"Mama," I say in greeting, when the ringing breaks off abruptly to be replaced with a familiar voice that tells me that the connection has gone through.

There is a pause, and then my mother says sombrely, "What's wrong, sweetheart? You don't sound good."

Tears flood my eyes at this simple assessment from someone who knows me better than anyone else in the world. I blink, hard, to force them back where they came from.

When I've gotten the errant emotions under control, I say, "Aksel and I broke up."

I wait a beat for Mama to process my statement. Then I hear her soothing voice, "How are you feeling, sweetheart? How can I help?"

No questions, no assumptions – just immediate, unconditional love and support. I feel the liquid warmth return to my eyes. This time, I let them spill over.

"I don't know," I say. "That's what I'm calling about. I don't know what to do anymore."

My mother asks carefully, "Do you want to come home? Because you're welcome back anytime. You know that."

"Yes, I know." I hesitate to tell her about my half-formed decision, but I forge ahead. "But I think... I might stay in Finland for a while more. The language class is already paid for and I... well, I just think it would be good to finish it, at least."

"Sure, sweetheart." Mama's ready agreement shouldn't have surprised me, but it does. I would've thought she would have put up more of a fight for me to return to Hamburg, since she and Papa have never wanted me to move so far away from them. Still, I recognise, if anyone can understand my sudden decision to stay in a foreign land, it would be my mother.

Mama is still speaking. "Do you have enough to live off, financially?"

I grimace, thinking of my dwindling bank account. "Well, my unemployment money has stopped now," I say, flushing. "It's only valid for three months. But I have some savings left over. I'll survive for now."

"If you need help, your Papa and I are always here."

"I don't want to take your money, Mama," I say.

"You won't be taking it," my mother says. "Consider it a loan. You can pay us back when you get a job."

I'm silent for a moment. She has come up with the perfect way out for me. "Yeah," I say, through a thick throat. My parents are too good. "Thank you, Mama. I'll think about it."

"Ask for help when you need it, sweetheart. It's not easy trying to eke out a living in a foreign country – I would know." She laughs suddenly, then grows serious again. "So, do you want to talk about what happened with Aksel? We don't have to, if you don't."

I would have told her anyway, but when she phrases the question like this, I find that being given a choice makes me want to tell her more.

The story comes spilling out. Mama doesn't say a thing; just listens, interjecting with a sympathetic hum every now and then. When I'm finally through narrating the whole sordid tale, she's silent.

"Mama?" I prompt, suddenly afraid to hear what she has to say. What if she thinks it was all my fault? Or worse – what if she thinks it was Aksel's?

"Sweetheart," my mother's voice filters straight down the phone line, gentle as the drape of a silk shawl, soothing as the slide of honey down a sore throat. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

And then I find myself bawling, sobbing straight down the phone line, the sound travelling across the Baltic Sea into my mother's ear a thousand kilometres away.

"Oh, Emi," Mama sighs, and I know from the yearning in her voice that if I were right there with her, she would have gathered me into her arms for a long hug. I close my eyes and imagine her smoothing a hand over my hair as she hushes me like I'm her baby again.

"I feel so stupid, Mama." My words are all jumbled up, but I push them out in hopes of expelling the surge of emotion welling up inside me. "I've been feeling so stupid in Finland. I don't understand anything. And I thought Aksel would always support me, help me. But he..."

Yes.

I'm suddenly, intensely sure that I will be having nightmares about this word in the months to come.

I whisper, "He hates me now."

"Oh, sweetheart." Mama sighs again, this time sounding close to tears herself. "He doesn't hate you."

I sniffle. "That's what Tatiana says, too. But... he wants me to leave. He doesn't want me in Finland anymore."

The original go back to your own country. Maybe he now feels the way people who are so staunchly against immigration do. You don't belong here – go back.

And maybe, after all the unappreciative hatred I've spewed about Finland, its language and its culture, I deserve it.

"Tatiana is a wise girl," Mama says. "Aksel is hurting, just like you are. You need to figure out what you want, Emi, without feeling like you're being forced into it. And he needs time to get over the stress than being supportive has put on him."

I start to protest, but Mama speaks over me. "It is hard, you know, supporting someone like this. He's taking it personally when you get homesick or frustrated with Finnish things – and I don't blame him. Your father was the same way, when I went through my own adjustment period here."

