Chapter 9
The shelf arrived on a Saturday morning.
Caleb and I carried the box upstairs. Nia insisted on reading the instructions. Ava handed us screws, even when we didn’t need them.
Halfway through, I attached one board backward. Caleb laughed so hard he had to sit down.
“I thought you were the grown-up,” he said.
“I’m a grown-up who needs the instructions.”
Nia took the board from me and showed me where it belonged.
When we finished, she placed Simone’s photograph on the top shelf. The blanket her grandmother made went over her chair. She filled the lower shelves with books.
There was no suitcase in her wardrobe anymore. We had stored it in the attic after she asked us to take it away.
A week later, Vanessa wrote a letter to Nia through Dana. The court arrangements allowed Nia to decide whether she wanted to receive it. Dr. Harris offered to sit with her while she read it.
Nia thought for several days, then said yes.
I waited outside Dr. Harris’s office. When Nia came out, she carried the letter but did not hand it to me.
“She said she was wrong,” Nia told me in the car.
“How do you feel?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You don’t have to.”
At home, she put the letter in a drawer. She did not write back.
Vanessa continued seeing Caleb and Ava. Caleb’s visits grew easier after she stopped asking him to explain why he had taken the photographs. He told her he loved her and would not pretend the photographs were false.
Ava brought home stories about games they played. We listened. Nia sometimes joined the conversation, sometimes went to her room. Nobody called her rude.
At school, Nia signed up for a garden club. She had loved plants when she was small, before she began spending after-school hours cleaning the house.
The club planned a spring sale. Nia brought home three trays of seedlings and placed them by the kitchen window.
“Who’s taking care of these?” I asked.
“We are.”
I had never been good with plants. She taught me how to check the soil. Caleb made labels. Ava drew flowers on them.
On the morning of the sale, I arrived late because a meeting ran over. My new job had less travel, but it still demanded my attention sometimes. I hurried across the schoolyard and found Nia at a table with her friends.
“You came,” she said.
“I said I would.”
“I know. I just kept looking.”
I wished she hadn’t needed to check. I bought two plants I didn’t know how to keep alive and let her tell me.
Mrs. Green, her teacher, came over.
“Nia organized the whole table,” she said. “She made sure everyone got a turn explaining the plants.”
Nia rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
On the way home, she asked if we could plant one near the patio.
I felt her glance at me. The patio was where I had found her in the rain.
“We can choose the spot together,” I said.
She picked a place visible from the living room. I dug while she held the plant. Ava carried water, spilling half of it before she reached us.
When we finished, Nia stepped back.
“I want to see it from inside.”
We went through the unlocked patio door. Nia stood where Vanessa had closed the curtains and looked out at the little plant.
“It’s right there,” she said.
“Yes.”
That night, rain began after dinner. Nia grew quiet. I asked whether she wanted me to sit with her. She shook her head and went to the living room window.
Caleb joined her. Ava followed with a blanket.
A few minutes later, Nia called me over.
“Can we leave the curtains open?”
“Of course.”
We watched rain darken the soil around the plant. No one was outside. Nia leaned against my arm.
“I think it’ll be okay,” she said.
“So do I.”
The next morning, Renee came by and found all four of us checking the plant. She laughed and asked whether we planned to watch it grow all day.
“Maybe,” Ava said.
Renee pulled me aside while the children went to breakfast.
“You look different,” she told me.
“I’m home more.”
May you like
“You’re listening more.”
She was right. It still hurt to think about how much I had missed. I could not give Nia those months back. I could keep being present for the days ahead.
