But she stopped going out on Thursdays. She was always home now. She’d sit in the living room
with her book and her cane, and when I came through to dust, she’d ask me something.
“How is Willa’s science project?”
“What is Willa reading these days?”
“Did Willa get her braces off?”
And sometimes, not very often, I’d look up from dusting the piano and find her watching me. Not in a checking-up way. In a different way. A way I couldn’t name.
I found out later what it was.
Willa grew up.
That’s the thing nobody warns you about. You’re so busy working and paying bills and making
sure there’s food in the fridge that you blink, and your nine-year-old with the messy braid and the sliding glasses is suddenly seventeen, with contacts and a driver’s permit and very strong opinions about everything.
