woman waiting inside the house would not be the goddess from whom came warm food and a cool hand on her forehead when she was sick.
But she had nowhere else to go.
Her mother was standing at the window as Petra emerged from the flivver. Father palmed the scanner to accept the charges. Petra raised a hand and gave a small wave to her mother, a shy smile that quickly grew into a grin. Her mother smiled back and gave her own small wave in reply. Petra took her father's hand and walked with him to the house.
The door opened as they approached. It was Stefan, her brother. She would not have known him from her memories of a two-year-old, still creased with baby fat. And he, of course, did not know her at all. He beamed the way the children from the school group had beamed at her, thrilled to meet a celebrity but not really aware of her as a person. He was her brother, though, and so she hugged him and he hugged her back. "You're really Petra!" he said.
"You're really Stefan!" she answered. Then she turned to her mother. She was still standing at the window, looking out.
"Mother?"
The woman turned, tears streaking her cheeks. "I'm so glad to see you, Petra," she said.
But she made no move to come to Petra, or even to reach out to her.
"But you're still looking for the little girl who left nine years ago," said Petra.
Mother burst into tears, and now she reached out her arms and Petra strode to her, to be enfolded in her embrace. "You're a woman now," said Mother. "I don't know you, but I love you."
"I love you too, Mother," said Petra. And was pleased to realize that it was true.
They had about an hour, the four of them -- five, once the baby woke up. Petra shunted aside their questions -- "Oh, everything about me has already been published or broadcast. It's you that I want to hear about" -- and learned that her father was still editing textbooks and supervising translations, and her mother was still the shepherd of the neighborhood, watching out for everyone, bringing food when someone was sick, taking care of children while parents ran errands, and providing lunch for any child who showed up. "I remember once that Mother and I had lunch alone, just the two of us," Stefan joked. "We didn't know what to say, and there was so much food left over."
"It was already that way when I was little," Petra said. "I remember being so proud of how the other kids loved my mother. And so jealous of the way she loved them!"
"Never as much as I loved my own girl and boy," said Mother. "But I do love children, I admit it, every one of them is precious in the sight of God, every one of them is welcome in my house."
"Oh, I've known a few you wouldn't love," said Petra.
"Maybe," said Mother, not wishing to argue, but plainly not believing that there could be such a child.
The baby gurgled and Mother lifted her shirt to tuck the baby to her breast.
"Did I slurp so noisily?" asked Petra.
"Not really," said Mother.
"Oh, tell the truth," said Father. "She woke the neighbors."
"So I was a glutton."
"No, merely a barbarian," said Father. "No table manners."
Petra decided to ask the delicate question boldly and have done with it. "The baby was born only a month after the population restrictions were lifted."
Father and Mother looked at each other, Mother with a beatific expression, Father with a wince. "Yes, well, we missed you. We wanted another little girl."
"You would have lost your job," said Petra.
"Not right away," said Father.
"Armenian officials have always been a little slow about enforcing those laws," said Mother.
"But eventually, you could have lost everything."
"No," said Mother. "When you left, we lost half of everything. Children are everything. The rest is ... nothing."
Stefan laughed. "Except when I'm hungry. Food is something!"
"You're always hungry," said Father.
"Food is always something," said Stefan.
They laughed, but Petra could see that Stefan had had no illusions about what the birth of this child would have meant. "It's a good thing we won the war."
"Better than losing it," said Stefan.
"It's nice to have the baby and obey the law, too," said Mother.
"But you didn't get your little girl."
"No," said Father. "We got our David."
"We didn't need a little girl after all," said Mother. "We got you back."