SHE MADE HER NIECE EAT ALONE

Aunt Celia called after breakfast.

Paige grabbed the phone first. She wanted to tell me that our class was having a field trip and that Tessa had asked where I was. We still went to the same school, but Lena dropped me off earlier, and I hadn’t seen Paige at the gate.

“Can we sit together on the bus?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Grandma said I should give you space.”

“Do you want to?”

“No. I want you to come to my house and play.”

I looked at Dad. He was rinsing dishes beside Lena.

“I’ll ask,” I said.

Celia took the phone. “How are you, sweetheart?”

“Okay.”

“I should have stood up for you at dinner,” she said. Her voice sounded thin. “I’m sorry I didn’t.”

I held the phone tighter.

“Grandma said it was discipline,” I told her.

“She told me that too. I knew it hurt you. I should have said so to your dad.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had waited for somebody at that table to speak, and now Celia was finally doing it.

“Will you let Paige sit with me on the bus?” I asked.

“Of course.”

After the call, Dad told me he had arranged a meeting with the school counselor, Mrs. Brooks. He wanted me to have someone to talk to who wasn’t part of the family.

I thought of my teacher asking if I was worried about going home.

“Do I have to tell her everything?”

“You can tell her what you want. I’ll speak to her first, and then you can decide.”

Mrs. Brooks had a room with two soft chairs and a box of colored pencils. She asked me to draw the places where I ate dinner.

I drew Grandma’s table, then my small one near the cabinet. I made the empty chair beside Paige.

Mrs. Brooks didn’t ask why I hadn’t drawn food. She asked what I thought the people at the big table could hear.

“They could hear me if I talked,” I said. “But Grandma told me not to.”

“What did you want to say?”

I stared at my drawing. “I wanted to hear Paige’s stories.”

“You can tell her that.”

“She knows.”

Mrs. Brooks gave me time to think.

“I wanted Dad to see me,” I said.

He had seen me on the night he came home early. Before that, I had spent so many dinners watching the front door that I could picture it with my eyes closed.

Mrs. Brooks asked whether I wanted Dad to see the drawing. I said yes, but I wanted to hand it to him myself.

At pickup, I gave it to him in the car. He looked at it while we were parked.

“I’m sorry I missed so many dinners,” he said.

“You were working.”

“I was. I still should have asked what your evenings were like.”

I thought about that. He always asked whether I had finished my homework. He asked if I had brushed my teeth and whether I needed clean socks. He hadn’t asked where I sat.

“You can ask me now,” I said.

“I will.”

That evening, he told Aunt Lena he had found an apartment for us to see. It was near my school and the hospital. He didn’t know if we could afford it yet, but he wanted me to come along.

The apartment had two bedrooms. One had a window overlooking a small courtyard. Dad said it could be mine.

I stood inside the empty room and tried to imagine my bed there.

“Where will we eat?” I asked.

He led me to the kitchen. There was space for a little round table beside the window.

“Here.”

“Together?”

“Together.”

I liked the apartment. Dad asked about the rent and the date it would be ready. The manager said another family was interested, so we would have to decide soon.

On the drive back, Dad called Celia through the car speaker to tell her we might be moving. She said Grandma had been asking when we would come home.

“We’re not moving back in,” Dad said.

“I know. I’ve told her.”

Celia hesitated. “She wants to talk to Maya.”

“Not today.”

Dad ended the call before Grandma could come on the line.

I watched him put down the phone. “Do I have to talk to her ever again?”

“You don’t have to decide that now.”

“I don’t want her to think I hate her.”

“You can care about her and still need space.”

That night, Dad filled out the apartment application at Lena’s dining table. I drew a picture to hang in my possible new room.

I drew a round kitchen table with two chairs.