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Ana opened the apartment door.
“Theo,” she called. “Our friend Rory is here. Do you remember him?”
She stepped inside, making room for Rory to join her so she could close the door behind him.
The small space was warm and neat. Brightly colored finger paintings adorned the walls, and there was a great big built-in bookcase stuffed with paperbacks and toys. A lumpy and comfortable-looking sofa sat just in front of it, along with a reading lamp, and a coffee table covered in colorful blocks.
Not seeing Theo yet, Rory looked to the far end of the room where a round table with four wooden chairs formed a dining area just before the open kitchen. Mari was wiping down the counters with a shy-looking Theo clinging to her leg.
“Hey, Theo,” Rory said, instinctively crouching down to the boy’s level without coming any closer. “You fixed Ana’s car with me the other day at the shop. Thank you for helping me.”
Theo blinked at him for a moment.
Rory waited, giving the boy time.
Theo’s face broke into a grin. He stayed with Mari, but he leaned out from behind her thigh playfully.
“Do you know why I came to your house today?” Rory asked him.
“Why?” Theo demanded joyfully. Rory was pretty sure that was his favorite word, and he’d set him up for it.
“Your Aunt Ana is going to teach me how to make vegetable soup,” Rory told him.
That made Theo laugh really hard, for reasons known only to himself.
Rory smiled too, glad to see that the boy didn’t seem to be scared anymore.
“Are you going to learn how to make soup too?” Rory asked him.
Theo shook his head, his eyes dancing.
“Why not?” Rory asked. “You don’t want to wait until you’re a big guy like me to learn how to do things.”
“Blocks,” Theo sang out.
“Oh, you want to play with blocks,” Ana said, chuckling. “You two can play with blocks while Rory and I cook.”
Theo scampered out from behind Ana’s mom and zipped across the living room to the coffee table, grabbing two blocks and placing them side by side with a deadly serious expression on his cute little face.
“Okay,” Ana’s mom said with a smile. “Kitchen’s all yours.”
“Thank you for having me, Mrs. Gutierrez,” Rory said politely. “How was your day?”
“It’s just Mari,” she said, patting his arm on the way past. “And I had a great day. Except for that new sewing machine.”
She shook her head, but her smile told him she wasn’t really upset.
“It’s so much better than the old one, Mami,” Ana said gently.
“It might have more fancy features,” her mother said. “But that doesn’t make it better.”
“The old one finally broke one too many times,” Ana explained as she continued into the kitchen. “It’s hard to get the parts anymore.”
Rory nodded, thinking about Rick’s van and how much everyone here seemed to value their memories.
He followed Ana into the cozy, bright space. It was a little smaller than the kitchen in his grandparents’ house where he’d grown up. But the open space made him feel comfortable and the bright-colored towels and café curtains gave it a playful feeling.
“This is nice,” Rory said without thinking.
