Barbara replied, glancing over at Callie. “Arizona has that smooth voice. Vanessa’s was scratchy, a little rough. It fit their personalities. Arizona was sweet and soft and cheerful. Vanessa was a firecracker in human form. And they are both the loves of my life,” she finished in a murmur, smiling a little sadly but peeking up when Sofia hugged her tightly.

Sofia breathed through her mouth and pulled back, eyeing the letter in her lap. “Okay,” she said, nodding once. “I’m ready now, I think.” She shifted so Barbara could easily put her arms around her and she could tuck her head under her grandmother’s chin. Before she’d unfolded the paper fully, she glanced up at Barbara. “Is it okay if I read it in my head first and then we read it together?”

Barbara’s eyes warmed. “Sounds like a perfect plan, honey.”

Mom

I’m writing this in my room because if I try to say it out loud, you’ll talk me into pancakes and I’ll stay. You make staying too easy. I’m leaving in the morning. I’ve signed. It’s done.

I know what Dad said. I heard every word. I know what you would rather I do: go to school, shave half my head and call it liberation, send you postcards from dumb hostels with bad coffee and worn out sweaters. I know you wanted my recklessness to have soft landings.

This isn’t a soft landing. But it’s the only thing that has felt like standing still might actually break me.

I’m not going because of Tim, and I’m not going to be Tim. I know I can’t be. I’m going because the part of me that has always jumped first needs a place where jumping means something and not just bruises and broken bones. I need to do something that is bigger than the noise in my head and the ache in this house. I need to carry the weight on purpose.

I don’t expect you to forgive me for the timing or the choice. Be angry if you need to be. I can take it. I would rather you be honest than pretend this doesn’t crack something. It cracks something in me, too.

Tell Dad I heard him, and I’m going anyway. If he can’t call me his daughter right now, I will hold that without throwing it back. I’m not asking him to follow me. I’m not even asking him to love me. I’m asking him not to forget I exist. If all he can do is make sure everything is straight and the driveway is clear, then that’s something. Let him be useful. He’s good at that.

Tell Arizona, I’m sorry for all the ways we stopped knowing how to talk. She’ll try to be the strong one. A good man in a storm. Don’t let her be alone in that. Give her your stars-and-berries pancakes and make her sit at the table until her shoulders come down. She pretends she doesn’t need it. She does.

I don’t know when I’ll write. I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to. I don’t know if I’ll be brave enough to send it if I am. I don’t know if I’ll ever come back home. That’s the part that makes my hands shake. But I know this: I am yours. Even if I am far, even if Dad says otherwise, even if I’m a stupid bulldozer who only learned how to charge. I am yours.

If anything with my name on it shows up at the house and you don’t want to open it, don’t. If you do, do. I’m not going to make rules for your heart. Bake a cake, clean my room, give Bruce a kiss, light a candle if it helps. Don’t, if it hurts. You get to choose the rituals.

I left my keys in the kitchen because I kept trying to pack them and it felt like lying. I moved all the stuff in the garage three inches to the left. Make Dad notice. It’ll give him something to fix.

I love you. I love this house when it smells like pine and laundry soap. I love that you hide the candy too high and pretend not to. I love that you still kiss my hair like I’m five and too fast for my own feet.

Don’t build a lighthouse. Don’t wait at the window. Live the loud, ordinary days. Whatever happens, keep going.

Your loud one,

Vanessa