My mind said stranger. My body said home. I didn't know which to trust.
It started during Leo's bath time, three days after the kitchen incident neither of them had mentioned.
Elara ran the water, testing the temperature with her wrist the way mothers had done for generations. But her hand moved with more certainty than conscious thought—adjusting the tap to precisely the right warmth, adding bubbles until they frothed exactly to chin-height on a three-year-old.
"Boat, Mama!" Leo demanded, already stripping off his dinosaur pajamas.
Elara turned to the toy basket, her hand reaching automatically to the left corner where—
Where a small blue sailboat sat, exactly where her hand had known to find it.
She froze, staring at the toy in her palm. She hadn't seen Leo play with it before. Hadn't consciously noted its location. But her hand had known. Had reached for it with the muscle memory of someone who'd performed this ritual dozens, maybe hundreds of times.
