Viggo’s mouth kicks up at the corner; another smile. Our gazes hold. Viggo’s dips down to my mouth, then darts away, fastened on the horizon again. “I’m not normally quiet, no. But I am in the morning.”
“Why?” I find myself asking before I can stop myself.
Viggo shrugs, gaze pinned on the growing dawn. “Just seems unnecessary to talk while I’m watching the world wake up. Feels like something that deserves a little reverence.” He sips his coffee. “Even I can shut my mouth for that.”

Viggo’s quiet for a minute, turning his coffee mug gently back and forth on the counter. “I see love as . . . elemental, something so deeply woven into everything that makes life feel alive. And I’m not even talking exclusively about romantic love. Love takes so many forms. Love for ourselves. Our surroundings. Strangers. Friends. Family. Partners. To me, to reduce it to only an animalistic impulse does it a profound disservice. I think—” He clears his throat, scrubs at the back of his neck. “I think love is . . . wrapping your arms around every emotion, even the hard ones, even when being numb seems so much safer. Love is hoping, even after disappointment has taught you not to. Love is that bone-deep hum of peace through your body when you’re hugged hard, when you’re listened to well, when you’re not left alone in your sadness. Love is stubborn and persistent, an indomitable weed that springs up in those slivers of soft soil in our concrete-jungle existence. [...]”

"Time. Opening up to them. But mostly time. Until one day . . . I realized, to the Bergmans, I already was one of them. That they’d opened their arms and hearts to me, and once they do that, they do it fully, without reservation. I had nothing to prove, no place to earn. Their love, that belonging, it was right there the whole time, waiting for me to see it."

Mom glances my way, smiling brighter and says, “Home is not a place. Home is . . . this.” She glances around the table. “Our hearts, our love, knitting us together, wherever we are. Wherever life takes you, may you know you have a home in our hearts, and may your hearts always be each other’s home..”