"In Hamburg?" This is news to me, even though it makes sense. I had just never thought of Hamburg as being somewhere to adjust to. It's simply... the way things are meant to be. But I recognise that Mama probably feels the same for Hamburg that I feel for Helsinki. And, all of the sudden, I sympathise with how difficult that transition must have been for her, all those years ago.

At least now, I have a smartphone, the Internet, and messaging apps to communicate with friends and family back in Hamburg. Back in Mama's time, she hadn't had that. And she had moved way further than I had. I had just gone across the Baltic Sea. Mama had moved across continents.

"Yes, in Hamburg," Mama confirms, even though my question was more of an exclamation of surprise than a query for an answer.

"I never knew," I say. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"You never asked."

While I mull over this simple yet telling answer, Mama's laughter cuts across the silence.

"You've never thought of Hamburg that way, I know. For you, it's where you were born. It's home. But for me... Nothing in Hamburg was natural to me. I had to get used to it, the way you're getting used to the way things work in Helsinki now."

"Yeah," I say. "It's funny to remember that you weren't from Hamburg, that you had to get used to living in Germany. It's so..." I trail off, casting around for a description, and have to settle on, "weird."

"Life in Singapore was very different." Is that the slightest hint of wistfulness I detect in Mama's voice as she talks about her homeland? "Before I met your father, I'd never thought of leaving. We met in Singapore – have I told you this?"

"Yes," I say, dredging up the hazy memories of the times Mama told me about how she and Papa had met. "He was working there at the time."

She laughs. "Yes, he was. It was funny, really. We worked together and I was meant to introduce him to my friend, but..."

"He fell head over heels for you," I complete her sentence.

"Not exactly that," Mama corrects. From the brightness of her voice, though, I can guess that she's smiling. "But we ended up meeting up more and more. That introduction ended up not happening until your father and I were together." She laughs again. "My friend still jokes about it."

"And that's how it goes." It's my turn to be wistful. That had been the way with Aksel and me, too. It had just happened. "Who was that friend? Do I know her?"

"It was Alicia," Mama divulges. Then she giggles, because she knows I'll recognise the name.

"Alicia?" I'm so thrown by this news, that I forget about the point of our conversation for a moment. "But she's your best friend! And she's happily married to David."

"She is now," Mama says. "That was before she met David."

"I can't imagine her with anyone other than David," I say wonderingly. What if Alicia – Mama's best friend who lives in London with her English husband – had ended up with Papa instead? My mind can't seem to piece such a scenario together. It wouldn't make sense at all. Papa belongs with Mama, just like Alicia belongs with David. They visit us at least once every year, with their daughter Sarah, and I can't imagine a time when Sarah was in danger of not existing. I'm not close to her, but we talk quite a bit whenever they visit. I'm itching to tell her this bit of gossip to see what she makes of it.

"It's funny how things turned out for the best after all," Mama's tone turns musing.

"Did you ever wish you hadn't moved here to be with Papa?"

"More than I'd like to admit," Mama lowers her voice. I wonder if Papa is lurking nearby, and she's making sure he doesn't hear her guilty admission. "It was really hard for me. Even now, there are times I miss home."

"Isn't home in Hamburg with us?" I frown, not liking the idea that Mama misses a life far away without us.

Mama laughs at my indignant tone. "Of course," she says, "it is. But Singapore is still my home too. I'll always miss it."

"I suppose I can understand that," I say slowly. And I do. I still miss Hamburg – the familiar sights; the ease with which everything comes naturally to me. From what Mama is telling me, this feeling of homesickness never goes away. Even after so many years, Mama still misses her homeland.

Mama is still speaking, her words cascading over me through the earpiece like water broken free from a dam. She must have been keeping this to herself for a long time.

"There are things I don't like about living in Singapore, and things I don't like about living here in Germany. That doesn't mean one place is better than the other. Hamburg is my home now, too."

"Of course it is," I say. "You'd better not suddenly decide you want to return to Singapore, and abandon us."

"Oh, sweetheart." Mama is full-on laughing now. I can hear Papa's befuddled, What's going on? echo in the background. "Don't be silly. That will never happen."

"I... Mama," I say, "I'd like to hear more about your life in Singapore, before you met Papa. And more about how different things are, and how you got used to life in Hamburg."

