back. Lamps lit, the inside glowed. A wooden ramp covered one side of the front steps and a short one formed a low bump over the front door’s threshold to accommodate Brooke’s wheelchair.
“Clara!” she shouted, from her perch on the edge of the porch. “You came!”
I immediately felt guilty for not having wanted to. My reluctance had nothing to do with Brooke, who I’d spent only fleeting moments with but who struck me as a remarkable young girl. I took in a deep breath and smiled. “Hmm. I smell garlic and tomatoes. Chili, I hear!”
“Dad’s a super-good cook.” Her strawberry blond hair cascading over her shoulders, Brook giggled, and Max bent down and wrapped his arms around her, lingering ever so slightly. When he let go, he turned Brooke’s wheelchair and pushed her inside.
“And what did you do today?” he asked her.
Brooke screwed up her nose and grinned at him. “Well, it was a pretty cool day.”
“What was so cool about it?” I asked. The girl had the most inquisitive hazel eyes, fringed in thick lashes.
“After school, Aunt Alice took me to the park and put me on a swing,” she said. “The physical therapist suggested it. I couldn’t pump with my legs, but I swung my body weight and pulled with my arms, and Aunt Alice helped, and I got high. Really high. So high that Aunt Alice got scared.” Brooke’s grin grew wider, and she mimicked her aunt. “‘Brooke, you’ll give me a heart attack,’ she shouted. And I think I almost did. Her face was nearly purple.”
Teasing, Max put his hands on his hips and pretended to be upset. “You laugh about nearly sending your aunt into cardiac arrest?”
“It was super-fun,” Brooke said. “She said we can do it again tomorrow. And maybe the day after, too. I’m gonna try to convince her.”
I chuckled. Max shrugged and said, “Looks like I’m outnumbered.”
We ate our dinner at the kitchen table. The chili was a heavy, spicy mixture served with bread to cut the burn. Max offered to open a bottle of wine, but I reminded him that I had work to do before the day ended. Watching Brooke, I thought about my four years as an elementary school teacher in Alber, the children I’d known. Since I’d returned, I’d run into a few off and on, now all teenagers. Some turned away, mindful that as an apostate I was to be spurned. But once in a while, one stopped to talk, and when that happened, I remembered the softness of young hands in mine, the joy of seeing an idea take hold, a first word read, an addition problem solved. Throughout those terrible years, ones when I constantly feared for my life, the children I taught sustained me. I thought about how my world had changed and how my work had become so much darker.
Yet I no longer felt owned, like a possession.
While we ate, Brooke chatted happily, describing her paperweight collection. “My mom had it,” she said. “And now it’s mine. And sometimes Dad and me go to rummage sales and antique stores and find more.”
“I’d love to see it,” I said.
After dinner, Max insisted he didn’t need help with the dishes, and Brooke and I went to her room. The paperweights were displayed on shelves lining one wall, dozens of them: heavy glass with flowers, ships, abstract designs and figures inside. The only one on the ground floor, the room must have been intended to be the main bedroom. Max undoubtedly gave it to Brooke to make it easier with her chair. A charming blue-lavender, it smelled of fresh paint. When I said I liked the color, Brooke explained, “I copied it from the flowers in the book.”
“What book?” I asked, and she dug around in her nightstand drawer and pulled out the volume of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility I’d given her a few months earlier, the first time we met. She opened it and pointed at the label with the printed name of the girl who’d once owned it, surrounded by forget-me-nots. The paint in the room matched the flowers perfectly.
“Remember how Dad said these were my mom’s favorite?” Brooke asked.
“I do remember,” I said. I looked around the room at the framed pictures of unicorns and princesses, and I wished Max’s late wife, Miriam, had been able to see it, to tuck her daughter into bed each night. “I bet your mom would love that you painted your room this beautiful color.”
“I think