
It was 4 AM when Valerie got a call from her mother. Her phone had to be rang about three times before she finally woke up, and when she heard Valencia's voice on the other end, all the drowsiness from being woken up so early quickly went away. She almost screeched in delight and perhaps even cried a little. They had a short conversation only because Valencia was about to board a boat to Manta Carlos, but they got to talk about the most important things, which were Valencia coming to the island, when she expected to arrive, and why, including how long. Valerie was too excited to tell her mother much, at least clearly, but Valencia was told that Valerie had found her father. Unfortunately, her mother had to board the boat, which jammed cellular signals among other things for a variety of reasons, mainly to keep hidden.
Once the call ended, Valerie scrambled to find Tucker. In her excited state, she couldn't quite remember whether she woke him up in bed, found him in his study, or in the middle of checking on her, but what she does remember was rapidly talking to him about her mother's call, and told him everything she knew. Coherency may not have been a big part of it, but she was more than happy to repeat herself. She acted a lot like a child who got everything she wanted, which was not a bad comparison.
She couldn't stop thinking about it for two days and her sleep suffered. She kept checking the call records on her phone to make sure that she wasn't just dreaming, and would always giggle whenever she saw her mother's name on there. On the third day, a day before her mother's arrival, she finally collapsed in the middle of the day in her bed and slept until a couple of hours until Valencia's ship would arrive. She was fully refreshed and ready to go meet her.
Now on the pier, Valerie restlessly paced, looking out to the ocean to see any ship that approached. She was familiar with the ferry that brought her here, and all the other ferries that docked at her home island, and when she saw the very familiar patterns on a ship so far away that it looked like a spec for the human eye, Valerie squeezed her father's hand and hopped in place, barely able to contain herself. "She's almost here! She's almost here!" she'd chirp happily.
@Hyper