Until I Found you

Ten

The days that followed lumped together like cold oatmeal.

Eda didn't see Kiraz from Thursday evening until Monday afternoon. When she picked up the little girl at school, Eda hugged her so tightly that Kiraz complained about lack of air.

"Eda. Must. Breathe," Kiraz voiced and giggled when the young woman put her down.

"Sorry, I just missed you so much," Eda admitted.

"I missed you, too. What did you do this weekend?" Kiraz asked as they walked hand in hand to the car.

"After work on Friday, I went to dinner with Ceren. Saturday morning, I went to work on a flower field with my mum. And on Sunday, I had lunch with Ryan, and we went to the Museum of Science. I had a lot of fun!" Eda told Kiraz. Her statement was mostly true. Eda had enjoyed her time this weekend. She'd gotten to work on her gardening hobby, laughed, and learned much with Ryan. Yet, her weekend had felt incomplete.

There had been no calls from Serkan and no texts message from Kiraz; they hadn't checked on her. And she didn't check on them – directly – either. She'd talked with Aydan and Melo, and they'd updated her on Kiraz from time to time.

Kiraz looked down at her feet and stated, "I wish you'd been with me this weekend."

"Did you have fun with your Babaanne and your dad this weekend?" Eda queried, trying to focus on the positive for the sake of both of them.

"Saturday at the association was fun. Tulle was there, so was Aslı, so I got to play with them." Kiraz recounted. "Sunday was kind of sad. If it weren't my Dede making me a kite and Melo Hala taking me to visit Ceren Teyze, I probably would have spent Sunday in my room."

Eda scrunched her nose. "I'm sure your dad and you had a lot of fun visiting Ceren Teyze and Uncle Ferit yesterday."

"Baba didn't leave his room the entire weekend. Well, I lie. He didn't leave my Anne's room all weekend," Kiraz recounted.

What?

"They took the hospital bed from her room. And then Baba took all the clothes from the closet and organized them into boxes so we could take some to Ceren Teyze and donate the rest. He then holed himself there, trying to come up with a new room design. I'm not sure what he wants to do with it," Kiraz told her.

"I see," Eda responded. She didn't see crap, to be honest.

The rest of the car ride was spent discussing mindless things.

Eda took Kiraz to ballet and then home. When they arrived at the Bolat home, Serkan's car was already in the driveway. "Good afternoon, Seyfi. Serkan Bey is back from work already?" She asked, confused.

"He's been working from home today. His team was here earlier. He's in a very foul mood," Seyfi warned.

"Thank you, Seyfi," Eda said.

Curious as she was to know how Serkan was doing, Eda focused on her task at hand: Kiraz. "What's for homework today?"

"Mixed review for math and my reading log for English. I finished the pages for my vocabulary for Turkish during class since we had a test," Kiraz said.

"How was the test?"

"Easy, Ceren Teyze helped me review yesterday. I'm pretty confident I got an A," Kiraz stated proudly.

"I have an idea," Eda said enthusiastically. "Why don't you work on your mixed review now, so I'll check it while you shower? Then we can go visit your dad so he can read with us?"

Kiraz smiled broadly. "We are going to read together, the three of us like we used to do? With voices and everything?"

"That's the plan!" That was actually an excuse. Eda just needed to know whether Serkan was okay.