The school gym smelled like poster paint and popcorn.
Ivy spotted me near the entrance.
"You came!"
She looked genuinely surprised.
That hurt in a quiet way.
I had told her I would come.
But she was young enough to know promises sometimes failed.
"I said I would," I answered.
She took me to her display.
Three cardboard bridges sat between jars of water.
She had labeled the supports with careful handwriting.
Grace stood a little way off, speaking to a teacher.
Ivy demonstrated how the widest support carried more weight.
She placed coins on the bridge one at a time.
On the seventh coin, one side collapsed.
"That's supposed to happen," she announced.
"I believe you."
"No, really. It's part of the experiment."
I smiled.
"Then it's an excellent experiment."
She laughed.
For a second, her eyebrows lifted in exactly Paul's expression.
I almost stepped backward.
Instead I bent closer to the display.
We spent half an hour visiting other projects.
One child had grown beans in plastic cups.
Another had built a model volcano.
A teacher handed me a folded program.
"Are you family?" she asked.
I hesitated.
Ivy answered first.
"She's Megan. She knew my dad."
The teacher nodded as if that explained everything.
I was grateful.
No one demanded a title.
After the fair, Grace invited me for sandwiches at their house.
I had never been there.
The living room had books piled near the sofa.
A pair of sneakers lay under the coffee table.
There were photographs of Hannah in almost every room.
Ivy's mother smiled from a beach picture above the mantel.
I stood before it longer than I meant to.
Grace came beside me.
"She was thirty-eight when she died," she said.
"She looks happy there."
"She was. We'd rented a cabin for a weekend."
Ivy called from the kitchen.
"Aunt Grace, where's the mustard?"
Grace went to help her.
I stayed before Hannah's photograph.
I had imagined Hannah as someone who took my life away.
The woman in the picture looked tired and sunburned.
She held a paper cup.
A little girl leaned against her knee.
She was a person.
I wasn't ready to like her.
I couldn't deny that she had been loved.
At lunch, Ivy told us about a classmate who had teased her for not having parents at a school event.
Grace put down her sandwich.
"We talked to the counselor about that."
Ivy nodded.
"I know. It's better now."
I didn't rush to reassure her.
She already had an adult helping with the problem.
I asked what she liked about school.
"Art," she said immediately.
Then she added, "And science. Depends on the day."
I thought of all the people who had told me to move on after Paul died.
They had wanted one clean answer to grief.
Ivy apparently wanted two favorite subjects.
We were both allowed to be complicated.
Before I left, Grace showed me a little storage box of Ivy's school records and important documents.
Everything was organized.
There were guardian papers, medical contacts, and the school calendar.
She explained that she had updated emergency contacts after Hannah died.
I understood the practical weight of that work.
Somebody had to remember vaccines and permission slips while also grieving a sister.
"You've done a lot," I said.
Grace shrugged.
"She's my niece."
"That doesn't make it easy."
Her eyes filled.
"No. It doesn't."
We stood in the hallway without speaking.
Then she said, "I think Hannah would have been grateful you came."
I took a breath.
"I can't talk about Hannah that way yet."
Grace nodded.
"I'm sorry."
"You don't have to apologize for loving your sister."
I left soon afterward.
In my car I wrote down the address.
Not because I feared forgetting it.
Because the house no longer felt like an abstraction in a story someone had kept from me.
There was a blue bicycle against the porch.
There was a little girl who knew where the mustard belonged.
There was a woman doing her best to raise her sister's child.
I drove home and bought a new vase for the yellow flowers on my table.
I had not bought flowers for my own house since Paul's death.
During lunch at Grace's house, Ivy showed me a drawer full of markers.
Half were missing their caps.
She complained that the green ones always dried first.
I told her that was because green was clearly the hardest-working color.
She considered this seriously.
Then she asked whether I had been good at drawing as a child.
"No," I admitted.
"What were you good at?"
I had to think.
I told her I liked writing stories.
When I was her age, I made little books out of stapled paper.
Sometimes I drew covers for them.
The stories were usually about animals solving mysteries.
Ivy was delighted.
"Can you write one about a rabbit?"
"I could try."
"Make him a detective."
I agreed.
Grace gave me an amused look.
"You've just volunteered for homework."
"Apparently I have."
That week I wrote a two-page story about a rabbit searching for a missing carrot.
The clues were muddy paw prints and a red ribbon.
The culprit turned out to be a squirrel who had mistaken the carrot for a toy.
Ivy sent me a drawing of the detective wearing a hat.
She insisted the ending needed more drama.
I laughed and rewrote it.
By the time I finished, I'd spent an evening making something silly instead of reviewing painful letters.
It felt wonderful.
I sent Claire a copy.
She said my detective needed better footwear.
I ignored her criticism.
At our next meeting, Ivy read the story aloud.
She stumbled over one word and asked Grace for help.
Then she continued.
I listened to the rise and fall of her voice.
It was different from Paul's.
That mattered to me.
She was not only a collection of inherited traits.
She had her own rhythms and humor.
After lunch, Grace walked me to the porch.
"Thank you for doing that," she said.
"It was fun."
"She hasn't wanted to read aloud much since Hannah died."
I looked through the window.
Ivy was putting the detective drawing into a binder.
"I'm glad she liked it."
Grace asked whether I wanted to attend a parent-and-family night at the library next month.
I asked what Ivy wanted.
"She wants you to come if you're comfortable."
I told her I'd check my calendar.
I didn't say yes simply because I felt honored.
I wanted every promise to be one I could keep.
Before leaving Grace's house, I offered to help clear the lunch dishes.
Ivy protested that she could do it herself.
Grace told her to stack the plates first.
I watched Ivy carry them carefully to the sink.
She stood on a little stool to reach the faucet.
Grace reminded her not to run the water too hot.
There was such ordinary tenderness in the exchange that I had to look away.
I had spent years imagining what parenthood might have been like.
I often imagined birthdays and first steps.
I rarely imagined reminding a child about water temperature.
Now I realized how much of family life happened in those little instructions.
Grace gave me a towel.
I dried the plates.
We worked side by side without much conversation.
When the last dish was finished, she asked whether visiting their house had been difficult.
"Some of it," I answered.
"Would you rather meet somewhere else next time?"
I thought about Hannah's photograph.
I thought about Ivy laughing over the mustard.
"No. It was good to see where she lives."
Grace nodded.
"I'm glad."
I asked where Hannah had gotten the quilt on the sofa.
Grace said their grandmother had made it.
The seams had been repaired several times.
I reached toward the fabric and stopped.
"May I?"
"Of course."
I touched the edge.
It was worn soft.
The house held generations of work and care I'd known nothing about.
I could acknowledge that without wishing the circumstances were different.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: My First Argument With Grace Showed How Easily Old Secrets Could Create New Ones
The Black Canvas Bag Beside Paul’s Headstone Held a Photograph I Had Never Seen
Part 10 of 16
