Gladys is the one to meet you at the station when you return to Toronto. You were already disoriented and now you're confused too. Kitty swings her little legs over the edge of the bench; her feet don't reach the ground, but you can already tell she's grown. She has a doll in her arms that Betty described to you over the phone at least once. You know she sleeps with it, it goes everywhere with her.
"Betty's at work," Gladys says briskly, standing up and wrapping her arms around you. You're not sure what's happening. "She didn't want to meet you here," Gladys says quietly, close to your ear. "Wasn't sure she could keep her hands to herself." You swallow thickly, bring your arms around Gladys, feeling bones too close to the surface. Gladys steps back and looks for your bags, but the only bag you have is in your hand.
"I'm set," you say. Gladys picks up Kitty and leads you out from the station. It feels strange to be alone, no entourage making arrangements. You haven't had to fend for yourself for a long time.
You unpack your meager belongings into an empty drawer in Betty's bedroom. You sit on the bed. You're nervous now, wondering if you should have put it in the spare room instead.
Then you think about the house plans showed you such a long time ago, in a bar where you were part of an all-girl revue, despite the scars. Where you first made your start. There isn't a spare bedroom. It'd be Kitty's bedroom. Kitty is standing in the doorway, staring at you when Gladys comes in. This feels too sudden but also too late. If you'd just done this seven years ago in the first place, you'd be settled in by now, familiar with the soft flower bedspread and the pale curtains. Instead you feel like a stranger in yet another hotel room. Betty's room doesn't smell like the scents you associate with her; cordite and oranges. It smells like a room. Gladys sits next to you. She seems as uncertain as you at this point.
You decide that this part of your past belonged in your past, that coming back here was a mistake. Things will never be the same as they were.
Then Betty walks in and her face lights up when she sees you and you rush to stand up but your legs are obstinate after a two day train ride (you can still hear the click-clack of the tracks, you still steady yourself against walls) and she steps forward to catch you and all your uncertainty vanishes under her hands.
She kisses you right there in her room, in front of Kitty and Gladys and you can feel yourself blushing but you can't pull away. It's only been months this time, instead of years, but it feels like you couldn't wait another moment.
"Welcome home," she says, like she's been rehearsing it in her mind all afternoon. She smells like paper and glue; the scents of the post office.
You're both standing in the middle of Betty's room when Gladys pulls Kitty out the doorway and shuts the door behind her. Betty closes her eyes, rests her forehead against yours.
"You're not going to leave." She says quietly, and you nod your head against hers.
"Never again," you tell her. "Or, if I have to go, I'll always come back."
She opens her eyes again and smiles.
You have a home. And a person who can make you forget that anything other than this had ever happened.
And now Betty has everything she wanted from so long ago.
And so do you.
It might take a little while to adjust, to believe this is real, but Betty's thumb caressing the bone at the back of your shoulder is realer than most of your life has ever been.
When you wake up in the morning, Betty's steady breathing reminds you that you have a home now, and you're safe here.