Chapter 36

Emiko arrived home late in the afternoon, carrying a small suitcase, a leather folder, and the fatigue of too many hours spent in airports and airplanes.

Kaito was waiting near the curb when she came through the terminal doors.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then he crossed the few steps between them and took the suitcase from her hand.

“You look tired,” he said.

“I’m tired.”

“But?”

Emiko looked at him.

“But it was worth going.”

That was all she said until they reached the car.

The drive home passed through familiar streets, past ordinary traffic and neighborhoods that seemed almost impossibly quiet after Baltimore. Emiko leaned back against the seat and watched the landscape move by.

Kaito did not demand a report.

He asked whether she had eaten.

“Yes.”

“Enough?”

“Yes.”

He glanced at her.

“Mostly enough,” she amended.

“Better.”

She smiled faintly and looked out the window again.

“How are they?”

“Fine. Hana made certain everyone stayed organized. Kaito had opinions about everything. Midori corrected him twice. The house survived.”

“I’m relieved.”

“You bought gifts?”

“Small ones.”

“They’ll be pleased.”

Emiko rested one hand over the other in her lap.

For the first time since boarding the flight home, she allowed herself to feel the shape of the trip as something completed. Hopkins was no longer a name on an email or a line on an itinerary. She had seen it, walked through it, listened to the people who worked there, and asked the questions she needed to ask.

It was real.

So was the possibility.

The girls met her at the door before Kaito had fully carried the suitcase inside.

They tried to appear composed. They failed quickly.

Hana hugged Emiko first, firmly and without fuss. Kaito followed with a series of practical questions about the flight, the hotel, and whether Baltimore had been as cold as it looked in photographs. Midori took the small bag of gifts from Emiko’s hand and immediately began trying to identify which item belonged to whom.

“You can wait until after dinner,” Emiko said.

“No,” Midori replied. “We have waited long enough.”

That made Emiko laugh.

The gifts were modest: a notebook, a magnet, a packet of sweets, and a small Hopkins key ring that Kaito claimed he had not wanted until he saw it.

“You absolutely wanted it,” Hana said.

“I wanted to inspect it,” Kaito replied.

“You are wearing it on your keychain already.”

“That does not prove anything.”

The familiar argument settled over the room, gentle and ridiculous. Emiko stood in the middle of it and felt something inside her relax.

Baltimore had been important.

Home was still home.

After dinner, when the dishes were cleared and the girls had returned to their own work, Kaito sat with Emiko at the kitchen table.

Her leather folder lay between them.

“You do not have to tell me everything tonight,” he said.

“I know.”

“But you want to.”

“Yes.”

He waited.

Emiko opened the folder, though she did not remove the papers.

“Hopkins is exactly what you would expect,” she said. “Large. Demanding. Well organized in some places, strained in others. Brilliant people, difficult work, too much moving through too many systems.”

“And?”

“And they were honest about it.”

Kaito nodded.

“That matters.”

“It does.”

She described the meetings in broad terms: the faculty dinner, the department chair, the clinical conversations, the questions about her experience and leadership. She spoke of the hospital’s size and the way its corridors, clinics, research buildings, and patient services created the impression of a small city.