“Mrs. Frost,” Mia said. “There’s someone here you need to meet.”

“I don’t understand. Who are you?”

“May we come in?”

It took nearly an hour of endless question and answer. At one point, Mia refused to leave when the older woman demanded she go. Her determination to give his family back to him would not yield, even in the face of Mrs. Frost’s grief. The tears didn’t move her, but she was lucky the other woman didn’t call the police.

“No,” Mrs. Frost said. “You’re a madwoman. I don’t know what you hope to achieve by tormenting me with this impostor, but my son is dead.”

“Is he?”

Søren made a small sound of protest. Judging by the tension in him, it seemed he was ready to call it a hopeless cause and go. Mia refused to give up.

An angry sheen lit Mrs. Frost’s eyes. “If this is my son, he would know. What happened when we went on vacation when he was ten.”

Mia glanced at Søren, who answered quietly, “We took a road trip. We were supposed to see the Grand Canyon, but Grete was whining about feeling sick, driving everyone crazy. She eventually puked down my dad’s back, and he ran the car into a ditch. We never got further than the Minnesota state line.”

The other woman rubbed her eyes as if awakening from a terrible dream. “Søren,” she whispered. “Can it be you? We never told anyone that story. Your father was too embarrassed. Was it… It was a mistake? It was not really you in that car?”

That seemed the simplest explanation, so he nodded, and then his mother swept him into her arms, sobbing. At length, she demanded, “Jer skidt djævel, why did you not call us? Why did you not come home?”

There was no accounting for those lost years, so Mia said softly, “He couldn’t remember where he belonged before now.”

“Is this true? You had… something wrong in your brain?”

“Yes,” he said, arms coming around his mother slowly. “I did. After Lexie died, I wasn’t the same man. I forgot… so many things.”

Pain flared in his mother’s face at the mention of her grandchild, but for her, it was an old loss, and she was too happy to grieve long. “Your father will not believe this. Elle and Grete will be overjoyed! I have prayed and prayed. Something in me, it said you were not truly gone, and that if I just believed hard enough, you would come home.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “I have an apple strudel on the stove and fresh coffee. You need to eat. Come.” She took a step back and wiped her eyes. “This is your young lady?” She inspected Mia head to toe. “As she brought you here, it goes without saying, I approve.”

He wore a disbelieving smile as he trailed his mother into the kitchen. Mia took a moment to gaze around, her throat tight. The Christmas tree threatened to burst through the ceiling, and the ornaments didn’t match. Five different kinds of tinsel had been used to decorate it, and clearly, judging by the concentration of icicles on the lowest branches, childish hands had helped. That meant he had nieces or nephews. God, he was going to be so thrilled.

Remembering Lexie, the pleasure might be bittersweet at first, but he was too good with children to divorce himself from them entirely. And who knew what the future might hold? Tearful laughter came from the other room. She knew she needed to give them a few minutes.

So Mia stood, breathing the place in. There was warmth here, such glorious warmth. As Søren had promised, the house smelled of cinnamon and apples, nutmeg and allspice. It smelled of home. After all this time, they had both come home.