Ethel hoisted herself off the old, webbed chair with one hand and a sigh, grabbed her muddy gloves, and slipped on wet grass toward the garden at the back wall. Her dear Buttercup had passed in her arms the day before, and her enthusiasm for her garden, even life itself, had seemed to die with the little marmalade cat. She had nobody to share anything with. Slowly, as if she were in slow motion, Ethel pulled one weed at a time, ignoring the flowers as best she could, although the ants had been busy opening the peony blossoms and their dewy petals would have garnered her maternal attention two days ago. When Ethel heard a faint cry, she glanced up out of habit, not curiosity, then the cry sounded stronger. A kitten’s mewl? A baby’s whimper? She shook her head. A kitten couldn’t find its way into the small walled yard. As she went back to the chickweed, Ethel’s gaze passed over the peonies. One of them looked odd. Despite her grief, she reached over and investigated, a bit hesitantly in case there was something unpleasant, a gigantic insect with wiggling legs, for instance, but what she saw instead caused her to sit back on her behind on the slippery lawn. A baby’s head was crowning. As she watched, the head popped out, then its shoulders were only half out and struggling. Although she was seventy-two years old, Ethel had never seen a baby born and knew her gynecologist who was an OB had enough trouble with human mothers, so she had to hope the peony knew what she was doing.

The school secretary handed you off to Miss Dixon, as if you were a slippery, prickery, stinky fish, and you sat in that front row seat where nobody else wanted to sit and didn’t look around so everybody could stare at you until lunch, and I admit I was no different, noting your limp faded dress, too short by the standards of our town, your knees knobby, long calves ending in those mules that must have been your mother’s run down at the heels and not in style since how long, and when you lifted your arm to scratch your scalp I saw a nest of black hair tucked under your arm. This was a first in fifth grade, and it terrified me, but then you looked back directly at me, and your eyes were shadowed and resigned. Goosebumps covered my arms, and I looked away. Wait to judge. That’s what I told myself, what my mother in her light blue sheath with her innocent powdered underarms, always reminded me and sometimes forgot, but I held onto those words like a lunchbox filled with Fizzie tabs and chocolate cake and when we got off at my bus stop I saw your foster family lived two doors down from us.