After three months away from home, the Girl returned tonight for the first time. Such a novel experience: for eighteen years, she was a daily joy in our lives, and then suddenly, she was gone. And now she’s back. “At last, I get to take a shower in my bathroom.” Well, the Boy has taken over most of the bathroom now, but never mind that. We had a drink in celebration of her return, talked about school, future plans, current classes, and random trivialities, and simply enjoyed having L back home.

At one point, she noticed E’s math homework on the table. She glanced at it and sighed: “Oh, I’d love to have work this easy.” She pulled out her iPad and showed us some of her work in Calculus III.

“See? There’s not even numbers anymore!!”

She showed us some of her physics problems (not shown above — more calc), some diagrams from Chem II (“Just wait until next semester when you take organic chemistry — it’s all diagrams,” I laughed.) and reveled in the tastiness of the water.

The Boy, for his part, after making us all laugh by annotating his algebra homework to look a little more like L’s calc homework, brought down his ever-growing collection of trombone mouthpieces. Earlier, when L and I were in the basement, she noticed two of his three guitars down there.

“Does he play at all anymore?” she asked.

“Not so much. He’s focusing on trombone. But wait until you hear him play,” I replied.

A quiet, laughter-filled, joyful return. What more could we ask for?