Mrs. Whitaker looked at me. Then at Willa.
“She can count them,” she said. “I’d like to know.”
So my daughter spent that whole snow day walking around Margaret Whitaker’s house with a
sketchpad, counting windows and drawing a floor plan. Room by room. She drew the kitchen with the checkered floor. She drew the living room with the piano. She drew the claw-foot tub.
When she was done, she presented it to Mrs. Whitaker at the kitchen table.
“Forty-two windows,” Willa announced. “And one of them in the attic is broken. There’s a bird’s
nest in it.”
Mrs. Whitaker looked at the drawing for a long, long time. She didn’t say anything.
“You can keep it,” Willa said. “If you want.”
“Thank you, Willa,” Mrs. Whitaker said quietly. “I’d like that very much.”
I didn’t think about it again. I figured it would end up in a drawer somewhere, or in the recycling
