Hailey woke to warmth.
Not heat — not yet — but the gentle, enveloping warmth of late morning light settling across her face through curtains she had known since childhood. It lay differently here than anywhere else she had lived: softened by fabric worn thin with years of washing, filtered through jacaranda leaves outside the window, carrying the faint gold tint of Nerua sun rather than the pale, distant brightness of northern skies.
For several seconds she did not open her eyes.
The mattress dipped slightly beneath her hip in a way her body recognised before memory did. The pillow held the scent of sun-dried cotton and lavender soap. Somewhere in the house, a cupboard door closed with the familiar, hollow wooden thud she had heard every morning for most of her life.
Home.
The word settled slowly through her, heavier than she expected.
Her eyes opened.
The ceiling above her remained the same pale cream, hairline cracks feathering from the corner where the plaster had once shifted in rainy season. The fan turned in its old, faintly uneven rhythm. Her bookshelf still leaned a fraction to the left, overburdened even now with school texts, yellowing paperbacks, and a clay bead bracelet she had made at ten and never thrown away.
Nothing had changed.
And yet everything had.
She turned her head on the pillow.
Her suitcase stood unopened near the wardrobe. Her handbag rested folded on the chair. Someone had drawn the curtains halfway — enough to let light in, not enough to wake her too soon.
Her mother.
The memory rose with the softness of dawn.
The knock had sounded louder than intended in the sleeping morning.
Hailey had stood on the familiar doorstep, travel-stiff, dawn-chilled, suddenly unsure in a way she had not felt in years. The house lay quiet behind the door — curtains drawn, porch light off, the deep stillness of a family home before waking.
Then movement inside.
Slippered steps. The latch turning.
The door opened a cautious span.
Her mother stood framed in dim hallway light, robe hastily tied, headscarf slipping loose at one side. Sleep still softened her face — until recognition struck.
She froze.
"Hailey," she breathed.
Not question. Not doubt. Her name, fragile with disbelief.
"Mama."
The word broke the moment open.
Her mother's hand rose, hovered as though afraid of illusion, then touched her cheek — warm, real, trembling. Tears filled her eyes at once.
"You're here."
"I wanted to surprise you."
"You did," her mother whispered, pulling her into her arms.
The embrace was not tight or desperate. It was full, enveloping — the long-withheld hold of someone who had waited years and did not trust herself to clutch too hard in case the moment shattered.
"You didn't tell us," she murmured into Hailey's hair.
"I wanted to come home quietly."
Her mother leaned back, studying her face with searching attention. "You're tired."
"Very."
"Then inside. Your father is still asleep. We'll let you rest first."
She took Hailey's hand and led her in.
Hailey blinked, returning to the present.
The room held the same filtered light, the same suspended stillness. But now the house had fully woken around her. Voices drifted faintly from down the corridor. Crockery touched crockery. The low murmur of morning radio carried through walls unchanged by time.
Her chest tightened unexpectedly.
This was real. She was here. The years abroad — the distance, the separateness, the carefully constructed independence — had folded overnight into a childhood room that had never stopped expecting her return.
She pushed the covers back and sat up slowly.
The floor felt cool beneath her bare feet.
Outside, somewhere in the garden, a bird called — sharp, bright, unmistakably Nerua morning.
Hailey stood.
And went to meet her life again.