As it happened, it could have been worse. Our front door turned out to be a standard size and Dad had bought the correct one. The frame appeared to be in good shape, so that didn’t need to be replaced. Also, Dad had done a fair amount of work already. So, my part in the replacement only took about two hours.

Having a bit of the Rocket suit’s strength available because all of my clothes were now hidden stealth suits didn’t hurt. It made it easier to move the door around at least.

With that done, we shut the door behind us and walked down the hall past the living room and dining room and into the back of the house where the kitchen and family room were.

Passing the stairway, I noticed that our cat had taken up residence on the steps, watching Dad and I as we walked past.

Inside I saw Mom filling the coffeemaker with water as Grandma and Great-Aunt Selda sat on stools in the family room side of the counter. They both had empty mugs sitting on the counter next to them.

Rachel sat in the family room drinking something out of a can.

Seeing all of them together, it struck me how similar they all looked. Every one of them stood only a little shorter than I did. Thin with round cheeks and blue eyes, anyone who looked at them together would assume they were related.

Though I knew Great-Aunt Selda and Grandma had been blond when they were younger, their hair had turned white long ago. Mom and Rachel both had brown hair. Out of the group, only Mom had let her hair grow past her shoulders. The rest had short hair.

I knew Grandma and Great Aunt-Selda weren’t twins, but if they lied, they could have gotten away with it.

I wondered if their Ghost DNA brought along side effects that nothing to do with superpowers, but Grandma interrupted my speculation by standing up and hugging me as I stepped into the room.

We’d greeted each other as I helped Dad with the door, but now she said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t stay and simply watch. I had to be too far away to help or I would have.”

Grandma’s voice held only a hint of a German accent. Trained to be a spy, she didn’t have to even allow that tell. She could fake accents from all over the country and other countries. It wasn’t hard to guess how she’d used that skill during war, but in my childhood, she’d only used it to give characters in books silly accents for Rachel’s and my entertainment.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It all worked out in the end and you’re home now. Unless Godzilla steps on the house, we’ve still got time.”

Grandma laughed and let go of me. “We do have time for now, but not forever. I’m not one of the Ghosts. I’ll only live as long as any other person and I’ve been away for so long. I’m not afraid of a movie monster, but I’ve seen the Hundred Handed Ones and they’re terrifying. Disasters do happen in your job.”

Rachel looked up from her chair, “The hundred handed giants from Greek mythology are real?”

Great-Aunt Selda said, “They’re more than myth and more than simple giants. They may live forever.”

Her English was good, but no one would confuse her for a native speaker. Grandma had told us that Selda had been a child during the war and had never been trained as a spy. In fact, the Nazis used her to control Grandma’s behavior by claiming that they’d kill her if Grandma disobeyed.

It was only after they’d freed Selda that Grandma could help Grandpa without worrying that her sister would die.

I remembered back to Grandpa telling that story both before and after our changes to the past. Whether he was telling it as a man whose wife had died from cancer or as someone whose wife had gone to the stars rather than risk causing her grandchildren’s death, I couldn’t tell the difference in my memories.

Either way, you could his pride in who she was and that he’d felt her loss.

“Regardless,” Grandma said, “I won’t leave again. I never left fully. I visited Joe and looked in on the two of you. You grew up to become everything I hoped you’d be. The Mentalist said you might be different from the version of you we met in Lee’s weapon, but from what I’ve seen, you grew up to be every bit of the people I remember.”

Looking at Rachel, she said, “Thank you for saying something. I don’t know if I ever have quit smoking if you hadn’t.”

“You wouldn’t have,” I said. “Rachel changed history by telling you so. Lee’s machine said it didn’t mess anything up. So it’s okay. I mean, it’s definitely better. I’m glad you’re alive. We grew up in a world where you weren’t.”

Grandma nodded, “The Mentalist told me when I needed to disappear to make everything work out the same way.”

From behind me, Dad said, “You changed history?”

Rachel smirked and said, “I hope you’re not going to ground us.”