Noah looked from the badge to the key to the photograph.
“All mine,” Tessa acknowledged.
She touched the three things with one finger.
“I put them in there because when I was little, people had lots of ideas about what I might never do. Work. Have my own place. Get married.”
Her eyes crinkled slightly at the corners.
“I put them in there because when I was little, people had lots of ideas about what I might never do.”
“Turns out people don’t always know as much about somebody else’s future as they think they do.”
Lucy wandered toward Noah in the red dress, grabbed the skirt, and spun again.
My mother-in-law had arrived quietly behind us.
She watched Lucy laughing.
Noah noticed her.
“See?”
She watched Lucy laughing.
She looked at him.
“See what?”
“She understood, Grandma.”
I almost corrected him.
Then I realized Noah did not mean Lucy understood birthdays the way adults discussed them.
He meant she understood happiness.
My mother-in-law looked at Lucy again.
She offered a faint nod.
“She understood, Grandma.”
Hannah was beside me, twisting one tissue between her fingers.
“The money really was tight,” she said. “But that wasn’t the whole reason I kept the birthday small.”
I waited.
She looked toward Lucy.
“The money really was tight.”
“I spend so much time asking what helps her. What should she practice? What appointment matters? What will make something easier later?”
Her eyes filled.
“I forgot to ask what she’d just enjoy.”
Across the room, Noah was opening the new lunchbox Tessa had handed him.
“I forgot to ask what she’d just enjoy.”
Inside were a sandwich, fruit, juice, and a cookie.
He frowned.
“It’s just lunch.”
“Exactly,” Tessa said.
Cyril crouched beside him.
“Buddy, next time you decide to save the world, tell us before you stop eating.”
“I wasn’t saving the world, Dad.”
Cyril looked around the room.
“It’s just lunch.”
“Apparently nobody told them.”
Later, someone offered Lucy cake.