"I never thought you'd be interested in that," Mama says. "Of course, I can tell you all about it. I'm going to have to warn you, though – it's a very long story."

"I'd like to hear it," I say softly. I don't think I've ever truly understood the hardships that Mama has faced. I've always known, at the back of my mind, that she had had to make huge changes to be with Papa. But I've never asked her about the process. I should have. "It doesn't have to be right now, but... I want to hear it at some point."

"Anytime," Mama says. "We can talk about it soon, if you like. Maybe when your Papa isn't around." Then she breaks out into laughter, as I hear Papa's loud protest from the other end.

I find myself smiling. Even though I've gotten a taste of how hard international –  intercultural – relationships can be, I'm glad Mama and Papa took the plunge. I'm glad it worked out for them.

I hear Papa's voice. "Tell her, she can come home anytime. Do you hear that, sweetheart? If Finland doesn't want you, we do."

"Michael!" Mama is indignant, but I chuckle to myself. Papa is no doubt dreaming up ways to shoot harmless little barbs at Aksel now.

Once their antics die down, Mama returns to the phone.

"Emi, are you sure you want to stay there?" she asks softly. I know, simply by the fact that she's asking a second time, that she wants more than anything for me to come home to Hamburg.

And I pause to think about it. What exactly am I doing? Is it worth staying in Finland to finish the course for a language I might never need to use? If I return to Germany after the term ends, what good is my knowledge of this rarely-used language going to do?

Now that the main reason for my move to Finland has evaporated, why am I still here? Am I wasting my time after all?

"I don't know, Mama," I whisper. "I really don't know."

***

"Remember," Tatiana says, leaning in to grab me into another long hug, "come visit anytime. I mean it. If you have another crisis, I'm only a train ride away. Heck, I'll take the train down to see you next time."

"Yes, yes." I laugh, but I hug her back with trembling arms. I hope she doesn't feel me shaking. That would be embarrassing.

But maybe she senses something, because when she pulls away, she keeps a tight hold on my shoulders. "I'm serious, Emi," she says, softer now. "I'm here for you. Just say the word."

I smile. The rims of my eyes feel hot. "I know." On impulse, I throw my arms around her again and give her a tight squeeze that only lasts a moment. "I really appreciate it, Tatiana."

Tatiana sniffles. It could be her playing it up, or it could be real. "I'm going to miss you."

"Even though I barely pull my weight around the apartment?" I try to tease a grin out of her.

It works. "Even then," she says with a watery smile.

The public announcement comes on, and I turn to look at the train. "I guess I have to go now."

"You'd better," says Tatiana. "The announcer just said the train's leaving in two minutes." She laughs as my face melts into an alarmed grimace. "Oh, don't worry. You have plenty of time."

After a last flurry of hugs, I find myself in a window seat on the train, waving to Tatiana through the glass while it pulls away from the station. When I finally turn away, the silence that stretches before me hits me smack in the face.

I'm alone now, headed back to the city that has caused me so much misery over the past few months. But no – there have been good times, too. I need to stop thinking of Helsinki as this daunting place that's out to get me.

Exhaling deeply, I pull out my phone. There are messages from Tessa and Gabi, and one from Tatiana. I open that one, smiling as I type back a reply. She has sent a row of crying emojis, presumably about my departure from Tampere. I send a row of the same emoji back.

A notification pops up. The apartment feels emptier without you already. And another sad emoji.

I muffle my laughter. What a drama queen. She probably hasn't even gotten back to her apartment yet.

But it feels good to know that someone in Finland, at least, misses me. With this thought, my mind inevitably turns back to Aksel.

He should have gotten back to our – no, his – apartment by now. Most of my things are still there – I've only taken the barest of essentials with me to Tampere. But there's no way I can return to Aksel's apartment now. I'm going to have to stay at a hostel for a while, before I can find a cheap place to rent.

The sheer number of things I have to handle on my own now almost makes me want to run back, tail tucked, to Hamburg. I close my eyes and breathe out slowly. I'll take things one step at a time. A hostel first – and then I'll ask Priscilla and the others for tips on apartment-hunting when I next see them in class. They've been through the process – a process I skipped because I moved in with Aksel. They will be able to help.

I open my eyes, calmer now that I have a plan of sorts in mind. Things will be all right. I have acquaintances in Helsinki now, people other than Aksel that I can talk to. Even without Aksel, I won't be all alone.