Her mother was waiting in the doorway, and as Elise got out of her car, she came running out and flung her arms around her daughter.
“I’m all right, Mom,” Elise said, her voice slightly muffled by her mother’s shoulder.
“I’m just so glad you were away when this happened,” her mother said. “When I think of what could have happened if you had been home—”
“It’s all right, Marilyn,” her father’s voice rumbled. Elise felt his broad hand on her shoulder. “You two get inside. I’ll bring her suitcase.”
Elise’s mother steered her to the kitchen table. “Have you eaten?” she asked.
“Not since the meal on the plane.”
“I’ll fix you something.”
“Mom, it’s midnight.”
“You have to eat.” Her mother went to the refrigerator. “We have leftover lasagna. Can I heat that up for you?”
Elise was incapable of saying no to her mother’s lasagna, midnight or not. “Okay,” she said.
Her father came in, wheeling the suitcase behind him. “I’ll put this in your bedroom for you.”
Elise felt a burst of warm gratitude to her parents for never remodeling the bedroom that had been hers as a child. She had encouraged them to do so several times, but they had always insisted that she needed to have a room at their house. Now she was glad it was there. It would be a comfort to be able to fall asleep in a place that felt so familiar.
Her mother put the lasagna on the table. “Have you called the police?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Elise said. “I panicked. I didn’t know what to do.”
“We’ll call them in the morning,” her mother said. “This break-in probably happened days ago, so there’s nothing urgent about reporting it right now. Oh, Elise, what a thing to come home to. I’m so sorry this happened.”
“It’s all right,” Elise said, even though it wasn’t. “I’m just glad I could come here.”
“You can always come here,” her mother said.
“And we want to hear all about your trip,” her father added, coming back into the room and taking a seat beside her. “Any chance of some more of that lasagna?” he asked her mother.
“I’ll get it,” Elise offered. “You can sit down, Mom.”
“Don’t be silly.” Her mother was already moving toward the refrigerator. “You’ve been through hell today. Stay where you are.”
“It really hasn’t been that bad,” Elise said. “Except for coming back to my apartment. That part was pretty terrible.”
“How long was that airplane ride?” her mother asked.
“Thirteen hours,” Elise said. “But it wasn’t a problem. I slept through most of it, honestly.”
“Oh, I can’t stand being on planes,” her mother said. “Even a flight to Chicago is too much for me.”
“It was cramped,” Elise agreed. “But it was definitely worth it to see Rome.”
“Was it everything you dreamed it would be?”
“It was better,” Elise said.
“What was the best thing you did?” her father asked.
Elise hesitated. As much as she had looked forward to sharing the story of her time with Lucas, now that the moment had come, she found that she didn’t want to tell it after all. She wanted to keep it to herself. She didn’t want to answer a bunch of questions about him, and she certainly didn’t want her mother asking her whether she planned on seeing him again.
It would take away some of the magic.
“I guess the best thing was seeing the Spanish Steps,” she said at last, even though that was far from the truth.
“Did you climb to the top?” her father asked.
“Of course.”
“Did you take pictures?” her mother asked. “I want to see your pictures.”
“I took pictures of everything,” Elise said.
“Well, we want to see them!”
“Tonight?” Elise was surprised. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Are you tired?” her mother asked.
“No,” Elise admitted. “But that’s probably because my nerves are jangled.”
“Go ahead and show us your pictures,” her father encouraged. “We’ve been anxious to see them.”
Elise knew that she would enjoy reliving the trip. She pulled out her phone. “Okay,” she said. “We can do pictures tonight.”
Then she frowned. “Hang on,” she said. “I’ve got a bunch of alerts.”
Aside from her failed attempt to call Lucas, her phone had been in airplane mode for the majority of her trip to avoid roaming charges. Now that she was home, she was going to have to get caught up on everything she’d missed.
“Let me just make sure none of these are important.”
She scrolled through the alerts. Most of them were just news reports that didn’t interest her or invitations to update apps. But one notification did look important—an email from her boss. She thumbed it open and read it.
As she read, a weight seemed to settle in her stomach, as if she had drunk from a vat of lead.
“Elise?” her mother asked. “What is it? You’ve gone pale.”
Elise looked up from her phone. “My boss emailed me yesterday,” she said. “I’m just seeing it now.”
“Emailed you about what?” her mother pressed.
Elise swallowed hard. “Layoffs,” she said. “I’ve lost my job.”
There was silence around the table for several moments, moments that seemed to go on for a very long time.
Then her father cleared his throat. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said. “You’ll stay here with us until you get back on your feet.”
Elise smiled weakly. “Thanks, Dad,” she whispered.
“Maybe we should look at pictures tomorrow,” her mother said gently. “You should go to sleep, honey. Get some rest.”
Elise nodded gratefully. She still felt wide awake, but right now she wanted nothing more than to curl up and pull the blankets over her head, shutting out the rest of the world.
She couldn’t believe that just this morning she had been walking through the streets of Rome. How could everything have gone so wrong so quickly?
She went to her childhood bedroom, sat down on her bed, and stared out the window into the darkness.
Chapter 5
Elise
Elise allowed herself three days to handle the police reports, give notice to her apartment management that she wasn’t renewing her lease, and mope about her misfortune. She knew that it would be all too easy to get carried away, to sit in her parents’ house sulking for weeks, letting her mother feed her and her father try to lift her spirits.
But she couldn’t let that happen. She had to get back on her feet.
So on the morning of the fourth day, she sat up in bed, pulled her laptop onto her lap, and updated her resume. Then she sent out three job applications and a letter to an employment agency.
Feeling good about what she had accomplished, she got out of bed and went down to the kitchen. Her mother was already there, of course, as she had been every morning since Elise had come to live at her parents’ house. Elise smelled the roast of her favorite coffee and heard the sizzle and snap of bacon in the pan.