“I’m great,” she lied. “And you?”

“Too fabulous for words. But here’s the thing. Nicole isn’t.”

Claire tightened her grip on the phone. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing…yet. She’s going to have surgery. Her gallbladder. There’s something weird about the placement or whatever. I can’t remember. Anyway, she can’t have that easy surgery with the tiny incisions. The lapi-something.”

“Laparoscopic,” Claire murmured absently, eyeing the clock. She was due at her lesson in thirty minutes.

“That one. Instead, they’re going to be slicing her open like a watermelon, which means a longer recovery time. With the bakery and all, that’s a problem. Normally I’d step in to help, but I can’t right now. Things are…complicated. So we were talking and Nicole wondered if you would like to come back home and take care of things. She would really appreciate it.”

Home, Claire thought longingly. She could go home. Back to the house she barely remembered but that had always placed so large in her dreams.

“I thought you and Nicole hated me,” she whispered, wanting to hope but almost afraid to.

“We were upset before. It was an emotional time. Seriously, we’ve been talking about getting in touch with you for a while now. Nicole would have, um, called herself, but she’s not feeling well and she was afraid you’d say no. She’s not in a place to handle that right now.”

Claire stood. “I would never say no. Of course I’ll come home. I really want to. You’re my family. Both of you.”

“Great. When can you get here?”

Claire looked around at the disaster that was her life and thought about the angry calls from Lisa, her manager. There was also the master class she was supposed to attend and the few she had to teach at the end of the week.