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Ivy whines, her little fists rubbing at her eye and the goop on her face. “Here, Gram. Let me help.” I wipe the little girl’s nose, then reach out my arms, and Gram passes Ivy over. I’m not thinking about how uncomfortable I am, or how I know less than anyone else in the room. I’m simply acting. Gram needs help. So does Ivy. I’m capable.

With a withered expression, Grammy wipes at the front of her blouse with a tissue.

“You aren’t feeling very good, are you?” I say to Ivy, one hand beneath her bottom, the other around her back. I tilt my head to peer into her eyes. “I’m sorry. That’s not very fun.”

Ivy’s plump pink lips perk up at the corners with my words.

There’s a sniff, and I look up at Stella, watching us. Her eyes are glassy. “You used to read to her,” she says.

Her words make my heart race once more.

“Something about the cadence of your voice.” Stella shrugs. “She always loved when you spoke or read aloud.” She blinks and brushes the back of her hand beneath her nose. “I’m ready for you, Noreen.”

We follow Stella through a small kitchen to an enclosed back porch with floor-to-ceiling windows and an entire art studio set up in the quaint space.

“Wow,” I say, adjusting baby Ivy in my arms.

“You sit there, dear,” Gram says, pointing to a plush chair in the far right of the porch, with Stella’s pottery station set up on the other side. “I’m going to get my wheel on.”

I sit with Ivy on my lap, facing me. I peek at Gram and Stella, but they’re too busy talking about the video Gram watched on the “Tube” and how Gram knows of a new method Stella really should be using. Yes, she’s attempting to school the teacher. Sounds like Gram.

I turn back to the baby. The semblance of privacy we have with the others across the room deep in discussion gives me peace. I can easily pretend it’s just me and Ivy.

“I’m Rosalie,” I tell her. I keep my hands on her waist, holding her steady as she sits on my lap.

She crinkles her nose and rubs one chubby little fist over her eye. A sigh falls from her chest.

“Are you tired?” I ask.

She hums out a moan, and for a moment, I think she might cry. Crap. No crying allowed, baby.

“She is sleepy,” Stella says—apparently, she can multitask. She can listen to my grandmother try to tell her how to do her job and know what’s happening over here with her baby. “There are books on the shelf right next to you. She might fall asleep if you read to her.”

“Read to her,” I mutter, looking back at Ivy. She returns my stare. Stella said I used to read to her. That she liked it. I mean, it sounds like something I would do. If Fran had a baby, I’d buy that kid all the books and I’d read them to her, too.

From what Gram said, I might have done that with Ivy and Stella.

“Should we try this?” I ask her. I turn the baby around so that her back leans against my chest. Snatching the first book from the shelf at my right. I open it up and fall into a strangely comfortable rhythm as I read to little Ivy.

I read book after book after book, only hearing bits and pieces from Gram and Stella’s lesson. Ivy and I are reading—we have no time for other people’s conversations.

Ivy twists and turns until her side and cheek press against me. She nuzzles her head into my chest, and her breathing evens as she listens to stories about bunnies and slippers and what babies eat.

Just when I think we’re out of books to read, I look up to Stella standing in front of us. She’s startled me. I was so focused on the books and the baby that I never saw her coming. I have no idea how much time has passed. Stella wipes her hands on a rag and smiles down at us. “I knew she’d fall asleep.”

I peer down at little Ivy. I’m not sure when she drifted off. The crook of my arm is warm and sweaty where she lies. There’s a wet ring on my chest where her face has smooshed into my shirt and she’s slobbered. I hadn’t noticed the damp spot until now. We were reading. There was something comforting about Ivy’s breaths and heart beating next to mine.

I often read for comfort. But this was different—this was reading together, and it felt calming. I never noticed the baby sleeping, just that she was here, next to me.

“Sorry. I should have laid her down,” I say, remembering my cousin, Alisha, who threw a fit if you held her sleeping child too long. She swore her kid would never learn to sleep in a bed if people didn’t start putting him down. I was a teenager when that happened, but the memory is loud as Stella stares at us now.

But she doesn’t seem upset. “She looks comfortable to me. Thanks for holding her.”

I clear my throat. “I was happy to. She’s sweet.”

“She really is, isn’t she?” Stella crouches in front of us. She’s too close, but her eyes are on Ivy. She runs a hand over her daughter’s sweaty head, brushing the girl’s fuzzy blonde hairs back. “She can’t even talk, and already I am certain there was never a sweeter human on the planet. Isn’t that weird?”

“No,” I say, forgetting for the moment that we’re strangers. “I don’t think so. I don’t think a person has to speak for you to understand their disposition. She’s gentle and joyful. You can see that, clearly.”