“A what?”
“Stomata. They’re pores. Plants use them to breathe.”
“Plants breathe?”
“Not like us.” She looked pleased that I had asked. “But yes. Sort of.”
I leaned closer. The diagram was beautiful, though I didn’t understand it. But I liked the shapes. The tiny openings. The neat hidden structures under something ordinary.
Katherine turned another page. “Everything has a system inside it.”
“Everything?”
“Everything alive.”
I thought about that for a while. “Even people?”
“Especially people.”
She said it with such certainty that I believed her.
After that, she talked for almost twenty minutes about cells. I understood maybe half of it. Maybe less. But I liked listening to her. Katherine changed when she explained things. Her voice grew steadier. Her hands moved more. Her face opened up bright in a way I had not seen before. She did not look lonely when she was telling me something she knew. And I liked being the reason she looked that way.
“What are you good at?” she asked suddenly.
I blinked. “What?”
“You asked me questions. Now I’m asking you one.”
“I don’t know.”
“Everyone is good at something.”
“No, they aren’t.”
“Yes, they are.”
I shrugged. “Talking, maybe.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is if people listen.”
She considered this seriously. Then she nodded. “I suppose that’s true.”
I smiled. Her mouth softened like she wanted to smile too, but had not quite remembered how.
After a while, she gave me a sheet of paper from the desk drawer and a pencil.
“Draw something.”
“I thought you wanted to read.”
“I want to see what you draw.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
