I turn back to Jillie. She’s studying the mixer again.
As if she did not hear. As if she does not know. As if her small body has not gone completely still in the way it only does when she is trying very hard to be brave.
I crouch beside her stool.
“Bug.”
“I have homework.”
The words come too quickly.
“All right.”
She reaches for her backpack, pulling out her folder with stiff little movements. Papers slide onto the table.
A spelling list. A permission slip. A worksheet with snowflakes around the border.
Then one paper lands face-up between us and my heart stops.
Across the top, in cheerful block letters, it says: MY FAMILY TREE.
Below the title, Jillie has drawn a brown tree with crooked branches, green leaves, and bright red hearts scattered everywhere.
There is a small stick figure labeled ME.
A taller stick figure labeled MOM.
A lopsided squirrel with a bushy tail labeled Sir Fluffernutter, her favorite stuffed animal.
And on the other side of the tree, beneath a branch decorated with what appears to be a hockey stick and three blue hearts, stands a tall stick figure wearing skates.
The label underneath says:COLBEE
Not Colby Reid. Not hockey man. Not Mommy’s fake boyfriend.
Colbee.
Right there beside us, as though he has always belonged on the page, and as though Jillie never considered another possibility.
The bakery fades around me. The ovens. The hum of the refrigerator. Mrs. Bellamy’s protective voice in the front room.
All of it disappears.
There is only the paper, only the crooked tree, only my daughter’s careful crayon hearts, and only Colby’s name tucked into our family as if adding him was the most natural thing in the world.
My throat tightens.
“Miss Angie said we had to put important people,” Jillie says.
Her voice is small.
Defensive before I have said a word.
I force myself to breathe.
“It’s beautiful.”
She does not smile.
