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Iris spent the next morning staring out at the water, thinking about what the Pogues were doing. She hated that her mind kept drifting off to them, but for six weeks, they were her best friends, so, how could she not?
"Whatcha thinking about?" Lily asked her daughter, wrapping an arm around her.
Iris sighed, wrapping her arm around her mom, resting her head on her shoulder, "Everything."
"Honey, do you need to talk to someone? Your dad can get-"
"No, mom, seriously, I'm okay." She gave her mom a reassuring smile, "I've just been overwhelmed the last few days, but I'm happy to be home, I am."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. If anything changes, you and dad will be the first to know."
"Okay, are you hungry? We can make a big family breakfast."
Iris laughed, "Mom, when have we ever had a big family breakfast without the Cameron's?"
Lily gave her daughter a sad smile, "We haven't in years, but it felt empty for weeks and I'd like that tradition back with my girl. I just wish the rest of the Cameron's we're still next door so we could do it as we used to."
Iris reminisced on those days. For a good ten years, they had Sunday breakfast together, either at their house or the Camerons's. It was Iris' favourite day of the week. Same with Rafe's.
"I wish they were too, but can you settle for one Cameron joining us?"
Lily smiled, "I can. I assumed he'd be joining us when I saw that he was here this morning." She paused, looking at her daughter, "You know, he took it really hard when he thought you were gone. We all did."
"I know. I didn't even realize we would be declared dead while I was out there."
"All I'm saying, sweetie, is he, he called a lot, okay? He called a lot to talk about you, to check in on us, and really, I think he just needed someone to check in on him."
"Did you?" Iris whispered.
"We did." She paused, "But I know how strange this all feels right now to me, so I can't imagine how it feels to him. As much as he must love you being back, he is probably very confused, because we are also very confused."
"Why confused?"
"It's conflicting. It's conflicting because we were grieving you, mourning you, trying to do what we could to stay together even though inside we were broken into a million pieces." Lily sighed, "And now that you're back, I still have those millions of pieces inside me slowly putting themselves back together because you're here, you're not gone, you're here. And yes, that matters, but there's still that ache and pain from before and that had to heal too."
