"It was. Then I heard you talking."
Jack bent his head. He did not know whether Lily remembered his voice during the days of heavy medication or whether her mind had woven familiar sounds into a dream. It did not matter. "I was talking the whole time," he said. "You probably got pretty tired of hearing about Jupiter."
Lily's smile widened a fraction. "Jupiter's boring."
"Since when?"
"Since I got stuck in a hospital. Tell me about something else."
He considered that for a moment. Then he told her about the small grocery store near their house, how Mateo had bought the wrong cereal three times in a row, and how Rose had threatened to supervise Jack's cooking when they finally got home. Lily listened with her eyes half closed. Those ordinary details seemed to matter more to her than the dramatic medical events she could barely remember.
One afternoon Claire came into the room just as Lily was making a serious assessment of her father's hair. Jack introduced her properly for the first time. "Lily, this is Dr. Bennett. She's been helping the team take care of you."
Lily studied Claire with the direct curiosity children sometimes show when they have not yet learned to disguise their questions. "Are you the one from the bus stop?"
Claire blinked. "What bus stop?"
Jack looked embarrassed. "I may have mentioned it."
"Dad said he tried to give you a ride and you thought he was a bad guy," Lily explained. "But he's mostly just annoying."
Claire laughed despite the sudden warmth in her cheeks. "Your dad was very kind, and I made a mistake about him. I apologized, and he was generous enough to forgive me."
Lily considered that. "That's good. Because he drives slow when it snows. Grandma Rose says it's boring, but it's safe."
"I'll remember that," Claire replied. "How are you feeling today?"
"Like somebody made me run a hundred miles," Lily said. "Except I didn't get to go anywhere."
Claire pulled up a chair and explained that the body could feel very tired after a serious illness, especially after spending so much time resting in bed. She described the small steps the rehabilitation team would help Lily take and assured her it was okay to say when something hurt or became too difficult. Lily listened carefully, then asked whether she could still become an astronaut.
Claire did not offer a future no doctor could guarantee. She told Lily that they would learn more about what activities were safe as her heart recovered, and that there were many ways to study space, build things, and explore the world. She also told her that people with health challenges could still have important adventures, even when the adventures looked different from their first plans.
Lily thought about that for a long moment. "Can astronauts have rabbits?"
"I'm not sure about real ones," Claire replied. "But I think Commander Flops could probably pass the training."